Do not read Tower of Parlen Min, it' s not the one for you!

Posted: Sunday, July 17, 2011 by Unknown in
4

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." - The Buddha 

+ Dear God, I hope I don't lose 90% of my potential readers and buyers with this post (lol) but this must be done ...

Okay, so this summer you were looking for a good book to read, and among the thousands of great books in the universe, you happened to stumble upon Tower of Parlen Min either on the Internet, Google, Facebook, Good Reads, Shelfari or Amazon maybe. And for some reason it piqued your interest and because you're a hardcore fan of YA fantasy novels, you thought you'd have a look at it. But before you parted with your 99 cents (the price of each volume on Amazon) or $2.99 (for the complete book on Smashwords) you wanted to know if it was any good. You read some reviews on Good Reads, and they were mixed. Some people were positive about it, some people were negative about it, some people couldn't make up their minds ... it got worse; some people said it wasn't edited or proofed well enough, some people said they were way to many characters in the book to keep up with, some people stopped reading the book 38% in, some people really hated the main character Ves and the current rating was 3 out of 5 stars, right in middle of the scale. You just couldn't make up your mind ... so you then you sought me, Matt Xell, the author of the book, and wanted me to give you a reason why you should buy the book ... excellent choice.

Well, Sir (or Ma'am) * low sigh for impact* I'm sorry to say, that this book is crap (and no this is not 'Blogger Rape'). Your suspicions were true ... it's garbage, utter trash. I'm really sorry, really I am. But if you're still not convinced (I mean, how can a book with such an awesome cover be bad, right?), in this post I'll list most of the reasons why this book is not the one for you, so here we go ...

1. It's a Self-Published Book:

Yep, that's right.Scholastic, Harper Collins or Random House ain't backing this, son. This Matt Xell idiot is, indeed, what they call an 'Indie' author (which is a cool way of saying Independent). Sure he knew, that going against the 12 publishing gods would be blasphemy and back in 2009 he really did give the whole race to the editor's desk a go. He edited TPM as best as he could and researched the market well enough to come up with a list of about 50 or more literary agents and editors that might be interested in having a look at the book.

The only problem was printing the book and shipping it to the agents. Matt Xell, who went by them name Bengz (lol) then, was self-employed at the time and made very little as a crappy web and graphic designer.  It would cost him about $5000 - $10,000 for one hardcore pitching campaign ( for 50 to 200 agents) ... it couldn't be done especially if they'd all reject the book. So he called it quits after a couple of attempts and self-published on Smashwords.com instead in July of 2010.

2. TPM is only available in ebook formats:

Just as it scared off more than 400 reviewers and book bloggers who were emailed the book for free, the fact that Tower of Parlen Min is only availabe in PDF, epub, .mobi, LRF, PDB ebook formats should scare you off too.  As of yet there isn't a single copy of the book in print. So I mean, why bother right? You don't own a kindle, a nook or even an iPad, and there's no way you're gonna seat in front of a computer screen ( not even your laptop) to read and estimated 350 to 475 pages (over a 140, 000 words), never mind reading from your mobile phone or ipod, that's hysterical!

3. The main character Ves, really is kind of a douchebag:

Ves Asirin isn't your typical boy-hero ... or boy anti-hero. He isn't the least bit likable it's true, and even with his memory loss disorder it's hard to sympathise with a character that's extremely anti-social. And the memory thing really get's annoying after a while, and when he forgets people so do you (not). He's dialogue is really annoying too.

4. The are loads of characters in TPM and the plot doesn't make too much sense:

TPM has a very vast cast of characters. There are 19 other bratty children invited to the tower, most of whom compete  not just for The Sword Challenge prize money  but for your time and attention too. Then there are the wolves (loads of them, they can speak too), Jacobius Trent and his Butler, Mr. Cromweld; the shadow, the spectres (loads of them), two evil soul snatching cats (cats are supposed to be cute not evil),  long dead members of the Trent family whom you have to read about in old diaries, newspaper clippings and the book's version of the internet. All these characters and countless fantasy and sci-fi elements make for a very boggling read ... never mind that dark teenage girl's story.

6. Matt Xell is a self-taught writer:

Oh, did I forget to mention, this Matt Xell thing had to learn how to write a novel  all on his own because there weren't any schools, colleges or university in his country that teach you how to write fictional literature in the fantasy and science fiction genres (not that he could even afford to pay for such a school). He read countless books and articles on writing and grammar, and used Encarta 2006 for most of his research ( because he couldn't afford a constant internet connection back then). When the book was done a good friend of his introduced him to a very talented Magazine editor who helped him with a lot of rewrites, pluggin those holes in the plot and making a lot of it make sense. Then there was the matter of proofreading, it took him another year to make up his mind to pay a professional to do it. Was that good enough even after that ... heh - you'll be the judge of that ... but yeah, you've guessed it: typos, typos, typos!

7. It's not written in the first person Point Of View:


This Matt Xell is not good at following current trends mainly because he thinks he's too cool for that. He knew very well at the time he was doing the very last draft of TPM that bestselling books like Twilight, Hunger Games and Percy Jackson and the Olympians were written in the first person POVs and this writing style was a hit with young adults around the world who related better to the main characters of the stories they read. But Matt went against even his gut instinct and told the story in a crappy out-of-fashion third person POV. But when you think about it Matt kinda did us all a favour ... I mean, who wants to read a book told by an anti-social introverted orphan with memory loss disorder who has pretty much nothing to say or think about but paint a cynical view of us fun and happy people with social lives?

8. Never judge a book by its cover:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA ... ahem ... I'm sorry but I believe this one is self-explainatory.

So there you have it folks, just some of the many reasons why you shouldn't read this book ... forgot to mention a few other things like the violence, deaths and religious elements, but I think the above should be enough to make you put that 99 cents ( the price of each volume on Amazon) or $2.99 (for the complete book on Smashwords) to better use.


... But you're still not convinced, even by me. You're still curious about this book, you say ... there's just something about it that's caught your attention ... you really just do want to know more than what's bad about this book. ... What is it really about? ... Why did it come together the way it did? ... Why can't the reviewers make their minds up about it?

*Sigh*  ... very well, then ... because the force is strong with you it seems, meet me on the 24th of July on Tower of Parlen Min Facebook Page for the book's Virtual Book Tour, and I'll tell why it is indeed worth your 99 cents (the price of each volume on Amazon) and $2.99 (for the complete book on Smashwords). I'll tell you why you should buy Tower of Parlen Min, and why it's the one for you, kupo.

Oh and did I forget to mention that you can read 50% of this book for free on Smashwords? Sure you can, here, follow this link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19637 . Half a book should be enough to tell you whether its  worth the buy, right? But that's up to you isn't it?

4 comments:

  1. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That was hilarious Matt!

  1. Unknown says:

    Heh - I Know, right?

  1. Unknown says:

    Thanks a lot Jen, cheers!