What is your opinion?
Good
"It ut us good"
Kadero
"Awesome..i am hoping there is a continuance. Different twist on the zombie apocolypse!!"
Riveting and Challenging
"Your concept is fantastic and fresh and your style feels familiar but unique. I will say heavy professional editing is needed, but that is simple mechanics mostly. I was engaged from start to finish, but did find myself re reading paragraphs because of some confusing text, but again, an easy professional editor will work through it. I really liked your characters and use of them. Overall I see massive potential here. Great story!!!"
8th round
"You had me at steven moffet. What a Lovely story! I love the style, and your voice. It brings light to an interesting predicament. You couldn't pay me a gazillion dollars to be 16 a gain. High school was not my best years, everyone was wrong. But this story is so right thank you!"
great book
"Loved the book.Good characters.Great story.Different to your everyday zombie novels. More about the characters than the Blood and guts. Good backstories on secondary characters. Rooting for Jakes and Danielle.Hoping to read the rest in near future."
Time travel...romance...husks
"Great book.not your typical apocalytpic story.Author only tease you with the dystopian /apocalyptic themes.The history and science is brought in subtly yet enticingly throughout the book.Cantwait for the scobd book."
Well done for 8th round.
"Loved the book.Especially love the character of Danielle..Looking forward to see what happens between her and Jakes.Very well done for a first time novelist.I enjoyed the fact that this is a more a novel that builds up to the apocalypyic event instead of just zombies gore and blood."
Sprinkles of brilliance
"A combination of Stephen kings the stand...Dan Browns the da Vinci code..,with a touch of Michael Chrichtons the timeline.It is horror filled with excitement,romance and various historical tidbits.Waiting anxiously for the follow up book.The writing style could need some touch up work.But with some professional editing the book would be great."
great read.dont miss out on this one.
"loved the book.hope you will too...not your average ordinary zombie apocalyptic tale.Jakes is a likeable character and you keep rooting for him and danielle to get together.looking forward to the next installment of this quest.hopefully it will be available in hardcopy asap."
An Exciting Start
"Overall, I enjoyed quite a bit of "8th Round." Though I have only read 3/4 of the work so far, I wanted to go ahead and give a review while my thoughts on the story are still fresh. First off, I think the plot is highly original--another reviewer stated that it was reminiscent of such films as "Groundhog Day" and "Edge of Tomorrow," and in many ways, yes, it is similar. However, I like the notion of getting a longer "round" each time, progressing further into the future before the reset occurs so that more information can be learned. This is different from those two films in that the main character has a constantly expanding set of time to work with. I also liked the backwards storytelling--I liked how we started out on the last round of the protagonist's run, and we sort of have to keep up as he fills us in on other characters and what they mean to the plot. It reminded me a bit of Christopher Nolan's "Memento," in which not everything is clear at first and we slowly put the pieces together. However--I would recommend letting those pieces stay on the sidelines for a bit longer than you do. Exposition is just sort of thrown at the reader, and by the time we get a few chapters in, there's almost no mystery. Rather than having the main character outline everything for us about time travel, have it be a bit more of a mystery. It also doesn't make sense for him to know certain things--how does he know he only has eight rounds to save the world? Focus more on character building initially, then gradually throw in the explanations for the time travel stuff. I love how the plot takes place in a ton of different settings all around the globe--let us live in these places, let us read about them, let us read about how the characters react to them, and propel the plot forward without explaining yourself constantly. There will be time to explain later, no need to worry about it right from the word "go." You have some great rapport between characters--let's see more of that! You have some genuinely funny lines in here. I also think the romantic tension between Jakes and Danielle is heartbreaking, especially given the note in the beginning. Can he live this new round without her, even though he loves her? It's a really good setup for some serious drama. There's also an awesome sense of buildup here--much like Steven Spielberg did with "Jaws," you're sort of holding off from showing the main event (in this case, the apocalypse), instead focusing on building up the suspense. This makes it different from a lot of other apocalyptic stories (for instance, "The Walking Dead"), in that you don't start out with the event in question. The story is more about the mechanisms of the event than the event itself, and that's refreshing. Two quick fixes--I'd change the name of Jakes' investment company, as "Equinox" I believe is also the name of a fitness organization. Also, is "Jakes" a common name in South Africa? I keep wanting to say "Jake," and I don't know if the "s" is intentional or not (I know another reviewer pointed this out already). I might consider just changing it to "Jake." The biggest issue with the story is not really in the story itself, but some of the more technical aspects of the writing--grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. There are some misspellings and some awkward phrasings scattered throughout, making it feel like a rough draft rather than a final product. You are writing (mostly) in present tense, but every now and then you fall back into past tense. I would pick one and stick with it--if I were you, I'd change it to past tense just because that's how most stories are told, and I think it would flow better. Then again, it is a time travel story, so if you can make present tense work for that in the moment stuff, go for it--just be consistent. Another reviewer stated that they disliked the quotes at the beginning of each chapter--I would actually disagree. I think they're a good way to set up the next part of the story, and it's something that a lot of professional writers do. I loved how you started out with a quote from "Doctor Who." Very fitting. PROS: High-concept, original, complex, globe-spanning plot with a focus on build-up over the climactic event. Good rapport between characters. CONS: Grammar, punctuation, writing style, past versus present tense, some minor plot holes. Again, I think this is an exciting start to something that could be really good--if you just go through this draft and do some heavy-lifting with revision, it could be awesome. Hope this helps."
Not bad.
"The story is interesting and the idea and plot is something along the lines of the Movie called Edge of Tomorrow. Where Tom Cruise has to die to reset his life and get better and better to defeat the invaders. The problem is with time travel. The story tells us exactly what happens in the first lines. A virus wipes out the planet no way to stop it and he's done this routine eight times already. Each chapter has some kind of "Theme setting quote" to try and set the mood. You shouldn't need to do this. It just tells me the author doesn't respect the audience to figure out what is supposed to be going on and needs to tell us before we get into it. I'd ditch the quotes, or just keep a really good one for the first chapter. The story switches points of view too much. Sometimes its first person, Sometimes its third person and to "Describe what's going on" as if we are watching a movie, then it switches back to first person. It's extremely distracting. Also Jakes. I don't know if this is an oversight or what but "Jakes" keeps showing up over and over. I don't know if it's meant for "Jake's" or something.. And when "Jakes" says something. It's always "Jakes says" Stick to said. "Says" just feels wrong.. Too much of this stuff here: And I said that....you should pick up the phone." Those three dots are entirely overused in the story. This might be your style but tighten it up a little bit. This story needs the touch of a professional editor because I notice lots of mistakes and distracting things that kill the flow of the story. KBDN(95,5 FM) I found this later in the story. Why is the frequency in the parenthesis, is it important, do we care? Does anyone need to know this? The story drags on and on. There are things most of us who read it actually lived through. It gets to be like reading a history book. Like the recession of 2008 is glossed over and things like that. A time travel story would be much more interesting if it was on the outer edge of our own future. Show us new things, but are past events in the character's lifetime. This story relies on too many things that ultimately, we all know, or caused us actual hardship. Not too many people read books to relive some of the worst experiences of their real life. Show us something new. Be creative, it's too easy to go back in time and just rehash stuff. That's a big reason time travel stories fail. If you knew all the bad stuff was coming, why don't you change it? And if you've been through it eight times and everything always plays out the same way, what's the point of time travel in the first place? And you reset the timeline and it all goes back to 1995 anyway so if something doesn't work out, who cares? Try again. The general idea is good, but it has serious problems that should be addressed. This story shows us a lot more than it actually tells us, and that's not a good thing. I will admit I didn't read the whole story, but that's because I couldn't do it. I found the actual story to be boring and in need of serious editing. "Jakes" really bugged me. Says did too. All the Dots between words made me think William Shatner wrote the story and started talking like he does on Star Trek eventually. I catch all the things like that and it drives me up the wall. I can't recommend this story, it needs to be edited and gone through with a fine tooth comb by the writer, the editor and a fresh pair of eyes. The idea is a good and interesting one, but this story needs some work and retooling. Because right now it feels like a mix of The movie 12 monkeys and edge of tomorrow. But all the worst parts of both. Refine the story a little bit and get creative! I feel like this is a serious diamond in the rough and could be something really special. Good luck."
