Author: Bruce Levine;
Genre: Science-Fiction;
Format: Kindle ebook.
Rating: 
(3 / 5)
A human who travels through space doing odd transport jobs (and conning others) makes a fateful stop at his favorite bar and has a chance to win a contest that would set him up for life. All he has to do is tell the best ghost story.
His seven competitors are diverse species from all over the galaxy, and each tells a story that includes their own society and vocabulary. The author cleverly uses this device to describe the different beings and their environments. This doesn’t always lead to easy reading, but I applaud Mr. Levine’s vivid imagination.
The story is filled with sarcasm and humor, poking fun at our own history and society. I enjoyed the story overall, but it has some serious shortcomings that keep it from being ready for publishing, especially at these pricepoints.
The Kindle version includes lots of inconsistencies in word use, punctuation, and grammar, missing words, and plenty of typos that should have been corrected by a copyeditor before publishing.
As for the formatting, there are plenty of text spacing issues and different sizes of text, too; these cause breaks in concentration and take the reader out of the story.
These issues are easily fixed by a professional, and I strongly suggest the author commit the time and money to have his work polished. His book is worth it.