Richard Waters

This adventure/mystery novel apparently was self-published on Amazon. That is not necessarily a bad thing, considering the limited sphere of experience that most publishers are willing to allow these days. And it does explain many of the technical and other problems with Waters' book. Still, he has managed an intriguing tale that, despite the many faults of the book, holds your interest. Here is a list of its good and bad points:

Good:
1) As I said, a nice and interesting story. It reminds me a great deal of the golden age of adventure writing during the 1920s and 1930s. And Waters seems to have a touch of Talbot Mundy in him, with the quest, the journey through labyrinths, and the climax at a remote summit.

2) He allows his protagonist to annoy us with his blindness. Inadvertently or not, Alain's virtue signalling about race and black people early in the book is undercut with his immediate turn and racist observations about "monkey faced" Asians. And his blindness about the people around him is astounding. Yet that all prevents him from being a cardboard cut out hero. How many times do people, after all, ignore everything around them that is obvious to their friends and still walk straight into trouble?

3) Generally, the atmosphere of the contemporary story is strong. Maybe too strong in places. But his observations about Bangkok and Laos ring true and have the proper feel. Except for the four hour bus trip from Vientiane to Vang Vieng. Simply impossible.

Bad:
1) Most obviously, he gets the birth date of Buddha wrong by a thousand years. It's no typo, because he states several times that Buddha was born in 563 AD and 1500 years ago. It was 2500 years ago, of course, in 563 BC. By the way, AD should come before the date, as in AD 563, instead of the other way around. It means, after all, "in the year of the Lord" and should be read that way when applied to dates. When you're not using CE or BCE.

2) Tone. Alain sounds more American than he does British in his use of language. Note this changes about the time Alain gets to Vang Vieng. In fact the entire book seems to change at that point. Errors crop up by the score but the tone and story actually become better. It's almost as if there were two authors for this novel, one before Vang Vieng and another after.

3) Plot. In a mystery thriller of this type, always test your writing for one recurring necessity. Advance the story. Advance the story. Advance the story. Often, the story is plodding--until it gets to Vang Vieng. Then, it takes off and follows its own momentum. But earlier there is far too much time spent with unnecessary characters, such as the Swedes and the British oaf on the trip to Vang Vieng. The author seems to realize this half way through and takes the appropriate action with them. Again, it's like two different people wrote the book.

4) The flashback with Jacques is horrible. It's weak on history and the simple terms and phrases of the Vietnam War. It makes me cringe at times reading it. Air America didn't fly between Saigon and Long Tieng. Check about Continental. The Ravens were spotters, not a combat auxiliary. That "American veterans' agency." You mean the VFW? The Veterans Administration? All sorts of VFW posts still around Thailand, btw. And the US did not dump a "tremendous" amount of money into the Secret War. The appeal of the war to planners was that it was so relatively cheap for what it realized. Too much to write about this. But the author(s) need a huge amount of research into the war before he/they touch this topic again.

5) Too much backpacker stuff. It's boring and bogs down the story.

6) Novel basically needs a strong editor to cut out repetitive phrases and idioms and situations. Needs a proofreader to take care of the ocean of typos and manuscript flaws. Needs a copy editor to give it a uniform feel and voice.

Some of this seems harsh. But there is promise in the story. The author(s) need a rewrite. I don't know? Maybe that is why it's no longer available on Amazon?… (mer)