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Hyraxylos
Shining Dragonstar
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Posts: 805
Location: Atlanta, GA
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 Posted: Sun 27 Feb 2011 15:53 Post subject: Literary review: Atlanta Nights |
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Note: the following book report was initially intended for posting on Shadow Dragon Breath. I'll reproduce it there once the site is back online.
http://web.archive.org/web/20050217092254/www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?category=0&id=30389
The above article basically spells out all the technical info, but this report is my own take on the novel. I first found out about Atlanta Nights when randomly browsing TVTropes. Yall know how that goes. ;3 Anyway, I was reading some funny stuff about an author's attempt to sue J.K.Rowling over her use of the word "muggle", and read the funny page about an awful book called The Legend of Rah and the Muggles. That page mentioned an even WORSE book called The Eye of Argon, which in turn mentioned Atlanta Nights. Don't worry about spoilers--there's really not that much to spoil. Also don't worry about piracy through the download link provided in the article either, the authors won't mind and the publishers won't try to defend it now. X3
I have to say, I'd never thought that such a frightful piece of trash like this could yield so much enjoyment. A friend of mine read through it along with me, and I did a dramatic reading of Chapter 34 (the "computer glitch" one) which got pretty lulzy. The screwups come in all flavors and at all moments: from misspellings to punctuation mistakes to grammar errors to non-parallel sentence structure to changes in tense (sometimes slipping between 3rd and 1st person) to setting inconsistencies to plot anachronisms to skipped scenes (unless, as noted below, Mr. Suffern just happens to have an EXTREMELY massive car that could double as a large house!) to setting inconsistencies to straightforward pure WTFnesses ("in Rome in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower"?? WHAT THE...), and my personal favorite, plain old-fashioned rambling literary train-wreck passages. Such as the following paragraph:
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| There are moments when life, like a bad movie, gives us theme music. The good stuff is quiet — maybe Rachmaninoff, played softly in the background; Bach or Beethoven — in the classy films, it's one of those, or maybe Mozart. Bruce Lucent's life wasn't like that. More like, oh, more like "Popcorn" — the electronic pop version, quick, zippy, headed straight toward a climax. In the end, well, it's a little flat — too much air, too little substance; it just ain't Beethoven, you know what I mean? But it's something, and we can't all be Beethoven, there isn't talent enough in all the world for that. |
Or this one.
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| Yvonne went inside Rory Edward's penthouse. It was decorated with yellow walls, with an 8-x 10 glossy photos of Rory's pet dog Barky on one of the walls. The dog was a champion show dog, winners of many gold medals, but had to be put down after. Rory had never gotten over it, sobbing uncontrollably whenever he ate at Burgher King. The picture window faced East, overlooking the river, a thin blue ribbon in the distance. Yvonne and Rory love to hold their hands and watch the sun setting, especially in winter, when the average high temperature was only 53 degrees. There was a smell in the air that Yvonne couldn't identify. |
Typos included as written in the book. What's really remarkable about this is that if not for all the facepalm and utter nonsense, the reader might otherwise find the plot too boring, so in that way this might actually be more readable than if it were well put together.
Surprisingly, the last three chapters are extremely well-written, perhaps to reward or shock readers for getting through the whole thing, and there's even a really awesome and thrilling climax, provided that someone's willing to read through the dozens upon dozens of ridiculous diner scenes beforehand.
Atlanta Nights is awesomely bad, the way Windows RG is awesomely bad. Buy or download the book, and read it. Print it out if you have to, or just keep it on your computer, but read it.
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For anyone who keeps getting the characters mixed up (I did at first), use the following list to keep names straight. Consider putting off looking at them until a few chapters in though, if you mind spoilers, but then again there's not much to spoil. Also note that spelling out the initials of these characters in order spell out the sentence "PUBLISHAMERICA IS A VANITY PRESS". Interesting.
CHARACTERS
Penelope Urbain- some woman who aspires to be a novelist. She used to be poor but got wealthier by working for Lucent Software. She's young, and a lot of people like her, including her boss Bruce. Yvonne is a tad jealous of her.
Bruce Lucent- a young man (his age fluctuates between 20, 18, and 16 throughout the book) who's a software developer, corporate executive, and complete jerk with a grudge against his parents, just like Seto Kaiba. UNLIKE Seto Kaiba, Bruce actually cares about women almost as much as he does about money, but is willing to synchronize the two. Is in recovery from a traffic accident at the start. He gets around a lot; so much in fact that he appears in two places at the same time in the book.
