Two thumbs down for iUniverse

Obviously shopping on Amazon for books has become a bit more complicated, as now readers must be aware that there are self-publishing ventures which feel no obligation to maintain any sort of pretense toward being professional quality. I recently ordered a book titled _Imminent Darkness_, published by iUniverse, which has provided a very sad lesson in this regard.

I paid full price for a book which is barely readable. Paragraphs are poorly formatted, and often there is no new paragraph for when conversation switches between characters.
There is missing punctuation, at times resulting in misspellings such as "rent a cop." There is obviously missing text, usually in the previously-mentioned poorly-formatted conversations, which makes these conversations even more difficult to parse.

At this point I feel compelled to point out that there is a perfectly good reason why "he said" and "she said" exist: it is to save the sanity of poor benighted readers. Adding more descriptive prose around the dialogue is not an adequate substitute for those two little words. Indeed, it is the writing equivalent of pouring on more cheap dimestore perfume with the hope that it will mask the odors of poor personal hygiene and stale cigarette smoke. No one is fooled by these superficial ploys! Nothing says "freshman writer" like a person who cannot bring herself to use a simple "s/he said." .

My final word on the subject is that I would strongly warn other readers from wasting their money on iuniverse or their works.

Miles Vorkosigan and Lord Peter Wimsey: twins separated at birth?

The Narrative Inquirer wants to know!

Consider the evidence:

Miles and Peter both initially take up investigating murder as a means of mental therapy.

Both Miles and Peter acquired damage due to war: Miles's physical disabilities are due to an attack upon his mother while she was pregnant with Miles, while Peter's damage is psychological and is due to serving in WWI.

Both Miles and Peter are adept at creating and adopting multiple personae, sometimes to the detriment of being able to distinguish their "real" selves.

Both Miles and Peter are children of multi-cultural mothers who made certain that their sons had an appreciation for cultures outside of their own.

Both Miles and Peter have flaky sidekicks: Miles has his cousin Ivan, and Peter has his friend Freddy Arbuthnot, and there are indications that both of these seemingly flighty young gentlemen might be more clever than they let on.

Both Miles and Peter are good at communicating across class, even in the very class-conscious systems into which each is born, and also across gender, nationality, and even species, and both "collect" individuals with a variety of knowledge and expertise.

Both Miles and Peter encourage women to be smart, strong, independent, and professionally successful.

Both Miles and Peter have a difficult time winning the woman they actually want.

I think I and my fellow cub reporter LJ user alexx_kay may have had some additional points, but that is all I can think of for now.