Re-hashed introductory synopsis

The Cortras brothers accidentally kill the nephew of the crime lord Judah Bathierre. They flee the city of Gomorrah in fear of their lives. The brothers believe they’ll slip Bathierre’s reach if they get into the walled city called Capital. As the Cortras brothers cross the desert they encounter a man wandering the waste alone. The brothers believe him to be the heathen terrorist, Ilu Drystani, and hope to collect the reward for the man’s arrest. The stranger joins the Cortras brothers. He doesn’t tell them about the voice that’s been following him.

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Pazuzu Trilogy Readability Scores and Minimum Age Recommendation

As I’ve been curious about my writing’s readability, I’ve run some strictly layman readability tests.  The results of the tests indicate I’m hitting my targets.  Below are averaged scores from my trilogy and two other books.

Flesch - reading ease formula, 60 – 70 is acceptable
Range: 69.03 – 76, Average: 72.42    Score: Fairly Easy

Flesh-Kincaid - grade-level indicator
Range: 5.29 – 6.65, Average: 5.912    Score: Sixth Grade

FOG - complexity, lower number is better, 6 – 7 is ideal
Range: 6.7 – 8.7, Average: 7.46        Score: Fairly Easy

SMOG - grade-level indicator
Range: 6.09 – 7.89, Average: 7.46    Score: Eighth Grade

ARI - per word understandability, also grade-level indicator
Range: 4.41 – 5.56, Average: 5.03    score: Sixth Grade

Summary:

Based on the findings and the my familiarity with the contents of my books, I’d recommend the minimum age of the reader to be thirteen years old.

Other than the age restriction the books are rated to be just a little more difficult to understand than writing by Mark Twain.

Visit the Pazuzu Trilogy web page here.

Purchase Pazuzu Trilogy books here.

Synopsis for “Gaunt Rainbow” by Matthew Sawyer (warning: spoilers)

Gaunt Rainbow is set in a bleak dystopia twenty years after a pivotal event in the war between the Chosen caste and heathens; the destruction of the walled city called Capital.

Pamela, a young woman nicknamed “Rainbow”, is cursed to drain life from living beings so that she remains in perfect health. As a girl, a self-proclaimed messiah, a pubescent boy, cured her blindness. Pamela believes the boy also resurrected her after she died in a fire during Capital’s destruction. Her curse began after coming back to life. Pamela goes into the Shur desert to find him in hopes he’ll remove the curse.

The hunt is ended the day Pamela leaves the encampment. A sniper kills her. Eight years pass before Pamela is resurrected in the isolation of the desert. Her money and supplies are missing, despite the corpses and abandoned vehicles surrounding Pamela when she awoke. She goes to Gomorrah to restock her supplies.

Pamela meets her old friends, Tee and Ruth, and learns about a new city, called New Babel, the heathens are building from the spoils of the war with the Chosen. The city lays to the south, in the deep desert. It is rumored the messiah disappeared in the south.

Pamela accompanies Tee and a stranger, Dil Cortras, to New Babel until she is killed by a land mine. She recovers two months later when Dil brings dogs to fuel her regeneration. Dil reveals he knows about her curse and a demon wants to speak with her.

Two demons, Behemoth and Pazuzu, consult with Pamela. Behemoth wants to preserve the new gods that have come to the world, Pazuzu wants to use Pamela to drive them away. The demons, and their acolytes, habitually use lies and deceit until Pamela decides her fate.