Self-Publishing WELCOME TO THE MADHOUSE: A Writer's Odyssey

Self-Publishing Welcome To The Madhouse: Chapter Nine: Editorial Evaluation

Chapter Nine: Editorial Evaluation

Part of my package included an Author Editorial Evaluation of the manuscript. FriesenPress.com hires freelance editors to read and comment on the manuscripts of authors who wish to self-publish. The editor was asked to read my manuscript (up to 70,000 words) and write a critique as well as write an 'About the Book' summary and an 'About the Author' summary to go on the book covers. The editor was also asked to provide Keywords and BISAC recommendations. The BISAC Subject Codes are used to categorize books based on the topical content of the manuscript.

Below is the Editorial Evaluation I received on Welcome to the Madhouse (minus one section, which is far too much of a spoiler for readers who have not read Welcome to the Madhouse).

I felt all of the comments by the editor were appropriate and helpful. I took all of the recommendations and made the corresponding changes in my manuscript. I hope this will make Welcome to the Madhouse a much better novel. I am grateful to FriesenPress for choosing an editor who is familiar with the science fiction genre and I am grateful to the editor for his or her evaluation.

Editorial Evaluation

Welcome to the Madhouse by S.E. Sasaki

Often times when a writer first tests the waters of science fiction, they end up splashing around and producing soggy manuscripts, heavy with muddied genre trapping but with very little else going on. For a science fiction fan (and most who try their hand at writing a SF novel are fans) it can be intoxicating to chart a course into an untouched galaxy, and it's easy to lose track of where one is going. I must say Welcome to the Madhouse does not suffer from this. What S.E. Sasaki has produced here is a novel that is well thought out and credible (for the most part). The characters - though colourful to be sure - are not shallow, clichéd genre caricatures; they are properly fleshed out individuals. The various story arcs, both large and small, are interesting and work well together. And the setting aboard the Conglomerate Medical Space Station Nelson Mandela is nicely rendered. All of this comes together in a novel that is at times funny and at times harrowing and thought-provoking. More impressive, however, is that for all the whiz-bang genre bells and whistles of this science fiction novel, the stories it tells are human in scale, which is why it holds the attention of the reader. One of the best SF manuscripts I've evaluated in the last couple of years, I have little doubt that it will find an appreciative readership.

About the Book

Doctor Grace Lord, a lieutenant in the Conglomerate Medical Corps, has come to the Medical Space Station Nelson Mandela as the new surgical fellow under the renowned Doctor Hiro Al-Fadi. Though she earned her commission as a combat surgeon in the field, she is unprepared for the scope and pace of what awaits her in Conglomerate's premier Medical Space Station. The countless cryopods that come into Nelson Mandela are filled with the casualties of Conglomerate's animal adapted military forces. Traumatically injured and disfugured in campaigns spread across the galaxy, it is up to the Medical Corps to patch them up for redeployment. For Grace it is a trial by fire as she familiarizes herself not only with the routines and protocols of life on the Nelson Mandela, but also with the eclectic community of professionals with whom she works - not the least of which is an android that has taken an almost human interest in her. When disaster strikes the space station, the Nelson Mandela must race against time to stave off annihilation, and it becomes clear that, regardless of the outcome, nothing will ever be the same again.

About the Author

S.E. Sasaki is a physician with a B.Sc. in Biology and an M.Sc. in Neurophysiology. When she is not writing, she works as a surgical assistant, doing emergency surgery. Welcome to the Madhouse was short-listed for a Watty Award for Best Original Novel in the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre for 2013.