[Dr. Drib]

Don't you get a bit fed up with fake reviews?

I just encountered one that MAY be fabricated by one of our own members. I won't mention a name. The author has exactly two reviews, and each one concludes by mentioning the author's full name and highly recommending it.

I'm particularly suspicious when a reviewer tells me that he couldn't put the book down. (What's unsaid is that the reader was electrocuted while holding the book. Or was it that it was written by - GASP! - one of the writer's friends? Can this actually happen? I mean, that a friend - a dear and trustworthy friend whom you trust to tell you the truth - would actually LIE to you, when in actuality your book is a big stink-a-roo, a rotting corpse?! Do these things actually happen?

Here's my recent review for a book that held me spellbound. (OK, the truth: I was actually hypnotized by Mr. Carlos Carney last week, a popular stage magician who performs here in Peru.)

"This book held me spellbound with amazement and I could not put it down. I thought the writing was very intelligible and the plot was not a complicated mess like that Mazarin guy's stuff that a lot of people supposedly read. I think they're all liars, anyway. Who would read that stuff, with hundreds of characters? I stayed up all night to finish this book. It was that great. I fully understood Dick's motives, along with Jane's understated shyness around Dick. I could find no typos like what one finds in those typical Indy novels that are now being left in hotel rooms across the country. Talk about desperate authors and their new-fangled promotional sleaziness! I didn't need a dictionary for this one, either, thank God, unlike that Mazarin guy's writing. The fact is, if you're looking for a good beach read and want to attract the ladies (I don't own a dog or a rooster), then this is the book to take with you. I highly recommend it. Oh, and in case you think I'm the author's friend, I want you to know that I've never met the guy."