What are your red flags?

[hrosvit]

Originally Posted by Xanthe

Any book with all characters having plain vanilla WASP first and last names

I cannot stand names that are too over-the-top. Our hero, Dirk McToughguy, and his beautiful assistant, Bubbles O'Largebosom, face off against the cunning Dr. Horridus Nefario.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

I guess I have nothing against religion in books, but if they are tagged or labeled as Christian or religious I am very unlikely to buy them or even read them for free.

That's most of my reaction. It's not "I would never read anything described as 'Christian literature,' but "the label 'Christian' is a strong red flag to me when considering what to read, and especially when considering what to buy."

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

What you don't think Spock dying for the crew of the Enterprise and returning to life is not a Christian theme?

Most of the deaths I read about in Star Trek are little deaths. I can accept an argument that there's a whole dying-and-rebirth theme involved in those, but it's a lot more cyclical than most Christian theologians would approve of.

(And no. The dying sacrificed hero/god coming back to life is not a specifically Christian theme; it dates back to Osiris at least.)

And how about how as each Doctor dies he is reborn in a new body but is essentially the same?

I hadn't thought of a series of resurrections as a Christian theme; I thought they stuck with just one restart. Reincarnation in a series of new bodies with the same soul is definitely not a Christian theme. (This discussion should potentially move to politics & religion, but I think it's okay for now as it's related to identifying the contents of books.)

Note, I didn't say Christian preaching, I said Christian themes. That is why I asked about about the genre, which does seem to be often about preaching, versus the themes, which frankly pepper much of Western Fiction, even if the author intends to or not.

And I was talking about how the books are labeled, not what themes they might contain. Red flags in the blurbs or covers. If they feel the need to tell me there are "Christian themes" in the book, or the phrasing makes it obvious to me that's the message being conveyed, I don't need to read that book.

Never bothered with fanfic... but I bet there are more themes there as well, particularly if it is based on a work that has Christian themes in it.

Sometimes. Sometimes, however, the fanfic is written specifically to subvert the themes in the original.

I think you are confusing preaching from themes. To go to the Lord of the Rings as an example. There are plenty of Christian themes peppered in the book, but little overt preaching.

And the blurbs don't describe the series as an "epic Christian allegory."

Again, I think that depends on what one defines as Christian Fiction. If it is the stuff that is found on the Christian Book shelf of the book store, I think it has less to do with a poor foundation and more to do with just plain poor writing.

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes it's fine writing; it's just genre-specific, and the genre of "Christian fiction" does not appeal to me. I hold no opinion about the literary quality of the genre as a whole, just as I'd hope those who dislike romance or science fiction or mystery books to be able to realize they don't want to read them but that doesn't mean they're all packed with bad writing.

If on the other hand, you are making this claim about works by some of the greatest writers of the last couple of centuries... then it just strikes me as being sad.

Mostly, I'm talking about blurbs on bookcovers and in ebook stores. Some "great literature" may leave me cold because the Christian themes are so overt that I can't get past them to enjoy the story at all; more often, though, the setting is archaic enough that I have no sense of immersion in the story.

I am still not sure what you mean when you say Christian Fiction. Are we talking the genre or simply work with Christian themes.

The genre, mostly. Things *tagged* "Christian Fiction" or similar somewhere in their public retail description.

Good fiction will often have Christian themes in it (intentionally or not) because Christianity has shaped the way Western culture views the world. Concepts such as good or evil, flawed characters attempting to overcome their flaws, the problem of evil are all ones that are deeply Christian and yet hard to tell a good story without (well without some of them anyway).

Those are hardly Christian themes; they're human ones. Are you under the impression that Muslim or Buddhist stories won't have good vs evil or flawed characters attempting to get better? Many entirely secular stories have those themes, including secular stories written by non-Christian authors set in non-Christian locales.

[BearMountainBooks]

speaking of red flags...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DR7HJ48/

Seriously?

(in case it gets updated--the title currently says "New Title 1" as in a placeholder...

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

speaking of red flags...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DR7HJ48/

Seriously?

(in case it gets updated--the title currently says "New Title 1" as in a placeholder...

I just got a copy of it. I hope I didn't overpay, it was $0.00. I wonder if there will be a sequel entitled New Title 2.

The blurb is not very good.

"Daniel is a troubled young man, recently divorced, parents gone. There are men looking for him. They go to the bar he frequents, ask his ex wife where he is, even follows him shopping for groceries. Daniel is worried of why these men are after him. Find out what these men want from him and where he goes to find out."

It comes down to "Man is being followed. He's worried." That he's troubled isn't all that interesting. Being worried about being followed is pretty obvious. "Find out what happens next" isn't what a blurb is for. With a title of ICU, I would guess that it has something to do with a hospital, and the picture looks like it might be a waiting room at a hospital. But we get nothing of that in the blurb, and there really ought to be. The cover certainly doesn't give the impression of someone being chased.

But not noticing that you still had the generic string in place of a title trumps all of this.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

speaking of red flags...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DR7HJ48/

That's... precious. I had to look inside. Excerpt:

She rattles her ice cubes. She takes a hit off her cigarette.

