A review by Pam Hanna
SHILL IS A SHUCK
There are so many things wrong with this book that it’s surprising that there could be anything good about it. It is written ineptly in a heavy-handed and contrived style. The author’s narrative voice careens all over the place between characters and most of the situations and circumstances are not believable. It is easier to suspend disbelief while reading most science fiction. The story is supposed to be about a hard-as-nails Shaolin monk, but the cover pictures a wimp in an orange toga.
Some characters are undoubtedly modeled on real people, but even they are not fleshed out to resemble real human beings. I’m guessing that O’Bannon is Emmet Grogan, The Poet is Allen Ginsberg and the Riggers are most probably the Diggers. Tahiti was allowed to keep his own name but not developed as a character. I did recognize the man who lives near Silver City and makes his own beer but only because the author says it tastes like champagne and there could be only one such person. Otherwise, the characters are cardboard with gimmicks to give them a pseudo-depth, including the main character who is annoyingly dubbed John Stuart Bradley O’Boogey, which becomes even more annoying when the author spells it four different ways – O’Boogey, O’Boogie, O"Boogey and O’Boogy. Fritz’ spelling and grammar are consistently bad with fiercesome for fearsome, ceremnoy for ceremony and he constantly confuses "affect" and "effect."
There are some pretty ghastly sentences that are almost funny in their muddle-headedness. Sentences such as "The only dangerous quality it possesses is to carve a power perogative of the raw stone of worship and force it on the user, to insist beyond human endurance" do seem to be written in English (as Alice in Wonderland would say) but don’t make a particle of sense no matter how you read it. Or how about, "Jean Louis continued his silence, his feelings now bordering the paranoid side of life." And then there’s the gem, "Since not eating or getting the calories from grains to the measure of a tradeoff with meat is generally considered life threatening, some of these men became skilled hunters, whalers, trackers on land and sea. O"Boogey had taken his turn at these functions and thereby shaving the last hair off the body of his mind."
Nevertheless, the peyote meeting sections were not only entertaining but sounded real. The author has obviously been to meetings and had medicine (although in my experience, women DO sing after midnight and the peyote hippies I know DO know the Indian songs). Fritz does have a fair amount of political insight, some good raw material and a sense of humor, so the book could actually be good with a complete rewrite and a literate copyeditor. But as it stands now, I don’t believe it should have seen print.
..... Pam Hanna
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