Thursday 21 May 2009

Carbon Copy Alpha Man: Gary Turcotte

The conspiracy of the decade takes a backseat to the mysteries of the Millennium.

A top secret agent comes off the assignment of his lifetime. He is having his face reconstructed for his next mission. Without his consent, he is forced to extract all high tech secrets hidden in the mind of a captured prisoner. Through technology the prisoner's mind is directly wired into Derek's mind. The prisoner is from the Roswell crash. Derek's mind is instantly filled with everything the alien knows. Derek decides to run, and publish his secrets. I wrote this for Derek, wherever he is.



Poor old Gary Turcotte: he's the only writer so far to send me two of his books to review, and I think they're both just awful.

Carbon Copy: Alpha Man fails for the same reasons that his other book did: poor writing. The text is dull. Turcotte uses lots of short sentences, which leads to a choppy, disjointed style. He tells everything, shows little, but still manages to confuse which isn't surprising considering how little he seems to know about the subjects he discusses: the surgeries he describes (both medical and cosmetic) are not believable; he seems to consider hypnosis sinister and irresistible, while little more than a stage act; he frequently contradicts himself; he misuses words; and his cover-art is adolescent at best.

I read just six of this book's 160 printed pages, and that was at least five too many.

2 comments:

Bethany C Morrow said...

Holy. Lord. That is the most I have ever laughed in so short a blog entry. *wiping tears* I want that book.

Jane Smith said...

Bethany, you're a very bad girl.

As for wanting to read this book, I'm afraid that there's little left for you to enjoy now I've told you all the best bits. If I were you I'd save your money and spend it on something readable. Or perhaps on Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea, or Crack of Death by Sharla Tann--both written to be intentionally, seriously bad, in order to raise money to support writers and their needs. You can find more information about them if you Google.