Miguel

Pew pew.

A Pulitzery Pulitzer, four manuscripts at different stages of completion on a character analysis of the influence of wealth, and its pursuit, set in a bygone yet echoed America.

While it shines on exposing greed and blind ambition, it falls short, despite actively attempting, to make a similar comment on human relationships and - particularly - intimacy.

A fitting end to my Pulitzer journey.

A portrayal of unfettered ambition that lacks in persuasive power and results in a tale devoid of emotional profundity and human subtlety.

Millhauser's depiction of the American Dream is a colourless and monotonous exploration of ostentation and duplicity.

This may well be one of the most underwhelming recipients of the Pulitzer award, if not the most disappointing.

The minutiae of an unadorned existence, the masterful strokes that paint the grandeur within the ordinary, do indeed bestow one with unique splendour.

Amongst the most exquisite character studies I have had the privilege of experiencing.

Newfoundland, as brutal and comforting as the sea itself.

Your brain works in wondrous ways, Michael.
It was a genuine pleasure to spend some time with you.

It has the best of moments, it has the worst of moments.

Extraordinarily deep lore and world-building. An interesting campaign.

Some books change you, man.

At least one the author managed to therapeutically purge out some of their inner demons. Hope they found found their catharsis.

Good for them.

There are two insights I feel my modest experience with reading self-published novels allow me to express:

One - that writing is, quite honestly, really hard;

Two - that, for better or worse, a substantial number of self-published authors seem to inhabit an echo chamber, saturated with manufactured praise. The reasons for this artificial perception stem from the distinct gap between posted reviews, ratings, and the quality of the work itself. While one could easily hide behind the defence of personal opinions and preferences, my experience reveals that even books filled with grammatical and syntactical errors, plot holes within a few pages, and a significant amount of appalling sentence structures and/or repetition (in one case, I counted no fewer than six instances of “She said” on a single page) still achieve average ratings above four stars based on reciprocal reviews. In fact, the sheer volume of exchanged five-star reviews among self-published authors, although perhaps strategically sound in the quest for increased readership, renders the entire review system innocuous at best.

Rockstar Ending is not that.

I received my copy of Rockstar Ending at the end of last month. It boasts a beautifully illustrated, vibrant cover featuring a female-looking android reminiscent of David Bowie's Aladdin Sane phase. As an early insight, the theme of Music will be an elegant backdrop through the entire book, with blissful references to Bowie, Velvet Underground, Blue Oyster Cult, Led Zeppelin, and others. Exploring Tim Doyle's artwork, the cover illustrator (https://www.timdoyle.com/), has been part of the enjoyment.

However, the most impressive aspect lies within the story itself. I felt compelled to express my deep admiration for the author, through Twitter, after reading a couple of chapters such was my appreciation. Nicola's writing style is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood or Alice Sheldon, yet wholly original. It's evident that Nicola is well-read, and her prose is simultaneously simple and beautiful, unpretentious yet effective in conveying what I perceive as her greatest strength: crafting intricate, relatable characters with a depth that is remarkably difficult to convey. She achieves this with an economical use of language and an expansive range of expression that is rare, not only among self-published novels but in authorship in general.

My personal delight in the novel intensified as the story approached its climax. It becomes evident that Nicola has masterfully spent much of the novel laying the groundwork for a purposeful and interwoven narrative. The delicate construction of the plotlines is as gentle in its setup as it is ruthless in its execution. Although the initial premise of the novel hints at a singular narrative thread, Nicola skillfully maps out a grand design where she strategically places elements across a board where only she knows the connecting strings before unveiling a masterful, intense revelation of the underlying plot pieces. She accomplishes this with expert control of pacing and seamless shifts between introspective and exhilarating moments.

Self-published or not, Rockstar Ending is, unapologetically, a very good novel.

Everything makes much more sense now.

Brutal.

Cool cover.

Neal is great.

A wonderful book, especially for anyone who spent their life looking for father figures.

Stupendous.

This was good.

Very, very minor technicalities off, but very enjoyable for anyone in the industry - it's not really a book about tech.

Repugnant.

Need a hug, John?

Styron did not do his homework and his almost apologetic, almost heroic depiction of a mass murderer is, at times, indefensible. Also, this XIX century slave writes and thinks very much in line with what we'd expect from a XX century educated man.

Still, happy to have read it.

Extraordinary.
A most wondrous author.

Creating a mystery box is not particularly challenging, that being an airplane crash some place isolated from time and space, a galleon lost in a reimagined version of hell, or the world waking to spaceships humming over the stratosphere. It's seldom a challenge.

The challenge is, in fact, opening the box to a satisfying, elegant resolution. As much as we are tempted to label books as good or bad, my particular appreciation stems significantly from the wondrous nature of how an abnormal situation is resolved, and how logical or sensical that resolution is when confronted with the established world built within the plot.

This is my preamble to establish that my particular taste and expectations may not match everyone else's, and your experience and appreciation for this novel may be dramatically different from mine. And why is that important?

Because the mystery box here is interesting until, half way in, it becomes clear that it happens in a universe with no cameras or monitoring systems. In fact, this version of our world is devoid of scientists or engineers, and is populated - apparently - by suburban cutouts of people who never really feel real. It's a superficial analysis of the social and political implications of a society in disarray, but one where every single actor is, at the core, a high middle class woman in costume. This is particularly notorious (and, at times, embarrassing) when, in order to build the world, the author throw a number of caricatures of stereotypical personae with no particular depth other than resembling House of Cards characters.

The light poking at politics and sterile commentary on social justice is insufficient to detract from the fact that the premise does not function as a plot device. Any attempt to establish a realistic response to the premise is very quickly discarded in favour of (what feels to me) an attempt at a soap opera-y pulls of the proverbial heartstrings - in fact, it is at par with the low expectations from the readership in terms of vocabulary and short POV chapter structure. And all this was, for me, unsatisfactory.

It is entirely possible this is just a novel intended as light summer reading. And that's OK. I guess.

Your mileage may vary.

Shockingly... no centaurs.

At least they had fun.