Book Reviews
Elmore Hammes: The Cloud
Publisher: Kanapolis Fog Publishing Emporium
Elmore Hammes: The Cloud
Author: Elmore HammesISBN: 978-0-6151-4715-4
Publisher: Kanapolis Fog Publishing Emporium
Pages: 238
A Science Fiction/ Fantasy Novel set on Earth in the not so distant future. It pains me to say how much potential that wasn't realized in The Cloud because it was such a diamond in the rough. There was so much more this book could have been, but it never quite got there. It was very unfortunate.
Let me begin with the most basic issues. The cover is well done; the face in the Cloud is an interesting, subtle touch, but the book formatting is problematic, and the front matter is missing a Half-Title Page. There are numerous chapters that are a page or less, and they would do much better as part of longer chapters, separated by an extra space and a small graphic to alert the reader that there in an upcoming change of scene. The side margins are disproportionately narrow in relation to the top and bottom margins.
A professional-looking, properly formatted book will go a long way towards presenting yourself as a credible author.
The story itself isn't very original, although it does have its moments. The difference is in the telling. A good author will make the reader not care if he or she has read the same basic plot in another book; the author will weave a magic net of words so well that the reader won't mind if he already knows how the story ends. With The Cloud, it always hovered right on the edge of that line, but didn't go over.
Elmore has created a very solid, interesting character in his lead man Grant, but he's presented clinically. The female lead Char is clearer, but both characters. primary underlying emotions and motivations are murky. The secondary characters are two-dimensional and not well defined, with the exception of Char's father, Larry. Hammes is to be commended, however, for surprising me twice in the book, which is why I say this is a diamond in the rough. It's not too often that an author deviates from standard, predictable plots to instead do something completely different, and it piqued my interest.
My recommendations for this book:
I'd like to see this book reformatted and redone with some strategic character and plot development and some editing. Then we'll be getting somewhere with this novel.
Review by T. Isilwath, August 2008
Review by Patrick Mackeown, October 2007
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