Book review: Maelstrom - by Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Scarborough

Maelstrom - by Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Scarborough

Don't bother. Just don't bother. It is the Nth book in the Twins of Petaybee series and I have no regrets about not having read any of the earlier ones. Did Anne McCaffrey really have any hand in this dross?

I wondered throughout the book if it was in fact intended as a children's book. It certainly lacked any kind of sophistication in its characterisation, storyline, etc. However, Brisbane City Council had it listed as adult fiction, and Amazon reviewers gave it 5 stars (out of 5). Generally I have found Amazon reviews pretty useful assessments, but in this case they praised the book and I thought it was just awful.

Of course, I have long held that any work of fiction written by Foo & Bar is bound to be a disaster. Now this opinion is based on statistical observation that I rarely like novels written by two (or more) people. Logically I cannot rationalise why novels written by multiple authors should be bad. After all people collaborate to make TV and movies and music, and that seems to work, but put two people in front of a typewriter and it seems to spell disaster.