Anita Hasch, $2.99, ISBN 978-1005821746
Fantasy, 2021
It’s probably not a good sign when I look at the title of this thing, experience a momentary existential crisis—oh my god, have I been wrong in assuming that you use an “an” and not an “a” for “island” all this while?—only to breathe a sigh of relief when several English grammar websites assure me that I am correct. Still, I guess I should respect the author’s creative liberties with the English language, so Shipwrecked on a Island it is.
I read this thing because I’m bored of the usual fare at the moment, and an adventure of this kind seems like a nice way to gain back the muse.
So, I turn to the first page.
Long long ago, there was a terrible storm. The wind blew viciously and the waves were terrifying. It battered the huge wooden sailing ship the ‘Alberta,’ which was on its way to the new world. The ‘Alberta’ was loaded with provisions and animals being taken to the new world which was later named America. And then the Alberta struck a sandbank and was lodged against some rocks.
Ah, so this is a work of historical fiction? Fine by me!
The sailors panicked, they lowered the rescue boats and jumped in desperation. But alas the small boats had no chance against the enormous waves. It bashed their boats against the rocks and some boats were overturned by the huge waves. All the sailors perished except Freddy who stayed behind to look after the animals. Yes Freddy’s job was to look after the animals on board. They were being taken to the new world for the farmers that were starting to clean large tracts of land to start farming.
Freddy loved his animals and when the other sailors shouted at him to come and get in the lifeboat and save himself, he shouted back, “Go I’m staying with my animals,” and guys he was the only one that survived. Had the other sailors only realized how close to the island they were and stayed on board, they too would have been saved.
Uh… what am I reading?
The next morning was calm, Freddy looked out over the ocean and saw that the Alberta had been wrecked close to an island. But he could see no lifeboats. Then he heard a child crying. He ran to the other side of the ship and looked over board. He saw a life boat floating close to the ‘Alberta.’ He could not see anything in it but the crying was definitely coming from the lifeboat.
He was worried that the weather could change before he had taken all the animals to shore. He prayed that the Alberta would not break loose and get smashed on the rocks, but he had to rescue whoever was in the boat. They would also need the boat to reach the island.
So, people may have died, but hey, save the animals first, am I right? How did that kid manage to survive a bad storm anyway? Wait, is he Aquaman’s granddaddy?
So he let down the rope ladder and climbed down to the lifeboat which was drifting close to the ‘Alberta.’ He swam to the boat and soon reached it. To his astonishment he recognised the captain’s four-year-old son Tommy. With deep sorrow he realized that the captain and his wife must have perished. Tommy had been placed in a large sleeping bag which was secured with ropes to the boat’s bench. Tommy stopped crying when he saw Freddy as he had often come with his mother to look at the animals.
Alright, how do we know Tommy didn’t push his parents overboard? He could have been an acolyte of Dagon or Cthulhu for we know.
Sigh. So I keep reading, and reading, and reading, while my brain keeps protesting and asking me why I am subjecting it to so much amateurish writing.
It did not look like the sailor was alive but just maybe he was. Freddy made a quick decision. He placed the articles that he had collected in the lifeboat and carefully rowed around the ‘Alberta’ towards the flat rock. Luckily the ocean was still calm. He threw the anchor down when he was a few feet away and swam towards the rock.
Climbing onto the rock, he reached the sailor. He was astonished when he turned the sailor around and recognised the captain’s wife. She had dressed as a sailor when they got onto the lifeboat. Freddy made her sit up and hit her on her back, he thought she was dead and was relieved when she gasped. She was very weak as she had spent the night in the cold and had been washed onto the rocks by an enormous wave. Then she started screaming, “Tommy, Tommy.”
“Don’t worry, Tommy is alright. He is on the Island. Come, we need to get to the Island before it’s too late. The wind is starting again.”
“Is Tommy really there,” she asked.
“Yes, come on now.” And he held onto her while they climbed down from the rocks. He told her to float on her back while he held onto her and swam to the lifeboat.
In the boat the captain’s wife Sheila laid down and he covered her with blankets. The calves and pigs would have to be fetched in the morning as it was dangerous to go back to ‘Alberta.’ He had left them with enough food and water and just prayed that the ‘Alberta’ would not come adrift.
On shore he took Sheila to Tommy and the reunion was touching. Sheila recovered quickly now that she knew that Tommy was safe. Freddy walked along the beach looking for a place that they could spend the night.
The dogs ran ahead and he watched as they disappeared behind a rock. He called but they did not come.
Okay, it’s a relief to know that Tommy isn’t an Old One-worshiping kid from hell. Then again, look at that. Look at that. This is not how one writes an exciting tale of adventure and drama. The whole thing reads like a kid’s first time writing effort.
I bail when all of a sudden the dragons show up. Yes, dragons. Nowhere up to that point did the story suggest that it is anything more than a badly-written mundane story, and my brain just can’t process anything anymore. All my synapses are short circuiting, just like they did when Daenerys Targaryen showed up with the dragons in that meme of a scene in the final season of Game of Thrones.
This story doesn’t need dragons. It needs an editor, or a ghostwriter, or anyone, anything, that can savagely beat this thing into something remotely worth the $2.99 that any unwary sucker had to pay to be sucked into this terrifyingly amateurish story.
