Rob Heinze

Whenever an author starts his or her book with disclaimers, the reader should wonder a little about what he or she has gotten into. Author Rob Heinze begins "The Swarm" with an apology about the typos and grammatical errors found in copious amounts throughout the novel. OK, I can deal with that and those errors don't really detract that much from the story (once you get used to them, anyway). What I had trouble with though, was the pacing of the plot. The book starts off strong with a creative story dealing with hundreds of residents from a small island town who suddenly become affected by a strange and powerful urge to "swarm" to the island's beaches. It's soon apparent that not everyone on the island is affected and becomes part of "The Swarm". So, it's up to those few to decipher what force or outside agency has affected the majority of the island's occupants and caused them to partake in an activity which I will leave unreported in this review. (Sorry for the tease, but let's just say that the beach activity would certainly earn this book an "R" rating if it was a movie.)

Heinze spends approximately half of the novel dealing with, and describing the strange beach activity thus creating another reason why a good editor could have helped this book. When he finally gets around to telling the reader "why" this is happening, the explanation seems weak and rushed. A novel that started with great "hook" let this reader down with a plot that just seems to run out of steam.

Heinze does show some promise and I hope he will continue to publish his work (maybe with the help of an editor) because he does demonstrate that he has a good imagination. His effort to develop the large of characters in this novel is admirable. I just wish he would have been able to flesh out the plot and ending to "The Swarm" as well.… (mehr)