Location: Netherlands
Member Since: July 03, 2011

Huibert-Jan Lekkerkerk

Smashwords book reviews by Huibert-Jan Lekkerkerk

  • Attack of the Lushites on July 25, 2011

    The book I received was rifled with errors making the read especially hard for me, a non-native english speaker. But apart from that, the book was also hard to read due to the lack of a clear story line. I completely missed the shift from the 'fast food' universe to the 'drinking' universe at the start leaving me wondering for quite a few pages what had happened. The (somewhat) unexpected end did not really help here either, the introduction of yet another galaxy with a focus on smoking was on the one hand to be expected, on the other hand it made the story quite unbelievable. As a great fan of humor books with the Hithchikers guide my all time favourite, I must say I was disappointed. The book is advertised as being in the same category and has some interesting views. But the writing style / storyline somehow manages to spoil an idea that could have been great. It might be the constant reference to other SF works or the constant hammering on the obese shape of the main players, but all in all this was not the enjoying read I had hoped for!
  • Elegy: Book 1 of the Arbiter Codex on Oct. 08, 2011

    Read this book from front to cover in slightly under one hour. I was just sucked into the story which is a classic good-bad story with an original hero and a lot of magic involved. Do not expect any deep philosophy from this book about what is good and bad, though near the end the book does scratches the surface of this. The story revolves about something called 'Manna' which is described as the life source. It can be corrupted by the bad (demons, tainted spiders, turned wolves etc). Arbiter's fight this corruption, trying to cleanse it from the corruption. All in all as said a classic good-bad scenario... My main reservation with this book (and hence just the four stars) is that the characters could have been set down better. At the end of the book we still hardly know what an Arbiter is and mostly who the main person, Arbiter D'arden is as a person. Small pieces of the puzzle are revealed, but not enough to completely understand the character. To bad as this would have given the story just that something more that is given by the great writers that Cristopher Kellen tells us he is so inspired by.
  • Lucifer's Odyssey on Oct. 08, 2011

    This book has done something that has not happened with me for quite a while; I could not get into the story. I read the first 80 pages (out of 479 in my version) and found it a hard read. I cannot say that it is really boring as things do develop and there is enough change in setting and conversation. Somehow though the story does not grip me. The idea of having the classic 'demons' (Lucifer, Azazel etc) being in fight with the classic 'good ones' - Jehova, Michael who want to destroy 'Chaos' etc is a nice view that I've not seen in other books. So that is not the issue, neither the fact that I'm put off by religous views (you could view this book as being quite heretical if you are to a certain extend religous AND lacking a wider view of things). Maybe it is the quite unpersonal way the story is put down, but whatever it is, I can recommend a prospective reader to read some short sections and see if the writing style is agreeing with you (which is basically a good idea for any book...). So as a result I feel obliged to give the book only half a star (if not to signify that it is a potential controversial read).
  • Denibus Ar on Oct. 15, 2011

    When I started reading this book I felt myself wondering whether it was somehow grounded on a real site or all imagination. In other words, the writing style is real enough. It was not untill the magic started to appear that I realized it was all a work of fiction. Chris Turner normally writes science fiction and fantasy and this shows in the book. The story is very well plausible (if you believe in magic) and shows a good knowledge of Egyptian mythology / history. The only real downside that I can name is that near the end of the story the plot seems to move considerably faster than at the start. This gives that part less credibility as the amount of details suddenly become less and make it less believable. All in all an entertaining read.
  • Fantastic Realms on Nov. 21, 2011

    What can one say about this book? As some of the others reviewers have already noted, the wording is quite heavy and as a non-native speaker makes reading at times a hard case. I could have done with a little more plain writing as it would have allowed me to read more than one story at a time without giving me such a headache... Having said that, the stories themselves are not to bad but I would not call them brilliant. At least not all of them. A lot of the short stories seem to be a preamble for a longer story that is waiting to be written (and one actually has been written into a longer book - Denibus Ar). All in all it is a read that tastes for more without the more being given yet (but I hope in the other books that I have waiting to read that are also by Chris). So the verdict is the average for giving me both a headache and an unsatisfied feeling in a book that could have been capturing my imagination if not for that.