Irene Stevens- a young woman who is the daughter of Isaac Stevens. A mysterious person, not much is said about her, though someone reveals that she harbors a "dark secret". Possibly this "dark secret" may be about her disturbing fling with Henry Archer. Or it may have something to do with her magical powers, which are demonstrated in Chapter 10 as she retcons the setting dozens of times all within that one chapter.
Henry Archer- the previous president of Archer Industries. He was the husband of Callie Archer and a business partner of Richard Isaacs before he was killed in an accident before the start of the book. He had some sort of obscure plan involving Isaac Stevens.
Margaret Eastman- a nurse working at a hospital in Atlanta. She seems to have known Bruce from some obscure event a long time ago and is nervous to be treating his injuries. She may have also been indirectly involved in some criminal issue, but the book takes forever to explore the issue more.
Richard Isaacs- Henry Archer's business partner, a gruff and no-nonsense businessman who may be involved in some shady doings. While the true nature of his character may be up for debate, the fact remains he would be willing to use any means of stopping someone from getting in his way. He hates being investigated, yet demonstrates an odd willingness to risk an occasional fling.
Callie Archer- the middle-aged wife of Henry Archer and, as of his death, the new owner of Archer Industries. She mourns her husband's death but knows that his business must go on, and picks up his prior dealings with Isaac Stevens and Richard Isaacs. Other characters share conflicting ambition for seizing her company in the wake of Henry's death.
Isaac Stevens- an aging businessman and the father of Irene Stevens. He's opportunistic and willing to use whatever resource is available to chip in on the successes of larger businesses. He also seems fond of messing around with his hair.
Andrew Venice- an officer investigating the car accidents of Henry Archer and Bruce Lucent, both of which happened in the same location, and both to the detriment of someone wealthy and powerful. He suspects foul play and that Richard Isaacs may have something to do with it.
Arthur Nance- a doctor in the hospital where Bruce is sent after his accident. He's paranoid about rich and powerful people, and isn't a very sociable person. At least, that's how he's portrayed in Chapter 1.
Isadore Trent- an employee who works for Lucent Software. He caters to Bruce's needs occasionally, but doesn't seem to like him very much. Isadore also demonstrates that he may be somewhat gender-confused, becoming female for one chapter.
Yvonne Perrin- a friend of Penelope Urbain who is acquainted with the other characters. Almost nothing is said about her background, which could be why she seems to harbor a deep-seated need for attention from other people, especially men.
Rory Edwards- a weird guy who just shows up from nowhere, midstory. There's not much to him, really, he's just sort of... "there".
Steven Suffern- A masseuse revealed several times throughout the book to be bisexual. Like everyone else he gets around a lot, but tends to be a bit more creepy about it. He's revealed to have an alarmingly large car in Chapter 5.
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Namhias
Shining Dragonstar
Joined: 19 Jan 2006
Posts: 1055
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| Posted: Sun 27 Feb 2011 16:58 Post subject: |
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Interesting post, I'm considering getting a digital copy to read in my spare time now. If it does appear to be unreadable, at least I can claim I tried it. 
Though on a more serious note, assuming that wikipedia is right about the background of the book, what PublishAmerica stated was completely unacceptable in my opinion, it's a good thing that there are projects like these that keep the publishers sharp. |
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QueenOfTheShadows
Administrator
Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 1609
Location: haunting Bellingham WA
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| Posted: Mon 28 Feb 2011 6:06 Post subject: |
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Oh um. this is awkward. I'll give you the full explanation of the down time *facepalm* we had to move the server to our place, and the tower died(refused to load bios) we recovered shadow's info got it transferred to Dark's computer without issue. we did the basic procedure of the address forwarding and it failed not even pinging the ip is working from my computer. which is less than 5 feet from the server on the same network. but due to work life Cormac Dark and I can only head shack for a few hour on the weekends. so we have another head shack this weekend over food and hopefully it will pop back online 
Atlanta Nights It sounds interestingly ironic to say the least. Perhaps in the same manner that train and car wrecks are fascinating. I may have to grab a copy even if just for the lulz... then hand it to a Grammar Nazi in the D&D group to get more laughs for the price of one.
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