jacqueline Howett

What one blogger smartly calls a “deliciously entertaining but instructive controversy” — and what others might call a shitstorm — has broken out on a fan blog that reviews new ebooks for the Kindle called Big Al’s Books and Pals.

It started when Big Al himself posted a review of a self-published novel by British writer Jacqueline Howett called The Greek Seaman. He starts off with a friendly bio note of the author and offers a link to her own blog, and gives a short objective description of the book, before getting on to his review. He calls the book “compelling and interesting,” and says some other nice things. However, he says, there are so many “spelling and grammar errors” that “it’s difficult to get into the book,” and also lends to difficulty “unraveling what the author meant.”

“Reading shouldn’t be that hard,” Big Al concluded.

The first comment on the post came from none other than author Howett herself. She said it was “a very unfair review” and claimed she had posted an updated version Big Al should have read instead. “Maybe its just my style and being English is what you don’t get,” she said. She then posted a series of better reviews she’d gotten from some people on Amazon.

This, in turn, prompted Big Al to try and explain:

Here are a couple sample sentences from the first two chapters that gave me pause and are representative of what I found difficult while reading.

“She carried her stocky build carefully back down the stairs.”

“Don and Katy watched hypnotically Gino place more coffees out at another table with supreme balance.”

I understand what both are probably saying. I do question the sentence construction.

… I would encourage anyone who thinks the story sounds interesting to sample the book. Read the first few chapters and decide for yourself.

It wasn’t good enough for Howett.

Al was given the option of a free copy from smashwords the following day to download in any format he preffered.

Look AL, I’m not in the mood for playing snake with you, what I read above has no flaws. My writing is fine.

…This is not only discusting and unprofessional on your part, but you really don’t fool me AL.

… Your the target not me!
Now get this review off here!

Others began to chime in ….

Authors do NOT dictate to reviewers which copy to review. You send in one copy and stand by it. And then when it is all said and done, you do NOT attack the reviewer. It reeks of a lack of professionalism. You thank the reviewer for their time, which is unpaid, I might add. Then pitch a fit with your friends, not in a public forum such as this.

Said another: “Hopefully, reviewers like us can continue to weed out books like this to help readers make better informed choices.”

It was all “poisenous venom” replied Howett, gamely and angrily lashing back at commentator after commentator.

Things continue to escalate — there are over 300 comments at this writing — until one commentator couldn’t help pointing out to Howett, “It’s almost like you’re proving Al’s point for him just by your own writing in the comments.”

Replied Howett, “Fuck off!”

Meanwhile, a Salon report — which also labels the incident a “cautionary tale” — notes that the flame war has spilled over to Howett’s page on Amazon, where reader reviews have lowered her to a one-and-a-half star rating. “Commenters have taken to calling the book ‘vile,’ ‘trash’ and ‘not even a real book,'” observes Salon’s Drew Grant. “It’s doubtful any of these reviewers would have even found ‘Seaman’ had it not been for the author’s public blow-up on Big Al’s blog.”