Maybe He Should Have Stayed ‘Off the Grid’

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My brotherTod reviews John Twelve Hawks’ THE TRAVELER , the marketing ploy masquerading as a novel. Rather than push the book on its own creative merits, the thrust of the advertising and publicity campaign is that the author is anonymous and lives "off the grid," as if that’s a reason to buy a book (or, for that matter, to publish one). 

According to the book jacket and press materials for The Traveler, the author "John Twelve Hawks lives off the Grid." What the bio fails to mention and what the publisher might have failed to note was that, "John Twelve Hawks doesn’t know how to write dialog." In addition, "John Twelve Hawks never was told that pages and pages of expositional dialog broken up with meaningless secondary action isn’t engaging."

I wasn’t planning on reading it anyway.

6 thoughts on “Maybe He Should Have Stayed ‘Off the Grid’”

  1. Although I have the book, I haven’t read it, nor do I plan to. Everything I’ve read about it, though, indicates that it’s pretty bad.
    The marketing effort seems to have been reasonably successful, at least at getting people to talk about the book, if not actually buy it.

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  2. Still, by living off the grid, it’s nice to know that John Twelve Hawks will survive to one day lead a revolt against our robot masters.

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  3. Nice to know that someone living off the grid can also indirectly sell their off-grid book as a movie to a studio as well.
    This is the last you’ll hear of me, BTW — I’m moving to a raft in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

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  4. Just choked on my fois gras.
    From my experience “off the grid” usually means “does not use deodorant”.
    I shall remember to keep away from said book. Thanks for the tip.

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  5. .The traveler was a very well written and interesting novel, maybe all of you critics should quit bashing someone elses work when the only published material you have is on a website. Read the book, judge for yourself. Don’t be told how you should react by these no talent bums

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  6. …. and so, approaching two and a half years later, Mr Twelve Hawks is still publishing and, presumably, selling his writings.
    and those who offer their jaundiced opinions as literary criticisms are…. what?

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