Born a Witch.Drafted by the FBI! The Federal Witch, Book 0 (Audible Audio Edition) T S Paul, Francis Alais, Kat Lind - All Chaos Press Books
Download As PDF : Born a Witch.Drafted by the FBI! The Federal Witch, Book 0 (Audible Audio Edition) T S Paul, Francis Alais, Kat Lind - All Chaos Press Books
Agatha Blackmore came into her powers early as a child. Her first spell was a thing of beauty and wonder. It brought terror into the hearts of her family. Who wanted to accidentally become a pink chicken? Now that she's older her magic is out of control. She needs a teacher and none of the Witch Schools will take her. How about a career in law enforcement? The FBI needs serious help in catching law breaking paranormals. It's a match made in heaven or is it in hell? God only knows what happens next.
Born a Witch.Drafted by the FBI! The Federal Witch, Book 0 (Audible Audio Edition) T S Paul, Francis Alais, Kat Lind - All Chaos Press Books
Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: Born a Witch.Drafted by the FBI!: The Federal Witch, Book 0 (Audible Audio Edition): T S Paul, Francis Alais, Kat Lind - All Chaos Press: Books, ,T S Paul, Francis Alais, Kat Lind - All Chaos Press,Born a Witch.Drafted by the FBI!: The Federal Witch, Book 0,Kat Lind - All Chaos Press,B01NH5QY1A
Born a Witch.Drafted by the FBI! The Federal Witch, Book 0 (Audible Audio Edition) T S Paul, Francis Alais, Kat Lind - All Chaos Press Books Reviews
This story is a quick introduction to the characters of the Federal Witch series. There is no plot, just three vignettes.
I found the main character, a Mary Sue, to be overpowered, the unicorn story somewhat uninteresting, and the other backstory items a little unbelievable. Showing the FBI training facilities to be on par with the Keystone Cops in ability and organization felt improbable. And I did not like the constant references to how horny unicorns are.
The one thing done extremely well is the backstory of the vampire war. I can totally see that permanently impacting relations being the magic community and the world governments. (Oh look, worldbuilding. If you follow my reviews, you know how much I love that stuff.)
I can see the series being a fun read for people who enjoy things just shy of being a farce. Overblown craziness makes a grand romp.
Picked up while free on .
I enjoyed this prequel and recommend it. I almost never give 5 stars, and I would have given this book 4, except the editing wasn't nearly so good as it should have been. Embarrassingly, the end of the book even identified the people who edited the book. I enjoyed the story enough to buy the next two in the series, and I've read and recommend the second book, Conjuring Quantico. Unfortunately, it also needs some editing help. Please buy and read these books to support a new author, but I hope Mr. Paul will have future books better edited (and these books re-edited and republished). Mr. Paul, thank you for this series. If you read your reviews and are interested, we could talk about my editing for you; I hereby give permission to put us in contact, if you like.
The first two offerings in the Federal Witch series by T.S. Paul will likely be the only ones I buy. Despite an admittedly great story with an intriguing, vaguely alternate-history, plot-gimmick, I can't force myself to wade any further through the extremely poor editing.
I might have been warned by the cover composition, and the fact that these books are only available in e-format.
The concept is a good one magic users (Paranormals) are a sizeable group in every country, and have been at the center of each historic conflict since the Great War (WWI in our history), which they call the Great Purge. Because the Allied victory in this war involved decimating the vampire clans in Europe (including those allied to Britain), the paranormal community is extremely leary of coorperating with government agencies like the FBI.
Agatha Blackmore is not only a witch, she is the most powerful witch of her generation. She is also a loose cannon with a tendency to commit wild magic with unintended consequences. Who better, then, to finally step up to work for the FBI? If her magic goes awry, as expected, at least she'll not be anywhere near the witch community.
This prequel tells Agatha's back-story the "incident" when she was six that terrified her widowed mother and her aunt, and brought into her life the familiar Fergus, a My-Little-Pony-sized unicorn that talks—and cusses. The story reveals her strong bent toward law enforcement, and provides some reason to why she would comply with her family's desire to have her out of the community.
It also establishes the bias and bigotry of the FBI Academy's director and staff, not only toward Agatha, but toward other paranormals like her Were roommate Cat. The characters each have their own voice and set of quirks, including the politically-incorrect Fergus.
