African Extrication (Les Retraités Book 1)
Yes. Either he needs to be extracted from Africa, or Africa needs to be extracted from him.
African Extrication (Les Retraités Book 1)
Yes. Either he needs to be extracted from Africa, or Africa needs to be extracted from him.
“Les Retraités” = The Retired
Rick, please retire from writing:
“Ex-French Foreign Legionnaire Olivier Pinson awakes to find his wife kidnapped and sentenced to death if the French government doesn’t pay a ransom. She is 8,000 kilometers away and has only a few days to live. Hit-men, spies, policemen, criminals and even mother nature isn’t going to stop Olivier Pinson from saving his wife.
A mercenary action thriller in the tradition of Robert Ludlum and Lee Child, this novel is the first in the Les Retraités series.”
(distant) Tabarnac, ces écrivains n’ont vraiment pas d’allure…
After peeking at the LITB I agree. He needs to stop writing. Boring and tiresome is the best way I can describe it.
Sadly, the other book in the series uses the same cover design. More sad, the “Customers also viewed” shows great examples of that kind of cover from Mark Dawson’s John Milton series. How do people not find inspiration to do better?
Hooo, man. I, too, read the LITB–or at least, the first two paragraphs. When there’s a grammar error in the very first line (nurses rather than nurse’s), I can’t continue on, not seriously.
I had a friend that I loved, but OMG, she used to tell stories like this. She’d start to tell you about her trip to Denver, or what-have-you, and it would go something like this:
…and so on. Suffice to say, it was agonizing to survive a story with her, and this author, unfortunately, has not remotely learned the art of storytelling, which means, telling stories in such a way that you eliminate all the utterly unnecessary extraneous BS. Get to the interesting bits, which, hopefully, are the words of the book. Not one sentence out of 2,000 sentences.
Right now–and I honest-to-God don’t mean to be cruel–someone would have to pay me to read that, not the other way around. I literally couldn’t force myself to tackle the third paragraph.
That staccato writing is first draft level. I certainly do it, which is why it’s one of the things I focus on during the editing stage to streamline it. It’s the literary equivalent of walking a cobblestone path while only stepping on the face of each stone.
Yes, of course, we’ve all done it. But the point is–that’s why you learn to NOT do it, by the old, boring idea of practice, practice, and practice, and don’t publish first drafts!
I kind of like the cover – maybe it’s the concept and I feel it’s almost there.
I dunno, man…I kinda wanna know what the hell happened to his HEAD?
P.S.: Extrication? I actually use this word–but I wouldn’t use it in this instance. It’s pretentious.
I feel like there’s a direct correlation between pretentious authors and bad writing (IE NORMAN FUCKING BOUTIN).
LOL, yes, that too.
Is he having his African heritage removed, or having Africa removed from around him?
Do we suppose he meant ‘Extraction’ or ‘Extradition’ ?
“Oh, you’re awake,” the nurse said. The woman was black and spoke English.
Er … yeah, the words “Oh, you’re awake” gave 50% of that away. The other 50% could have been delivered more … subtly, assuming it’s relevant.
Durbin???
“The police were his best option for fining information about his wife.”
FFS. What this prose needs is extirpation. Extermination.