Robert Stanek’s Keeper Martin’s Tale Book Review (The Worst Book in the World)
Keeper Martin’s Tale — Officially the Worst Book I’ve Ever Read.
A few posts ago, I talked about the Amazon Fake Reviews issue. One of the posterboy’s of this new author-writing-fake-review phenomenon is Robert Stanek. A while ago I wrote an actual review of his terrible book, Keeper Martin’s Tale. Stanek got Amazon to take my review down — probably the only legit review out of his 300+ fake reviews. Oh the irony. Here is the review:
I had the dubious pleasure of reading Keeper Martin’s Tale a few months ago. My mouth still hurts where it hung constantly open for the entire duration of the book. A few choice words come to mind when ruminating on the experience. Appalling. Disgusting. Terrible. Ghastly. Horrific. Repulsive. Sordid. Vile. I could go on an on enumerating the list of synonyms for bad.
I’ll end it with this phrase: It was a pile of sh*t!
I’m not in the habit of attacking authors, but in this case, I feel the effort warranted. After all, Rob uses smarmy tactics to promote his books (fake Amazon reviews, fake Amazon lists, trashing other authors while recommending his own, etc).
Unquestionably, Stanek wins the worst-fantasy-writer-ever award. I never thought anyone would top Robert Newcomb in this category, but Stanek succeeds and succeeds with ease. This guy’s writing is a textbook example of what not to do when you write. How is it possibly that people actually buy this pile?
The prose in Keeper Martin’s Tale is abysmal, the plot boring, awkward, and the characters dull as a spoon. “Keeper Martin’s Tale” reads more like tenth grader’s first creative writing project than the expected professional type prose exhibited by publishable authors.
Simply put, the man cannot write, not a bit, not a ounce, not a scintilla, not a single atom. All those Amazon “reviews” equating “Keeper Martin’s Tale” (indeed all of the Ruin Mist series) as the Second Coming are complete fabrications.
After reading the book, I went back and read some of the “reviews” laughing so hard I almost broke a few ribs. Reviews like the following abound on Amazon:
“I’ll just add to the glowing reviews of this book. I have some (limited) negative feelings about this book like others do, but overall I think that it’s a unique book that’s well worth having. Does Robert Stanek know how to write??? Oh yeah!!! He’s very good at getting inside characters heads without being obvious about it. He’s very good at describing a fantasy world. He’s very good with dialog. The plot and pace is excellent. Okay, so I too am VERY jealous of anybody who can write such a great story. BUT HE’S EARNED HIS PLACE WITH THE GREATS OF FANTASY!!! He’s worked very hard for his success and he has the courage to pursue his dreams unlike 95% of the population (including myself). And NO I don’t belong to his Official Fan Club, but I’d probably join it, if he had one”
What a load of crap! Anyone who has actually read the book knows these are fake reviews! Lets deconstruct the “review”.
“Does Stanek know how to write??? Oh yeah???”
Ah, are we on the same planet? From what I’ve seen, Stanek couldn’t write a publishable paragraph to save his life.
“He’s very good at describing a fantasy world”
No. NO. AND NO! Stanek’s “descriptions” are appallingly bad. Geez, even dragonlance authors do a better job!
“The plot and pace is excellent”
Try Slow and plodding. After reading the book, I’m still asking myself, what was the plot?
“He’s very good with dialog”
Uh…not true. IN fact, the dialogue is stilted. No personality whatsoever. Want good, witty dialogue? Read Greg Keyes’s The Briar King
“BUT HE’S EARNED HIS PLACE WITH THE GREATS OF FANTASY!!! He’s worked very hard for his success and he has the courage to pursue his dreams unlike 95% of the population (including myself). And NO I don’t belong to his Official Fan Club, but I’d probably join it, if he had one[/I]”
SO much for objectivity in a review. Can we say FAKE REVIEW?
NO ONE with an once of sense would ever waste a breath of praise on Stanek’s drivel, much less post effusive reviews in the vein of “STENEK IS BETTER THAN JORDAN AND MARTIN” or “STANEK IS THE NEXT JORDAN.”
Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it by posting a few sample paragraphs from the book:
“Always more reminders of the things she should or should not do—her proper place, always her proper place. She knew all about the proper things, the proper mannerisms, the proper greetings, her proper duties, her proper place. She had even been taught, though only recently, the proper things to do to invite a man’s attention. She was to begin courting. But why? “
Blah, horrific. I wrote better than this in grade five. And one more painful passage to convince the skeptics:
“Seth returned to the room they shared then and did a thing he claimed not to understand. Galan was sitting on the edge of her bed, running a comb through her long hair. He sat beside her and the next thing he knew his lips were pressed against hers.
Immediately afterward, Seth fled the room and in his confused state of mind, said he knew of only one person he could turn to. Brother Liyan had been meditating in his private chambers and, without announcement, Seth burst into the room and in one great rush of thoughts explained all that had happened since he left the hall.”
Does this prose seem childish to you? It’s definitely not up to publishable standards. Or at least the ones I’m familiar with! The entire book is like this. Even worse, the book is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.
STAY AWAY from this author! Though if you are in the mood for a good laugh, read it. The book’s so bad it’s almost funny. Robert Stanek’s Keeper Martin’s Tale is the WORST book I’ve ever read. I officially award it the BestFantasyBooks “Worst Book” award. Go post that on your reviews, Mr. Stanek.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaah
btw ben what is your amazon profile? Want to read some of your reviews
Comment by IFNT — May 5, 2009 @ 9:50 am
Did you actually rad the whole book?
that two passages were from amazons “look inside this book” function i think.
Comment by IFNT — May 5, 2009 @ 9:53 am
I tried to read this book, but couldn’t because it was just to boring So it comes as no surprise that our friendly blogger found it absolute shite. I actually bought to book because of the glowing reviews on amazon! I feel so stupid now…
Comment by Robert — May 5, 2009 @ 11:00 am
Ha this was hilarious. I’ve never heard of this book but I will definitely not read it. Those passages were worse than middle school fanfiction attempts. Thanks for not being afraid to state your opinion so openly and, ahem, bluntly.
Comment by Elissa — May 22, 2009 @ 11:25 am
First, Stanek’s been doing this since back in 2003 or so.
Second, yeah it is a bad book. Not as bad as Terry Goodkind, but still bad.
Third, from my understanding only 2 books in the ‘main’ series have been released. Keeper’s tale and queen something. It has been years since the second, and no doubt Stanek has no attention on completing the series.
Fourth, sad thing is that this might have been a somewhat good series if Stanek wasn’t a money loving SOB.
Comment by Icy — June 17, 2009 @ 5:38 pm
Having attempted to read both Goodkind and Stanek, Stanek is by far the worst author. At least Goodkind has shards of originatlty. Stanek could not write anything original if his life depended upon it. He has a Dark Lord returning from the past, a boy who discovers he is a wizard, stoic elves who are at odds with the humans and live apart from them, and a spunky princess, and a Yoda like creature who teaches the boy the “force”, eh magic. Oh – and there is a place called ‘Middle Earth’ (it is between upper and lower) and magic is outlawed (such as in the Kurtz novels). I’m sure in book two there will be children popping out of wardrobes.
Also – he has completed the series. There are 4 Keeper Martin Books. He calls them the adult series because they probably have over 200 pages per book. Then he split them up into the ‘The Kingdom of the Elves of the Reaches” books 1 through 4 — and ‘In the Service of Dragons’ books 1-4. This is word-for-word the exact same story as the Keeper Martin books – except that they are shorter and thus they are the children’s editions.
And then he wrote a couple books called Elf Queen’s Quest. Which is the “dark path” or an alternate take on the story. (Stanek has complained that Orson Scott Card stole his idea on this for the Ender series). Some of the real Amazon reviews for this books complain that this is the exact same story as Keeper Martin, except that chapters are switched around and there are a few new bits added.
I never made it past Keeper Martin — the book is as about exciting as watching paint dry.
And I think Stanek runs “Reagent Press” — so the book is self published and seriously need some editing.
I only bought the book due to Amazon’s recommendation and all the rave reviews (which of course I found out later were all fake).
Comment by Monica — June 26, 2009 @ 9:13 am
Icy here
Magic outlawed? Magic is outlawed in a lot of fantasy works. Also he does run Reagent Press. That should be obvious.
