It's been raining a lot here lately. In fact, I'm not sure I've seen more than a day of sunny weather in about a month. It stinks because I really need to stain my deck, and I can't because it's always raining. I should have done it back in the summer, but whatever. It was hot. I wanted to do it now. Stupid weather. 
 Also, I think I've spent those same three weeks (or month, my sense of time sucks) reading this book. I wonder if the weather altered my mood enough to make me be a bit sour on the experience. 
 True fact coming up, so be prepared... I was really looking forward to reading this. I'd read nothing about it, but liked the cover, and heard several interviews with the author about the podcast realm over the past year or so, and many of the things he said I found intriguing. 
 Another true fact, I, way back in March of 2011, submitted my novel to the Angry Robot open submissions window they had back in... um... March of that year. I don't recall tons of details about it, but I do remember that I had a last minute change of heart about my title and quickly whipped up something entirely different before I made the submission. They'd called for the first 5 chapters and said they would get back in touch later. I heard absolutely nothing for months and months, until, one day, while on vacation during the fourth of July weekend, I was checking my emails and lo and behold, what did I have in my inbox? An email from Angry Robot: 
 ....I don't think that title is going to fly. However, I enjoyed what I read, and would like to read more. Please send the full novel to... 
 That title I put in there really did suck. Hard. But regardless, they wanted the full manuscript. I emailed a person I'd let read my novel, but hadn't had a chance to critique it, and begged him to have it ready for me as quick as he could, because I had a date with destiny. I figured since they asked for the full after reading the first 5 chapters, then I was good to go there, just needed to make sure the next 25 chapters or so at least maintained some reading pleasure. 
 So, my friend critiqued the rest of the novel, I made some minor revisions, and then fired off my full manuscript to the fine folks at Angry Robot. 
 Wow, hard to believe that was just over 3 years ago. It feels much longer. 
 Then, later that year, not much later, maybe a month or so, I got a follow up email from my fine friends at my new favorite publishing house: 
 Thank you for sending us your full manuscript. After careful consideration, we have decided not to take your submission to the next stage. I realise that this is not the news you were hoping for, but I hope you will take some comfort from the fact that yours was one of just a handful of novels we requested after reading the initial submission. 
 I would like to wish you the very best of luck in placing your manuscript elsewhere. 
 And just like that. My dreams were crushed. I wanted to make them feel all my pain and suffering. I'd written the damn thing in 2006 (or maybe 2005, I forget) and had gone over draft after draft, revised it. Made my heart bleed trying to make this damn piece of shit book into something worthy of being read. 
 And those folks just said, 'no thanks.' 
 At the time, I was floored, seriously, in the same way that having your favorite team lose in the Superbowl hurts so much worse than if they just sucked all season long. I understand logically that my team losing in the Superbowl means that they were (arguably) the second best team in the entire league. So why does it make me feel like my team is such an epic failure? 
 I dunno, but that's the same way it felt when they told me they didn't want my novel. My precious, precious novel. 
 The years wore on, I forgot the heartache, I wrote other things. I decided that submitting to publishers sucks balls, and wrote mostly for myself. Then, like, two months ago, my real life writer's group decided to start critiquing novels (as opposed to short stories, as we've always done previously) and mine went up pretty quick as the book of the month. 
 So I dusted this bad boy off, and gave it a quick once over. Ugh. What a steaming pile of shit that was. I did another revision, focusing mostly on the language this time, not so much with the story itself. By the time I was done with it, honestly, I felt like it was pretty damn good. I had as much fun reading (post changes) as I could hope to expect. 
 Fast forward to my trip to Florida for my vacation. Here's this book (not my book, this one, the one I'm supposed to be reviewing) that I've been wanting to read for some time now. I'd been saving it for this trip even. Just because I didn't want to go on my trip and not enjoy what I was reading, I made that mistake last year. I knew this one was going to be really good. 
 And so I read it. And I had some major problems with it. God, I was so disappointed. I had problems with almost every part of that novel. The prose, the plot, the pacing, the... damn, I had problems all round with this. I was irritated, annoyed, angry.... It was like I spent two weeks on a cruise ship only to discover that it was a fishing boat instead. 
 Part of that, I'm sure, had to do with my expectations. But it honestly reminded me of a lot of the self-published work that I've read and get frustrated by (and to continue with my theme of being honest, that I've created). It just wasn't a professionally crafted story. It was good. It really was. It's a million dollar premise. It's just that the execution wasn't there. 
 In my head, I created this narrative of the author, I can see that this guy has potential, there is a charm to his manner of storytelling. Even the boring parts (of which there are many) have a sort of quality about them that compels you to read more. I feel like this was a manuscript that was almost ready, but not quite. They just didn't, for whatever reason, have the foresight to cut about 150 pages from this and turn it into a more compelling read. 
 So, in the end, I thought it was okay. Not great, and not bad either. Or rather, bad, but with enough good in there to make the net enjoyment of the book come out as a wash. 
 It happens sometimes, this is the author's first published novel, I'm sure there will be a world of improvement in the stories that follow. I'd made my peace with that. 
 Then I read the acknowledgements. And I shit myself. 
 This guy submitted this to the Angry Robot open door window in 2011. This is the guy that bumped me! They passed on my novel to give this one a shot instead. 
 Son. Of. A. Bitch. I feel the hurt all over again. 
 If you want to find me. I'll be the guy getting drunk and throwing shit at the wall. I just gave this guy grief for writing a ho-hum novel and I find out that the experts chose it over my work of genius (that's sarcasm people). So not only did I feel a bit underwhelmed while on vacation. I get a reality check about my own writing. Goddammit.