Picking On Books!

 Today I'll be picking on a self-published book: Calling 666: Tales of Dark Horror and the Supernatural by Akasha Savage

 Ok, I just wanted to make one thing clear before I get started on any reviews or anything like that. I do not have any stake whatsoever in any of the self-published books I review. I hate artificially boosted reviews. Hate them. So, that's why I thought that I would do self-published e-books as well as professionally published books. One, this way some good writers can get a little more exposure (I know, I'm flattering myself) and others that are sucking people in by their bullshit false advertising can get the hammering some of them so richly deserve. So yeah,  I just wanted to get that out of the way. I can promise that if I ever do review anything by anyone I know, I'll put a disclaimer on it. I promise.
 Keep in mind that there may be some spoilers in the Picking On section. I'll try to stay away from them in the main description but it's a little hard to dissect something properly without giving away some things. I promise I'll warn you if there are going to be heavy or light spoiling involved.
  Now that's out of the way.
 Let's start picking shall we?


 Calling 666: Tales of Dark Horror and the Supernatural  by Akasha Savage

 1. MacKenzie's Cottage 
 Three friends take shelter in an abandoned, haunted cottage during a thunderstorm.

 2. Calling 666 
 A mother rushing to her son's side in the hospital gets a phone call from Satan with a very tempting offer.
  
 3. Bovver Boots
 A man buys a pair of boots that are a little...protective. 

 4. The Root of All Evil
 A girl finds a satchel of money but soon realizes why it was abandoned.

 5. Wish Upon a Star
 A bittersweet story about an older woman trying to find the last star in the sky to grant her wish.

 6. O'Sullivan's Ghost (poem)
 I really liked this poem. It was written in a style like an old English ballad.

 7. Bethnal Green
 A story set in the future about breeders and one woman's retirement from it. The retirement is not all it seems to be.

 8. Jessica
 A story about a girl and her sister.

 9. PC Wayne Winterbottom
 A man about to end it all gets some help from a policeman but things don't end well.

 10. 'Two Barrel' Carter
 Policemen pick up a prowler along a road but it turns out to be a case of the past repeating itself.

 11. Aim. Shoot. Kill.
 An ex-Nazi takes aim at some teenage vandals

 12. The Kimberley
 A boy and his grandfather survive a nuclear apocalypse together but doesn't let it ground their dreams.

 13. A Kiss in the Dark (poem)
 The last poem, which is pretty decent.

 A fairly short anthology of eleven stories and two poems. The first six stories and one poem are pretty decent. The last are a little on the blah side. I think it would be better if the author dropped the price a little. In the kindle store it's priced at $2.99 but for being so short, and the stories themselves are pretty short as well, a price of $1.99 seems more appropriate.

The Pickings:
 MacKenzie's Cottage is pretty decent. Good story, good build-up but a cliffhanger ending. I'm not too crazy about those because they seem a little lazy to me and you have to be very talented or well-established to pull it off.
 Calling 666 isn't really a new idea but it was well-written and solid. Bovver Boots reminded me a bit of Stephen King's 'Chattery Teeth' but with boots. I did have to look up the term bovver though. Most of the English terms I knew but that one threw me (it means aggression or violence according to the online dictionary I consulted). The Root of all Evil was solid as well but the girl in the story seems to jump to the conclusion that the money is evil awfully quickly out of two incidents that are very tenuously related. Also, her attempt to get rid of the money seems really weird to me. If I had a wad of paper money to get rid of I would burn it. She cuts it into little pieces and throws it away. And without that the 'surprise' ending would be lost but it would have been better as just a straight up longer story with a conclusion. In other words, it seems as though she's trying too hard for a twist to each story but a good story does not necessarily need a twist to make it interesting. Just a solid plot and conclusion. Wish Upon a Star can't really be classified as horror or scary, just a melancholy little tale but very moving. Bethnal Green was interesting and would actually be really good as a longer story or novella. I wanted to know more about the world, it seemed like a darker version of 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood. I did notice a continuity error which really stood out because it was two sentences that were right in a row. In one sentence she mentions that the Enforcers can take 'privileges' with the women who are 'Breeders'. However, in the very next sentence she says that they are castrated as soon as they become Enforcers. I'm kind of thinking that maybe she meant vasectomy and got the wrong word. Because I'm thinking it would be a little hard to have sex with the women if they're castrated.
 The rest of the stories are ok but not worth much comment.
 So, I guess my wrap-up would be that at a little lower price it might sell a little better. The grammar was good, as was the spelling. There were no formatting issues at all and words were used correctly, for the most part. Which is more than I can say for a lot of self-published efforts.

 My scoring key goes a little something like this: Zero stars would be absolute dreck and not worth the money, time, or effort put into it. One star is still bad but maybe has a solid idea that in the hands of a better writer could develop into something pretty good. Two stars is readable and mildly entertaining. Three stars would be readable, entertaining but not engrossing. Four stars would be very, very good and hard to put down. Five stars is "Gotta finish that chapter! " good.

 I'd have to give it a 2/5 Stars. There's room for improvement and none of them were all that scary or terrifying but they were all competent.

 Well! That was certainly a long one! But it always seems like stories in anthologies and collections get the shaft and the book is always rated as a whole so that sometimes the stories themselves get overlooked and get reviewed in one big lump. Anytime I review an anthology I try to do each individual story if it's possible.

 I hope you enjoyed this session of Picking on Stuff! I'll be posting fairly early tomorrow with my thoughts on another book and hopefully in the evening I'll be able to post my musings (or rantings) on The Orphanage.

                                  See you tomorrow!