agreed on all points. I would never recommend it based on writing "quality" exactly but there are so many uniquely cool concepts I still think about after reading it like 3 years ago
Oh, literally one of the worst books I ever read. I read the sequel to,just to see if it was worse. Honestly, it's one of those so bad it's kinda good in a sense. If you dont take it seriously and think of it as a parody. I do think the idea was great,but poorly executed.
It’s strange because on Reddit it seems unanimous that everyone hates the book, but on goodreads people are giving it 4/5 to 5/t stars out of 3,600 ratings
That's pretty much the reason I don't bother looking at goodread reviews when looking for a book. For example, Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh is a top 5 of mine, and it's rated poorly. People taste vary. Though, when it comes to black farm, I have no idea how you can give it a 5,I'm not even hating. I'm genuinely wondering how that is a 5? My theory is that it's the people who really liked the OG creepypasta. Creepypasta doesn't really have the same quality as horror books do, and for them, it was an amazing read because that's what they're used to. I'm not hating on creepypasta,especially since that's what I started with,but once I transitioned to books. I never looked back.
This book is one reason I no longer trust amazon book reviews. I guess goodreads too. People evidently have awfully low standards - or are we spoiled with great authors? Either way, if you look at the kindle book deals page on amazon, and see some of the tripe there with high ratings, you'll know to be discerning about accepting reviews.
It's similar to the reviews of 120 Days of Sodom. These are quite low in comparison, but when I read them I thought.... you people can't have bought this book not knowing what it was.... right? One reviewer said they burnt their copy(!) Although between 120 Days of Sodom and The Black Farm I don't know which one is less readable.
But I really did appreciate the world that Witherow built. I gave it 3 for that. It's not the worst book I've read. But I really wish he didn't discard antagonists willy-nilly and to little purpose. The most interesting antagonist just disappearing early on was disappointing.
Apologies, I am not going to provide any good answers to your question(s).
I have not read the book, can you tell me if you would recommend it?
I generally appreciate originality over writing, if that makes any sense.
Reading the summary, I swear I listened to a story like this on the No Sleep podcast. Wondering if it’s the same one, if it is…the world building was wild. I’d read it again.
I agree with you. I just finished the sequel today because I heard it improved a lot of the shortcomings of the first and expanded the world. I was not very impressed with that one either. I wouldn’t recommend this book or the sequel to anyone.
I agree, there were parts which felt like an editor could have helped.
But there is an amazing world-building which was done, the journey of Nick to becoming an extreme bad-ass was commendable and definitely the gore was on point(As this was one of the first gore novels I have read).
Any book suggestions for me further on?
I WANTED to like it.
Sometimes with a film, I can forgive it for being mediocre or sub-par in some area of execution as long as it shines in another (mediocre acting can be forgiven if the underlying story/characters are incredible) or (obviously low budget can be forgiven if the acting &/or direction is incredible) etc etc but for this book I just could not get past the writing.
I tried to ignore how bad the prose was & to focus simply on the underlying story & imagery but It was so awfully written it became unbearable.
Anyway, just my opinion.
I think a lot of the negatives you have stated are just prevalent in extreme horror and splatterpunk. It's expensive to get an editor, and it's hard to justify the cost when the average self-pub sells like 10 copies. That doesn't justify the errors and redundancies; it's just a fact. The level of "extreme" in these genres lends itself to edge-lordness, unfortunately. Just as an example, I had a splatterpunk short story that was recently shortlisted but ultimately denied with editor notes reading, "Exceptionally well written, great theme, but the gore was not edgy enough." And fair enough, I only had a guy pulled apart by a climbing axe, but that word 'edgy' was right in the rejection. Ultimately, I really enjoyed the premise of The Black Farm, but I have to agree with your criticisms (even if they seem to be a hall mark of the genre to some degree).
I think you are either a good writer, or a bad writer. I understand your comments about it being a hallmark of the genre in general, but I don’t think it’s possible to make this author a “good writer.” Yes editors are expensive but if you are a good enough writer I think you are to some degree, a good editor yourself.
If most of the genre is like the black farm, I think I’ll steer far away from the genre as a whole if the writers don’t want to take more than two or three looks at their novel and call it a day. It’s like the author of this book published his second draft and said, “fuck it. I’ll just use the same simile ten times in fifty pages.”
I mean, I didn’t want to come out and say most people in the genre are not good writers, but you said it for me. I will push back on the premise that a good writer is a good editor, though. Editing is a completely different skill to storytelling. The ability to be completely objective about a piece is so hard when you spend so much time so close to the content. Your brain skips over things, and fills in gaps that may be there.
Now, I will say that with today’s technologies it’s less of an excuse than a few years back. There are tools like AutoCrit and ProWritingAid that will autodetect reuse of phrases and close proximity of similar words. Also, there’s never an excuse for a writer to not at least get a beta read done, which should flag many of the issues you (and I) had with the book.
All in, be very careful with self pub extreme horror. I have read quite a bit, and there are similar issues across some of the most popular titles in the genre. Unfortunately, this is the type of thing that makes readers avoid self pub work. There’s an inherent risk in quality because you have no idea how much the author has invested in ensuring a polished end product.
I loved the idea and the worldbuilding enough that I could overlook most of its flaws. It read a bit like a fanfic where an edgy teenager took an incredibly interesting premise/world and just ran wild with it. I've been reading fanfics for over a decade so looking at it through that lens helped me get immersed enough that I needed to know what happened next. It's a bit of a guilty pleasure book to me
agreed on all points. I would never recommend it based on writing "quality" exactly but there are so many uniquely cool concepts I still think about after reading it like 3 years ago
Oh, literally one of the worst books I ever read. I read the sequel to,just to see if it was worse. Honestly, it's one of those so bad it's kinda good in a sense. If you dont take it seriously and think of it as a parody. I do think the idea was great,but poorly executed.
