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ANTIGUA: The Land of Fairies Wizards and Heroes (Part 1) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Larry Ellis, Denise Brown Ellis
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Category: Book
List Price: $17.99
Buy New: $16.19
You Save: $1.80 (10%)
New (11) Used (3) from $11.24
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 1608744
Media: Paperback
Pages: 316
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 1425997821
EAN: 9781425997823
ASIN: 1425997821
Publication Date: September 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Antigua: The Land of Fairies, Wizards and Heroes (Part 1) is the first of a trilogy. This story is a fantasy with magical characters such as a Sorceress, a Dragon, Fairies, Wizards, Knights, Kings, Queens, Pixies, and Gnomes. Here is a sample from the book: Suddenly, there were black clouds in the sky. Everyone heard a loud noise coming from the sky and they all knew that Voltar the Dragon was coming. King Artor yelled out, "Daughters, Voltar comes! Get ready your weapons! The time has come for you to fulfill the prophecy!" Princess Sasha, Princess Trina, Princess Alexandra and Rebecca walked up ahead of the army and lined up together in a row. They looked like warriors! Rebecca was not afraid! She took a deep breath and got her weapon ready for the task that lay ahead. She understood the prophecy now and had faith in herself and the Princesses. They each pulled out their bows and prepared to kill the dragon. Fire came out of his nostrils and his mouth. Princess Alexandra handed each of the other girls one of the special arrows that they had gotten from the Queen of the Unicorns. All four of the girls pointed their bows up into the air and waited for Voltar to come nearer. Voltar let out such a loud noise that the ground shook! Then fire came right out of his nostrils. The Wizard Thandor held his mighty wand up toward the sky and yelled, "Mighty clouds of the sky, I call upon you to bring forth lightening to destroy the Dragon Voltar!" Large lightening bolts came out of the clouds toward Voltar. One lightening bolt struck Voltar and wounded him, but it didn't kill him!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 is this a joke? March 14, 2008
Isabel (Bronx, NY)
56 out of 57 found this review helpful
Is this book supposed to be a joke? Who even let this book be published? Writing an exclamation point at the end of every sentence just makes it seem more phony and I can't believe the publisher let it go! This is not considered writing. Do not read if you are looking for a sofisticated fantasy book.
Hire a good editor and try again March 20, 2008
SK (SF Bay Area, CA)
23 out of 24 found this review helpful
The premise isn't bad: A little Cornelia Funke or Garth Nix with Phillip Pullman and throw in Arthurian legend. However, the execution really needs help. Typos, poor grammar, awful sentence structure, the obscene use of exclamation points (which really is just talking down to a child in written form; do you talk baby-babble to an 8-year old?)...that won't even matter unless you change the cover of the book. I thought this book was for a 9-10 year old boy, NOT for a female of any age. Like adults, children judge books by their covers. In fact, children will judge much harshly and more instantly than adults, and they can be stubborn once their opinions have been made.
To the author who posted a response about older readers and parents leaving reviews: Adults do most of the book purchasing for their children, especially online. Adults are the librarians and teachers who promote the books in libraries and school through booktalks and handselling. Adults own the bookstores and promote the book through marketing and handselling. These are people who read literally hundreds of books each year. Listen to what the adults say, and don't dismiss their critiques simply because you think they're not your target audience.
Me? I'm a grad student, studying to be a kid's librarian. I work for and in the public libraries and have been doing so for quite some time now. I work with kids every day and help them find the books that they would enjoy. And I've read just shy of 70 children's and young adult books since the middle of January of this year...just think about that for a second.
Honestly, hire a great editor, work out the kinks and add one of your female characters to the cover, fighting the dragon in full-armor or something. You (and, more to the point, your book) will be better off.
Good luck!
I don't think I have ever seen a worse book in the publishing industry. March 16, 2008
Aiyaruk
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
I was so utterly appalled at the quality of writing in this book that I had to take a peek at who exactly the publisher was. I couldn't imagine in all of my nightmares that any self-respecting publisher would allow such terrible drivel to make it to press. Low and behold, come to find out, it's quite interesting that this is a self-published novel (though I use the term "novel" loosely here). We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief that this book has likely never seen the likes of an editor.. or an agent.. or a real, authenticated, respected publisher. The world of literature is not yet doomed. However, this book is. Where should I begin? I think I shall start at the author's pathetic attempts at spamming the Amazon boards to announce the presence of this tome of trash. I read a couple of her posts and wondered how on earth an author who cannot even formulate a complete sentence (grammar, punctuation, OR correct capitalization) in any of her posts could ever get something published. It was out of sheer morbid curiosity that I took a look at her book. I have one piece of advice for the author in question: one does not have to write like a child to write for children. And this is only Part 1? Does that mean there's more of this trash to be expected? Please, author, stop while you're ahead and save your money. I know that self-publishing can get expensive. Writing is simply not your calling. I would suggest applying the money you save to a creative writing class before you ever take another crack at writing again.
The Worst. March 21, 2008
Trisha Dehler (Portland, ME)
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
Not only is this book poorly edited, lacking mature character development and starving for originality, but the author wrote her own five star review. How insulting is that? Fortunately, I flipped through the book before giving it to my daughter. Had I given her this title for her birthday, I could have turned her off to reading for life - and to birthdays.
I was content to write it off as a loss, but the author drove me to stating my outrage publicly. She's been rude to authors who offered advice. In addition to reviewing her own title, she is guilty of spamming advertisements for her book all over the Amazon forums, no matter how inappropriate the category.
Want a book on refinishing tables? Buy Antigua. Cat need box trained? Buy Antigua.
On a final note, I was tempted to write this entire review in small letters only. Thanks to the author the planet is running dangerously low on capital letters and we are already completely out of explanation points. How will there ever be a trilogy without them?
Do not encourage this author's behavior. Encourage her to learn and improve by not buying this book.
Not Even Funny March 26, 2008
Read, Love, Books
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
This book, in short, is abominable. If I'm being honest, I bought it because it looked hilariously bad. It WAS horrendous - so much so, in fact, that I couldn't even get a laugh out of it. It's very near unintelligible in places, and rather than providing amusement (of the intended kind or otherwise), it made me quite sick to my stomach. 'Antigua: The Land of Fairies Wizards and Heroes' is a disgrace to the English language and to the world of literature. Let me stress again: IT ISN'T FUNNY. I cracked up reading the excerpt from 'Search Inside the Book', but beyond that, it's too long and falls completely flat.
Anyway, after suffering through all 307 pages (in which there are no chapter breaks and only sparing paragraph breaks), I did a little experiment. I gave the book to my younger sister's eleven-year-old friend without comment to see what she thought. We got a call from her the next day, saying, "What is this, a joke? Did some three-year-old write it?" That's actually an exact quote. And that's what I call testing the book in its market.
Potential customers: do not let your curiosity lead you to err. Stay far, far away. If you're looking for something amusingly bad, check out Atlanta Nights. That one even has a great story behind its conception.
Oh, and one more note. Whoever did the cover design was rather inept - the title and authors' names are absent from the spine. Just another thing that makes this book seem utterly unprofessional.
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