Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book is just bad, bad, bad. I'm a series fan so am familiar with the stylistic differences that come with the various contributing authors. For example, some of the fan-written "Grantville Gazette" entries are stronger than others but overall Flint's enthusiastic generosity with co-authors gives the series a heady vitality. Unfortunately, Virginia DeMarce consistently disappoints. She's a good researcher but a terrible writer. I approached this new title with some caution, simply because DeMarce's previous two attempts were so bad. Unfortunately, she did it again, "it" meaning strewing names, names and more names across lots of pages and calling it a novel. There is NO character development. Zilch. Nada. Zip. Phone books have more depth of interest. A few of the names crop up more often than others but they aren't fleshed out. Worse, the reader is given absolutely no reason to give a whoop what these names--uh, 'characters'--do, much less what happens to them. Contrary to a previous reviewer's suggestion, I DO enjoy complexity in books. There is nothing complex about this mess. It's just a carelessly written hodgepodge. Or perhaps it's just cluelessly written. It's a big ol' glob of turgid text with no discernible purpose but it probably took a while to write--which is even sadder, when I think about it. Worst of all, particularly for this series, this wretched book fails for context. I figured out where the book falls chronologically but it simply doesn't move the action forward. The torturous soap opera details of one boring family doesn't develop what happens when the modern world is forcibly injected into the past. I'm particularly peeved because this book is such a *waste*. It's a stagnant, disappointing waste of potential. Save your money. This book is definitely not worth purchasing, particularly at hardcover prices. Mr. Flint and Ms. DeMarce? You used up your last free pass with this mess. When in a hole, *stop digging* already.