The novella would have been an enjoyably quick read if I hadn't spent so much time documenting the dauntingly numerous instances of apostrophe-abuse and number disagreement. What writer old enough to have a wife, as T.S. Paul's bio indicates, does not know that plurals do not have apostrophes, and possessive nouns (except pronouns) do? I reported dozens of such errors from this short 55-page novella.
Paul is lucky I ignored the apparent inability of the author to use commas; I would have still been reporting them if I had not. Leaving them out makes the reader work so much harder to figure out who is speaking to whom.
Not a lot of thought to this book, and it has a lot of "telling about stuff," but not enough showing us.
Ok, the idea of a witch going to the FBI School is interesting. But, the author either glosses over too much, or didn’t give it any real thought. At least the writing is not horribly, like the last book of his I read (Forgotten Engineer).
For example, on the trip to the school, the "witch" and her agent escorts run into a bit of trouble with some locals. The bad guy puts his hands on Agatha (the witch), and is thrown for a loop. Then, we are ‘told’ that the bad guys are arrested. There is very little dialog, and it is not something we ‘see’ at all. It is just told “to†us as exposition.
The witch is supposed to be magically inept, “lopsided†is the word she used, but she has no problem rolling over everything that crosses her. No spell misfires, not any mistakes, just a few gestures and words, and a room full of supposedly trained agents are defeated.
Actually, that is the scene that really bothered me most.
Spoiler alert……
Agatha shows up at school, and the greeter girl at the desk panics when she realizes she is facing a witch. She hits a button and glass walls fall down around Agatha to trap her, and then a flood of agents rush in with drawn guns.
What? Really?
Apparently, what happened was that the greeter girl didn’t get the full set of instructions, and winged it – by setting up a set of glass walls in the ceiling, and having a squad of agents on stand-by. Cause, you know, greeters have that kind of pull.
Agatha shatters the wall, and when a full squad of agents open fire on her, her shield sends the bullets bouncing all around the room.
What happened because of that? Nothing. Like I said before, “What, Really?†No bullets hitting anyone, or even puncturing any walls, or furniture. It is just glossed over.
Then Agatha goes out, and knocks the HUMVs (with machine guns) around that came when the alarm went off – cause you know, greeters always can have them on stand-by.
Then, it is all explained (why it happened), and Agatha goes to get her room sorted out.
Again, “what, really?â€
Why was the greeter girl so panicked in the first place? No idea, you never hear from her. All she says in the story is that she “has her orders.â€
No real dialog between the characters, no exploration of why the greeter girl had that many people on stand-by. No explanation of “why†a very large group of FBI Agents did not ask “why†they were waiting with guns on hand. Even if they bought in to the idea that a “dangerous witch is coming,†why in the world would they leave a civilian to meet the “dangerous witch?†Are the agents in that world lobotomized before being given guns?
Again, no dialog, just a narration of "that it was explained," without us 'hearing' any of the dialog.
When Agatha next goes along to the dorm to get her room, alone again, a different greeter/aide freaks out, fearfully gives her the room assignment. Then she goes up to her room and meets her room-mate.
Ok, again, "What? Really?" Did the “orders†change? Did they get explained? Did they get a full set? If so, why was this greeter so afraid? The other students had no idea of what was going on, so what happened with the greeter? Apparently the room full of students that were witness to the shootings just ran - no one posted to FaceBook, or Twitter, or anything.
Why? That isn't explained. Or, the author didn't give it any thought.
And, why in the world would the Special Agent John let her go in to the student dormitory “alone†after the first disaster? Are the agents in that world lobotomized?
And, speaking of him. I have actually met a few Special Agents, and not a one is an idiot. And, they don't take kindly to anyone criticizing the country - a lot of loyalty there. So, him sitting through Agatha's lecture about the "real" history, and the abuse of the supernaturals by the governments, and just accepting it... not realistic. At all. Unless he was just humoring her to get on her good side, that is not a 'real' agent. He would not accept her into the FBI Academy. The situation lacks credibility.
Really, it looks like the rest of the story will be very “Mary Sue.†The protagonist is the only one with any brains, and all the power. I don't understand him writing about a witch that is "too cool for school" - that is going to school!
Unless Mr. Paul really improves his skill, the full book will be a waste of a good idea.
0 Response to "≫ [PDF] Gratis Born a Witch.Drafted by the FBI! The Federal Witch, Book 0 (Audible Audio Edition) T S Paul, Francis Alais, Kat Lind - All Chaos Press Books"
Post a Comment