Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Review of Amish Vampires in Space by Kerry Neitz

The title makes you think of a train wreck, the kind you drive by slowly so you can look even though you know you shouldn't. In this case, the slow down and look is worth it. Despite the camp title, Kerry plays the story straight. I even think he treats the Amish viewpoint with respect. He does disagree with said viewpoint, but does not make the mistake of saying that anyone who thinks a particular way is stupid. In the whole book with a large cast, there are only two people cast as stupids, and they aren't Amish. And for the few Amish that act like jerks, you get the feeling that they are not twirling their mustaches with glee, praying bwa ha ha, but rather, that they are being pushed off a cliff, and like anybody being pushed off a cliff, they are grabbing hard and hanging on to keep from going over.
I need explanations, or at the end, I want to throw the book away, so I was glad that Kerry provided explanations by the end.
WRITER'S RANT: Kerry. I understand the rationale for writing novels in sentence fragments and three-word sentences: the short sentences and fragments make the pace of the novel feel faster, and reluctant readers don't get lost between the start of the sentence and the end. I understand that writing in bits is standard for thrillers and today's readers with the attention span of gnats, but this chop, chop, chop style of writing makes my skin bunch up with tension. Could you sometime in the future, please, oh please, write a novel, as you are quite capable of, in longer sentences that will glide through my brain and over my skin? END OF RANT
If you like science-fiction mixed with a little horror and some humor (the vampire goat cracked me up) you should like this thrilling tale of Amish Vampires in space.

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