Official Review: Small Town Ravaging by Samuel Nye

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kat6496
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Official Review: Small Town Ravaging by Samuel Nye

Post by kat6496 »

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Small Town Ravaging" by Samuel Nye.]

Benny Jorgens is caught between the magical world of the Inner [Realm] and the Upper [Realm]. The Upper is Earth; the small town of Minde, to be precise. An evil entity had taken control of Benny’s body, and was slowly creating chaos in the town of Minde (the “Small Town” in Small Town Ravaging), while his mind fought in the Inner to get that control back and save the Inner town of Hayvan at the same time.

Small Town Ravaging is an unholy 705 pages long. This was a difficult read from which I had to take several long breaks…days even. This book would be classified as a fantasy, with comedic and light horror undertones. The horror element was quite graphic. These theme elements were blended well, creating the ambiance of those books we all read as kids, where you come to an impasse and have to choose what your character does next. (Should Benny give up and go home? Skip to page 702. If he travels on, continue to the next page.)

There were several spelling errors noted in the text. For a normal reader, this may be water under the bridge. For this anal-retentive reader, the book showed signs of hasty editing. Keeping track of the characters was sometimes difficult throughout. “The Man”, the main antagonist, is called four different names. The point of doing this may not be lost on me, as I believe that these name changes were to separate what “The Man” was called in different realms by different characters. However, trying to keep it straight in such a long book was quite a task. While this genre is not my favorite, the plot was unique and difficult to predict.

In the course of the tale, many interesting characters took shape. These characters were sarcastic and witty - all of them important to the story line. From Brun the telepathic little person to Laura, Benny’s not-so-imaginary imaginary friend, the characters evoked a smile or chuckle from time to time. Or, maybe that’s just the pot talking. Between the pot smoking in the real world (Upper) and the Lana (AKA Inner Realm Weed), I’m surprised that any of them could function to accomplish their respective feats. Now, there’s the real story!

I rate Small Town Ravaging by Samuel Wayne Nye a 2 out of 4 stars. This book was far past its welcome. At about half of the pages of War & Peace, this 705 page beast of a book had me disinterested around page 300. I found myself scanning the pages for the Cliffs Notes version. The story was interesting enough, but not enough-enough…enough to keep me captivated and pleased. Instead, I trudged through for the sake of a fair and honest review, which I hope that I have given to you.

***
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SamNye
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Post by SamNye »

Thank you for the fair and honest review. This book was a long lost labor of childhood love, and having resurrected it is good to see anyone read it. I will keep your notes in mind as I progress with other projects.
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Post by margaridab98 »

Sounds kinda interesting!
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Post by NanoWasabi »

I don't mind long books that much, maybe this would be a good fit for me. Although, I can't stand spelling errors, but I should be able to see past them.
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