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Arizona Free by Doug Martin
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Arizona Free (edition 2010)

by Doug Martin (Author)

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4322581,229 (3.04)3
Member:Micah
Title:Arizona Free
Authors:Doug Martin (Author)
Info:Kanspira (2010), Paperback, 170 pages
Collections:Your library
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Tags:Fiction, Science Fiction

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Arizona Free by Doug Martin

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Showing 1-5 of 21 (next | show all)
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
I received this as part of the Early Reviewers program, and while I really wanted to finish it so as to be completely fair....I just couldn't. Given its size and description I was expecting a goofy juvenile book, an expectation that was quickly quashed given the early shallow, homophobic, and sexist dialogue.
I was really unimpressed with the book with its simple, crude characters and ridiculous and overly-silly plot. I sincerely hope that the author intended it all as a satire as other reviewers have suggested, because otherwise this is just poor writing. ( )
1 vote melancholycat | Dec 5, 2010 |
There are so many negative reviews out there for this book, I almost didn't bother with it, but the premise interested me so I gave it a try. I found myself captivated instantly and wasn't able to put the book down until I finished it. I frequently found myself giggling. No, this isn't "Hitchhiker's" and it's not Shakespeare, but it's been a long time since I was able to enjoy a comical sci-fi novel and I did enjoy this quite a bit. The end seems to predict a sequel, which I will be watching for and reading if it does appear. Many reviewers complain about this story being dialogue driven. Why is that bad? It kept me in the present and so I went with the flow of things pretty much as the main character did. I don't need to have endless pages of description of the clouds moving over the desert or boring passages of the history of the town in order to find the tale exciting. This is a show-me, not tell-me, story and it swept me away. I didn't notice all the errors that an editor should have corrected as reported by many other reviewers either. Commas were missing at the ends of quotations, but so what? It wasn't like I couldn't understand what was being said and I quickly adapted to ignoring that and enjoying the story. Perhaps it's part of the plot. :) If you like Douglas Adams, Spider Robinson, Steven Brust, Robert Asprin, and movies like Buckaroo Banzai or The Big Empty, I think you'll like this little gem. ( )
1 vote seongeona | Nov 19, 2010 |
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
Where to start? Let's start with the good points. It's short and the premise is interesting and had potential. That's it for the good points. This book is really awful. It's disjointed, the plot wanders all over the place, plot elements are introduced then go no further and don't relate to anything prior or later. The character development is non-existent and the characters are unbelievably simple, simple minded, gullible and shallow. They believed anything they were told by anyone, no questions asked. I wanted to ask them if they wanted to buy a bridge in Brooklyn. The plot is moved forward the majority of time solely on dialogue, which has the same characteristics as the characters. This read like a high school freshman composition assignment. The other reviewers were too kind to this book. It is bad. ( )
2 vote njstitcher | Nov 17, 2010 |
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
I'm not quite sure what to make of this book. It's clearly meant to be a satire, I'm just not sure what exactly the author was trying to satirize, the sports drink/health drink craze, our commercialized culture or what.

It's a rather short book of 164 pages but it took me a long time to read it, it was hard to get engaged with it.
The humor was rather over the top and extremely hit or miss, usually missing for me and the dialog was so over the top and cheesy that it really distracted from the story for me.

However, when he was writing action scenes, descriptive scenes or when the characters were thinking vs. talking to each other, the I found the writing quite engaging and interesting. It made for a frustrating reading experience.

The plot holes were huge and a detraction from the story over all, the ending didn't make much sense, the dialog was awkward and yet the rest of the non-dialog writing was actually enjoyable enough that if there were a sequel, I would be willing to read it. ( )
1 vote Kellswitch | Nov 13, 2010 |
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
The premise of the book is fun and schlocky - as is some of the way it is handled. An editor should have attacked parts of it with a bright red pen and an avenging spirit. The word usage and flow seem to fit more with YA lit. that I have read in the past. The book does tend to get overly enamoured of its dialog sequences.
Overall - it is a goofy, fun, quick little read. Not so terrible as to not finish it with some interesting ideas floating around in it. I concur with the B-movie (maybe even late night, old time USA network 1am C-movie status here) assessment. ( )
2 vote evedeve | Nov 12, 2010 |
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"I just don't know if this is right" Jason said, as he and Tony sat motionless in the Jeep Wrangler at the travel plaza on the western end of Phoenix.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Kanspira

An edition of this book was published by Kanspira.

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