There’s now a fan page for Shimmer on Facebook. At first it was going to be a fan page for me, which caused me untold discomfort, even borderline panic. Just how many pictures of myself will I be forced to view? But then I realized it simply needed to be a fan page for the book.

Discomfort and panic are gone.

People can be a fan of the book or not, and there’s no fear, for me, of rampant self-absorption in that.

I did have someone recently write a bad “review” of the book on a blog out there. It can’t really be called an actual book review because it was filled with grammatical mistakes. Can that be a rule? Paragraphs strung together under the pretense of being a “review” cannot be called a “review” if said paragraphs are peppered with grammatical mistakes. And we’re not talking about a single mistake. And we’re not talking about the loose grammatical rules of a blog or email.

For instance: “Having never bought the original premise, on the trickery of their sales, it was impossible for me to be hooked on the notion that one man could perpetrate such a major global fraud with or without the aid of a system called SHIMMER.”

That’s just a nonsense sentence. I don’t care if you don’t buy the premise of the novel. So be it. Just don’t talk nonsense about the premise.

Another rule I’m putting forward is that the rampant use of clichés negates one’s self-proclaimed standing as a “reviewer.” For example, the “reviewer” uses these little gems: “In a nutshell,” “throw in the towel,” and “In short, you need to make the cake, before you think about the frosting.”

I’m not sure that last one qualifies as a cliché. But it’s certainly dumb.

And that’s the last rule, I think: You can’t say dumb things and be a “reviewer.” For instance:

- Shimmer is a “rags to riches story.” [It just isn’t, in any way whatsoever.]
- Mixing past and present tense is a “grievous writing error.” [I’d like to read his review of The Sound & The Fury.]
- The book contains “very little action, especially in the beginning chapters, where we are inundated with observation after observation….” [Huh?]

That last point is especially disconcerting. It becomes fairly clear through the course of the “review” that the reader expected some kind of pot boiling thriller. Shimmer is not a pot-boiler. It really isn’t even a thriller. Unbridled has called it a literary thriller and a high tech thriller, and I can live with that, because those are descriptions of an atypical thriller.

But Shimmer is by no means a thriller in anything like the classic − or commercial − sense. It’s a moral tale, I think, about the decisions the narrator, Robbie, has made. At some points, the story and plot move quickly. And some readers have said they couldn’t put it down. But, also, it does in fact include many observations. And many scenes where there is very little action. Even no action at all. In some scenes, in fact, no one does anything. They just – to use a literary phrase — sort of think about stuff.

Somehow this all reminds me of a headline I saw that referenced “Rampant Ponzimonium”. I’m starting to think every white collar crime will, for a few years, be called a Ponzi scheme. The ubiquitous label for all failed investment firms.

Labels and catchphrases take on a life of their own. Ponzi scheme, Ponzimonium, a High Tech Literary Thriller. If the expectation of the book gets framed and defined by labels like that, I fear people will be disappointed. The book is the book, in the end. And you want your book to be read in isolation, for itself, on its own terms.

But that isn’t entirely possible, I suppose. It will be read in a context I can’t control.

So I guess I should embrace it. Bring on the Shimmer Ponzimonium.

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