Just got a lovely if a bit cunty haha review for Green Sunday so I thought, what with being a nepotistic shitlord I’d fire back and write a lovely review for the talented author and fellow traveller R A Sewell.

So thar she blows (that has literally nothing to do with the plot nor the quality of the work, I don’t know why I wrote that, probably because it’s a sort of nautical story but I can’t remove it now because I’ve written out this explanation, fuck it here’s the review).

I’m so sorry, I guess this rates my overall maturity level, as soon as I saw the captains name was James Woods, I instantly cast him as the actor James Woods and couldn’t stop thinking about videodrome (hence the odd title of my review).

Just had to get that out the way ha.

Now to the review.

I just read the first chapter so far and I thought the story was pretty good, I don’t usually like when stories get right into the action but this really actually catches you off guard. You almost feel exactly as I imagine the crew of the boat feel, caught completely with their trousers down.
It’s very pulp, with the femme fatal and the visceral violence, I really enjoyed the description of the gun fire and the use of sensory information. You could literally smell the bullets as they were fired and it added a whole new level to the description and put me right in the room.
Instantly it reminded me of a classic action movie from the mid-nineties like Die Hard three or something and that I really enjoyed, I loved that period of gritty, yet slightly campy/pulpy action movies.
The plot I found a little trouble with, not a lot is given to why this happening, I know right, der money but there are hints there that it’s something more with the mysterious tattoo. But I had to mark this a little lower just because I thought the plot was a little contrived, I liked what was happening but how could these terrorists/thieves/nebulous bad guys sneak up on this giant super tanker and take it over in a matter of moments?
Surely they have armed guards on a super tanker or radar or something they could use to detect pirates, it’s not like you really sneak up on someone in the indian ocean, least of all a giant super tanker named the ‘Goliath’, probably crewed by hundred of people, all not watching the horizon or any device that might tell them a ship full of heavily armed dudes is coming to rob them.
I do have faith though that this is probably elucidated on later in the plot but I was a little annoyed that it wasn’t made clear that it was night time at the start of the chapter or listed on the date stamp. I’m sitting here imagining this is all happening mid-morning while they still have croissant crumbs on their shirts you know. Just a time stamp or just a little description of the night would go a long way to setting the scene and adding more plausibility to them being boarded like that without them having a clue.
I loved all the technical language in regard to the boat ‘stuff’, I didn’t understand any of it, but I’m sure somebody who knew anything about boats would, and that’s the point, it’s add something.
Frankly I don’t have much to say about the writing style and the grammar and punctuation, it’s very professional and very competent and it shows what I’m guessing is a lot of experience, so I can’t fault it in the slightest.
The only thing I feel like sticking to you for is fact you didn’t delete the ‘start writing here…’ bit. Schoolboy error mate haha.
I was reading the end thinking ‘Start writing here? they just got on a lifeboat, why are they writing, what?’ then I realised.
It’s not big deal, takes two seconds to fix, I just thought my being confounded at it for a few minutes was slightly amusing.

Overall I really liked it and I would read on and recommend it.

If you wanna read it you can check it out on inkitt by following this glowing title Black Gold.

Cheers.