Goodkind is original then? Oh, forgot. Wildfire speeches, and demon chickens. Yeah, better when he sticks with theft. Seriously, the worst book I have ever read is Goodkind’s. I have stopped reading books on many reasons, but never in actual disgust at poor descriptions and the complete stupidity of the characters. Seriously, a speech on wildfire? I found no evil chuckles in Stanek’s works, so it is at least better than that. You can complain about it being generic, but so is a lot of fantasy work. Of course Goodkind doesn’t write fantasy, so his work should be vilified for being generic and stupid.
Comment by Dicey — July 2, 2009 @ 6:19 am
A writer can pressure amazon into taking down a review? Amazing amazon. On the other hand, some should be taken down. The other day I discovered a reviewer who has given one star out of five in every review she’s written.
caleb
Comment by caleb fox — July 25, 2009 @ 8:52 am
[...] Best Fantasy Books Blog has an interesting review, and if you pop over there for a look, remember that the review is not endorsed by one of Stanek’s sock-puppets. It’s a refreshingly honest piece of writing, and I’m glad I didn’t have to read one of the books so a real review could appear. I may buy one of the titles if I can find it cheap – in a 20p bucket of second hand books maybe. Then again, I would have to read the fucking thing, wouldn’t I? [...]
Pingback by Addendum To The Mystery Author Post « The Graveyard — August 27, 2009 @ 10:03 am
Not too long ago (before I found this website) I was shopping for books using Amazon’s rating system, and bought this book. I kept trying to push through it saying to myself “A lot of people liked it, maybe it just has a slow start” … now I feel better in my decision to leave it unread. It all makes sense now!
Comment by dorej — January 3, 2011 @ 1:17 pm
Thanks for confirming that I’m not crazy. I read all the glowing reviews and thought I missed something. I don’t completely agree with you, but maybe because I managed to suffer through the entire series in audiobook form since I have long commute.
To the point, I have intense feelings about this series both pro and con. The overall story was intense, unique, intertwined and intriguing. The story telling, was poorly paced, with gaps and vagueness, I’m guessing to add suspense but that only made for frustrating confusion. The writing was awful. The word choices didn’t always make sense and the characters changes were done in such a way that it was hard to follow or even distinguish who was the focus.
I’m saddened that the story was released without a decent editor to point out the flaws beforehand. A firm a red pen and some restructuring could have made this brilliant. But instead it’s a truly painful waste of time.
Comment by Suz — February 21, 2011 @ 4:19 pm
You went through the whole thing? In audiobook form? Wow. I’m so sorry. That sounds like the most harrowing literary experience ever, and I’m definitely using “literary” only in the sense of something that is written.
I have the dubious honor of being very near the top of Stanek’s revenge list. I’m the one whose home address was published on the Ruin Mist forums, along with unspeakable allegations, all because of a post on my blog which I’d all but forgotten about (it was years old at the time) but which appears quite often in these discussions. That’s how he rolls, but clearly I still haven’t done enough to publicize what a complete and utter turd he is. As bad as his writing might be, he as a person is far worse.
Comment by Jeff Darcy — March 17, 2011 @ 3:10 pm
I was so shocked when I began reading the book (what with all those glowing reports) that I double-checked to see if I had downloaded the right book. Okay, let’s be frank – the book sucked. Many of those reviews have to be fake.
Comment by Neville C Goedhals — April 27, 2011 @ 11:53 am
I’m sure Amazon don’t remove reviews at the author’s request, or at least, not anymore. There was a recent example, where some stupid psychiatrist made a whole load of unsubstantiated claims about how video games cause rape or something on FOX news, and gamers responded by Amazon-bombing her books with a horde of equally unsubstantiated one-star reviews. She then went crying to the media about how Amazon wouldn’t remove the negative reviews, and as far as I know, they’re all still there.
Comment by Richard — July 3, 2011 @ 1:23 pm
I wish I had read this instead of those 300 reviews… totally wasted my money and then wondered if the world had gone mad or if it was just me. These were absolutely the most poorly written books I’ve ever read.
Comment by Alena — September 18, 2011 @ 12:24 am