Book Review: From Here to Timbuktu
From Here to Timbuktu by Milton J. Davis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I love a good treasure romp – and I love steampunk – and I love high adventure in far off exotic lands. So naturally, I eagerly dove into this ‘steamfunk’ story.
It’s a great premise. The characters are engageable, interestingly flawed, impressively courageous and genuinely interesting. The treasure hunt is of a sort I’ve never read about before, which gave it a fresh, exciting feel. I enjoyed the adventure from start to finish.
What’s not to love? Certainly this story is fantastic, from start to finish. So again I ask, what’s not to love? Unfortunately, I have to be honest. I owe this to the author and all potential readers. The editing is non-existent. Yes, I know an editor is listed in the front matter, but believe me when I say the editing never happened. There are literally hundreds of missing words. It’s uncanny. Every page has a few. Plenty of punctuation is awry as well. But, mostly it comes down to the words. Lots of little words, and sometimes bigger significant words, simply aren’t there. My reading flow was constantly screeching to a halt. After a while, I was able to limit my reaction to a small eyeroll because I was invested in the story, but really, I shouldn’t have to be steeling myself against a raw, unfinished manuscript. I actually wonder if the wrong manuscript got uploaded at publishing time.
The story itself deserves five stars. Regretfully, I am giving it three as I consider the manuscript near-unreadable. I hope the author takes this in the spirit intended and remedies the situation.
Lori Alden Holuta
Lori Alden Holuta lives between the cornfields of Mid-Michigan, where she grows vegetables and herbs when she’s not writing, editing, or playing games with a cat named Chives.