He waits for more but she juts her head forward and bulges her eyes to get the bartender’s attention.

He says, “So this guy who didn’t sell cars...”

She nods several times, quick, but she is nodding at the bartender and she says “Nother, hon, thanks” She turns toward him, blowing smoke. “Your name’s Donnie, right?”

“Daniel.”

“Danny, I got to tell you, this guy? He said I should stay the hell away from you.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to this. He is never bothered this woman. Barely spoken to her. She is a regular, he is a regular. He has bought her a drink or two. Once, yeah, back in December when they were the only two in the place the entire night, he bought her four and danced with her once, the jukebox playing “You got my sugar but I got you, sweet” as the snow fell like cotton swabs outside the high green windows. Then the bartender said closing time and Daniel asked her if she was okay to drive and she laughed and the sound of it was like a bird screeching above the ocean and she slapped both hands on his chest and said, “Yeah, I am fine, sweetie. You go on home.”

I tried to make sure I included all the typos from the original and not add any new ones. Original is indented, not line-between-paragraphs.

This, of course, is what traditionally-published authors are railing about when they talk about the evils of self publishing. This, of course, is not what's cutting holes into traditional publisher incomes. Nobody's rushing back to buy more of this.

[DiapDealer]

as the snow fell like cotton swabs

On sticks?

[odiakkoh]

If the men are following him while he's doing groceries, why do they need to ask his ex-wife where he is?

[issybird]

Along those lines, but not as absurd:

First, the author friended me on Goodreads. And then somebody rated her book, guess how many stars she gave herself?

How do authors not understand that kind of behavior will only make me look less kindly on her book?

[Alyssa Miranda]

This is great writing - absolutely stunning, but to get its full impact you should read it as formatted by the author.

[speakingtohe]

And how about how as each Doctor dies he is reborn in a new body but is essentially the same?

This strangely reminds me of the Heroes in Hell Series which I was into at one time. Pretty well every religion known to man was represented in these book, with the heroes being mainly the great historical leaders, movers and shakers.
They would generally have their own segment of hell that was similar to the place and time that they lived in, but when they got killed they could end up anywhere and have to trudge back to their own particular Hell.

Lot of religions gone into in great depth on occasion, but not in my mind religious themed books. Although some might say that the very fact that Hell is mentioned in the title makes them a 'Christian' book series

Helen

[Synamon]

Nevermind.

[Xanthe]

He waits for more but she juts her head forward and bulges her eyes to get the bartender’s attention.

Like this?

[crich70]

And how about how as each Doctor dies he is reborn in a new body but is essentially the same?

I assume the original poster was talking about Dr. Who. The 1st Dr. was played by William Hartnell who was a man in his mid-fifties when he took on the role and died at age 67 a few yrs after leaving it. The BBC had to find a way to continue the show on after that and unlike now days they couldn't just have someone come in and replace a main character like can be done now, so they invented the idea of regeneration as a way of maintaining continuity in the series. The Dr. maintains his knowledge though the face he shows changes.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Alyssa Miranda

This is great writing - absolutely stunning, but to get its full impact you should read it as formatted by the author.

Check out the list of "books" the author has "written" http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr...=relevancerank I'm thinking the Terry A Davis may be a computer program somewhere in India or Eastern Europe.

Shari

[Alyssa Miranda]

Yesterday as a more-or-less knee jerk reaction I posted a one-line "review," as it were, praising this short story, which is available free on Amazon. In what couldn't have been a more inauspicious debut, the story appeared in this thread as an extreme example of a bad blurb and an even worse cover, a cover so bad it seemed to be a joke (presumably it will be replaced). Intrigued, and expecting it to be even worse, I went to the preview, but after reading just the first few paragraphs was immediately struck by the writing's freshness and originality, and downloaded the entire story, which did not disappoint. Yes, there are typos and other glitches, and an occasional awkward phrase, but for me the author's raw talent and energy swept all that aside.

Today I went back to the author's account on Amazon, and though it lacked a biography, I deduced from the author's other writings that she is a woman, middle-aged and from the style of her writing almost certainly black - in my mind a saucier, less-polished version of Terry McMillan, who with editing and more discipline I think has the potential to go just as far.

In yesterday's post I also noted that the story is best read maintaining the author's formatting, specifically by selecting the two-column mode and a medium font size (on Amazon's cloud reader, where I read the story), which limits the words per line to about 10 or less. I believe all of us would agree that at least a competent cover and passable blurb are needed to simply get the reader through the door, but for me, it doesn't stop there - formatting is critically important in the sense that it is not noticeable when correctly done, but a distraction when it isn't.

Here's an example. In another thread, I was directed to Baen e-books, a boutique website for SF buffs, and while there, and with blurbs fresh in my mind, I looked at them, as well as sample previews of the e-books offered for sale. While the cover art, blurbs and writing were all first rate, the previews (the presentation) fell short by not having an option (or if there was one I wasn't able to find it) to reduce the line length to that which we're accustomed to seeing in a print book, a flaw that is self-correcting in the print book, but does not present the author's work in the best light when viewed online.