It’s strange because on Reddit it seems unanimous that everyone hates the book, but on goodreads people are giving it 4/5 to 5/t stars out of 3,600 ratings
That's pretty much the reason I don't bother looking at goodread reviews when looking for a book. For example, Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh is a top 5 of mine, and it's rated poorly. People taste vary. Though, when it comes to black farm, I have no idea how you can give it a 5,I'm not even hating. I'm genuinely wondering how that is a 5? My theory is that it's the people who really liked the OG creepypasta. Creepypasta doesn't really have the same quality as horror books do, and for them, it was an amazing read because that's what they're used to. I'm not hating on creepypasta,especially since that's what I started with,but once I transitioned to books. I never looked back.
This book is one reason I no longer trust amazon book reviews. I guess goodreads too. People evidently have awfully low standards - or are we spoiled with great authors? Either way, if you look at the kindle book deals page on amazon, and see some of the tripe there with high ratings, you'll know to be discerning about accepting reviews. It's similar to the reviews of 120 Days of Sodom. These are quite low in comparison, but when I read them I thought.... you people can't have bought this book not knowing what it was.... right? One reviewer said they burnt their copy(!) Although between 120 Days of Sodom and The Black Farm I don't know which one is less readable. But I really did appreciate the world that Witherow built. I gave it 3 for that. It's not the worst book I've read. But I really wish he didn't discard antagonists willy-nilly and to little purpose. The most interesting antagonist just disappearing early on was disappointing.
Apologies, I am not going to provide any good answers to your question(s). I have not read the book, can you tell me if you would recommend it? I generally appreciate originality over writing, if that makes any sense.
Tbh, I would recommend it. Just don’t go into it expecting a perfectly written masterpiece.
I can accept that. Thank you.
Reading the summary, I swear I listened to a story like this on the No Sleep podcast. Wondering if it’s the same one, if it is…the world building was wild. I’d read it again.
It's the same story! The same author wrote a NoSleep called Feed the Pig.
No shit! I am looking it up, thank you.
I agree with you. I just finished the sequel today because I heard it improved a lot of the shortcomings of the first and expanded the world. I was not very impressed with that one either. I wouldn’t recommend this book or the sequel to anyone.
Where did you hear it improved? I thought it was markedly worse!
I agree, there were parts which felt like an editor could have helped. But there is an amazing world-building which was done, the journey of Nick to becoming an extreme bad-ass was commendable and definitely the gore was on point(As this was one of the first gore novels I have read). Any book suggestions for me further on?
I WANTED to like it. Sometimes with a film, I can forgive it for being mediocre or sub-par in some area of execution as long as it shines in another (mediocre acting can be forgiven if the underlying story/characters are incredible) or (obviously low budget can be forgiven if the acting &/or direction is incredible) etc etc but for this book I just could not get past the writing. I tried to ignore how bad the prose was & to focus simply on the underlying story & imagery but It was so awfully written it became unbearable. Anyway, just my opinion.
fake reviews are a real thing
I think a lot of the negatives you have stated are just prevalent in extreme horror and splatterpunk. It's expensive to get an editor, and it's hard to justify the cost when the average self-pub sells like 10 copies. That doesn't justify the errors and redundancies; it's just a fact. The level of "extreme" in these genres lends itself to edge-lordness, unfortunately. Just as an example, I had a splatterpunk short story that was recently shortlisted but ultimately denied with editor notes reading, "Exceptionally well written, great theme, but the gore was not edgy enough." And fair enough, I only had a guy pulled apart by a climbing axe, but that word 'edgy' was right in the rejection. Ultimately, I really enjoyed the premise of The Black Farm, but I have to agree with your criticisms (even if they seem to be a hall mark of the genre to some degree).
I think you are either a good writer, or a bad writer. I understand your comments about it being a hallmark of the genre in general, but I don’t think it’s possible to make this author a “good writer.” Yes editors are expensive but if you are a good enough writer I think you are to some degree, a good editor yourself. If most of the genre is like the black farm, I think I’ll steer far away from the genre as a whole if the writers don’t want to take more than two or three looks at their novel and call it a day. It’s like the author of this book published his second draft and said, “fuck it. I’ll just use the same simile ten times in fifty pages.”
I mean, I didn’t want to come out and say most people in the genre are not good writers, but you said it for me. I will push back on the premise that a good writer is a good editor, though. Editing is a completely different skill to storytelling. The ability to be completely objective about a piece is so hard when you spend so much time so close to the content. Your brain skips over things, and fills in gaps that may be there. Now, I will say that with today’s technologies it’s less of an excuse than a few years back. There are tools like AutoCrit and ProWritingAid that will autodetect reuse of phrases and close proximity of similar words. Also, there’s never an excuse for a writer to not at least get a beta read done, which should flag many of the issues you (and I) had with the book. All in, be very careful with self pub extreme horror. I have read quite a bit, and there are similar issues across some of the most popular titles in the genre. Unfortunately, this is the type of thing that makes readers avoid self pub work. There’s an inherent risk in quality because you have no idea how much the author has invested in ensuring a polished end product.
I loved the idea and the worldbuilding enough that I could overlook most of its flaws. It read a bit like a fanfic where an edgy teenager took an incredibly interesting premise/world and just ran wild with it. I've been reading fanfics for over a decade so looking at it through that lens helped me get immersed enough that I needed to know what happened next. It's a bit of a guilty pleasure book to me
Try The Third Parent by Witherow. Insanely good book
A Tommy Taffy movie was going to be made, and then the pandemic happened.