Book review: Dead Man's Eye - Shaun Jeffrey

This little beauty has been at the top of my Kindle list for a long while now. Much like Steven L Hawk's book, I stumbled across this via the book cover under a post on the Kindle Boards. Score another one for forums and great book covers!

Now according to Goodreads I've been reading this one for a long time. In reality though I've been reading this at lunch times when not Beta reading other novels (actually I think this is more novella length). So the fact that this book has kept me interested with my short spurts of reading for the first 50% shows that it is well written. I decided today that I couldn't wait for another work week to finish it; I did so and enjoyed every moment.

Shaun has done a great job with this book. The premise is set up quickly and smoothly, the characters are well done, the plot flows nicely, and despite treading an oft trod storyline the book manages to remain fresh and interesting. I should add something about paranormal thrillers and the like, but the back cover synopsis really says it all.

I couldn't finish this post without saying a little about a debate that seems to have erupted on the interwebz regarding the quality of indie vs. traditionally published books. Having just finished this book and Beta read Steven and Rex's work I feel the need to make a comment.

Why is it that traditional publisher's advocate themselves as some bastion of quality publishing? For some reason traditional publishing is claiming that it has been discerning the wheat from the chaff for all time, making sure that grammar and spelling mistakes don't exist, that only good stories make it to the consumer.

Of course they do such a good job of this. I agree completely.

I mean JK Rowling was rejected by a dozen publishers, Joseph Heller's Catch 22 was rejected because no-one could tell if he was being satirical or funny, William Golding's Lord of the Flies was rejected by 20 publishers, Stephen King's thumbtack holding up his rejection notices had to be replaced with a nail, and Rudyard Kipling was told he didn't know how to use the English language. Great job! Check this and this for more.

I think that these guys are all great examples of people who deserved to be rejected. There is no way that any author could possibly produce a good book that would be rejected. There is no way that any author could produce a book that won't be filled with spelling and grammatical errors without a publisher. Just wouldn't happen.

Indie and self-published author's like Shaun Jeffrey and Steven L Hawk are great examples of author's who clearly take pride in their work. They have editors and put out professional publications. There is no magic that publishing houses bring to the table. Can we acknowledge that self-publishing is just as legitimate as traditional publishing. Hocking el al. have proved that, lets move on.