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Review of scaring the crows: 21 stories for noon or midnight By Gregory Miller

Scaring the crows: 21 Stories for noon or midnight
By Gregory Miller
Publication StoneGarden.Net
$ 7.95

This little book will give me one of the most enjoyable reading experiences last year or so. And I think I am condemning with faint praise that uses the word "nice." I'm not, I really liked this book. All parties him, his delightful front cover to the blurbs on the back. I've enjoyed since the moment you took the envelope. I have an e-reader and I had forgotten how nice sight and feel of a real book can be!

I do not know if it is a tribute to the skills of Miller or his editor, but it was doubly nice to meet a book with so few (I could not find any spelling errors) or typographical errors. Good proofreaders still exist.

After babbling about Foundation books I want to quickly dispel any anxiety the author may be suffering waiting for my opinion. Although, after receiving notice favorable for such a giant as a figure of Ray Bradbury: "Gregory Miller is a fresh new talent with a great future." (The citation is on the cover directly over the title), I can not think Miller is the author of pins and needles waiting for the valuation of the Pygmy. All I can do is agree with the great man: Gregory Miller does have talent!

The book's title leads us to believe that is all ghosts and horror stories, a look at the cover artwork whimsical but controlled, however, immediately informs us that it contains elements required to be more complicated than that. Dark yes, but varied enough to keep us interested, Some stories are really ghosts, others poignant, and yet others almost comical. But dark, dark remains the key word here.

For example, in "Scaring crows," the first short story and the book's title, the tortured heroine problems would be frankly self-perpetuating funny if it were not so obviously painful and can be fatal. In the middle of another story if the book, "Rosas Lorna Gould" has some funny lines well, but the protagonist's situation is extremely serious. My favorite story, which is near the end of the book, "The sense of duty," is perhaps the darkest of the lot and yet manages to be an affirmation of life. If you've ever tried to write fiction that is aware of the inherent difficulty in the expression of such dichotomies in print, but Miller does a masterful job.

Miller well-drawn characters are all ordinary people trapped in situations where the rules do not conform to the party who thought they were playing, there is not a Hannibal Lecter in the bunch. Everyone can relate to. (Well, OK, there are at least one flesh and dining room three or four zombies, but the meat-eater was not looking for problems and normal boys zombies are zombies in a kind of way.) Miller has an excellent ear for dialogue, only a trace of dialect here and there, for the sake of the credibility of the back-country, anything that would jar of suspension voluntary Coleridge's disbelief. "

Miller specializes in abrupt terminations. For the most part is pretty good. My only criticism (and I suspect you've heard this before) is that occasionally the ending is too abrupt. In "Goodbye friend", for example, one of the most moving stories (Hey! We talking about a boy and his dog here), I do not know how it ends. I mean, it was the lady or the tiger? Life or death?

Did I mention I liked this book? I thought it was well written and well bound, well illustrated and yes, good review. One of the best new books for ten dollars I've read in a long time. Find this book in Stonegarden.net editors.

About the Author

Mike Nardine writes free book reviews and publishes them online at YourBookReview.Com Visit his site for a free review of your book and a free website.

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