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<\/a>Gus Koernig had the unusual distinction of anchoring evening news broadcasts for both KULR-8 and KTVQ-2 in Billings before moving to Arizona in 2005. There he writes news stories for iHeartMedia, has ghostwritten five nonfiction books and now is the co-author of his first work of fiction.<\/p>\n
Writing the novel, Koernig says on the web page of Southwest Creative Group, \u201cis far and away the most fun I\u2019ve ever had as a writer.\u201d It had better be: \u201cThe Redemption of Lonnie Tate Book One: The Pentangelo Group\u201d is the first in an anticipated trilogy of connected novels.<\/p>\n
Koernig\u2019s partner in the project is Loren Marsters, a Vietnam veteran and ad copy writer who has written a couple of theater pieces: \u201cA Day in the Life of a Night at the Dance\u201d and \u201cDomestic Violence the Musical?\u201d<\/p>\n
Marsters, also of Mesa, Arizona, hatched the idea for the project by submitting a couple of dozen pages to Koernig. They worked together on the self-published novel for three-and-a-half years and are trying to market it while also working on the next book in the series.<\/p>\n
On YouTube, you can find a couple of videos of positive<\/a> reviews<\/a> the book has gotten, as well as an interview of Koernig<\/a> by KTVQ newsman Ed McIntosh. An Amazon.com analysis of customer reviews gives the book 4.9 out of five stars.<\/p>\n Gus Koernig<\/p><\/div>\n As much as I like and respect Koernig, who was once kind enough to speak to my journalism class, this will not be a five-star review. Let\u2019s start with a couple of things that annoy me more than they probably should.<\/p>\n One is that this 323-page book contains 140 chapters. Short chapters are not necessarily a bad thing. Kurt Vonnegut crammed 127 chapters into an even shorter novel, \u201cCat\u2019s Cradle.\u201d<\/a> But Vonnegut wrote in an epigrammatic style that made those short chapters feel, if not complete, at least logical and connected.<\/p>\n None of that applies to \u201cLonnie Tate.\u201d Here the chapter breaks make sense in some places, but often they seem random, as if they were imposed by some outside force. That doesn\u2019t do much for continuity, which already was a weak point. And even though each chapter is scrupulously, if sometimes confusedly, titled, no table of contents lights the way for the wandering reader.<\/p>\n Second is that the authors use a lot<\/em> of italics to show how they intend certain passages to be read. Italics to show emphasis can<\/em> be helpful, but reading them begins to feel<\/em> like trying to learn a computer program from someone who insists of hitting every<\/em> key for you. Typographical tricks are supposed<\/em> to provide guidance, not<\/em> impose marching orders.<\/p>\n OK, that\u2019s just being petty, especially about a book that does a lot of things right. Aside from a couple of egregious errors on the book cover itself, the book is nearly free from typos, misused words, dangling participles and other annoying hazards of the self-publishing trade. The democratization of the printing business has had many virtues, but its vices include free admission into the business of novices whose work, if they were auto mechanics, would get them reported to the Better Business Bureau.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gus-Koernig.png\")
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<\/a><\/div><\/div>That is not the case in \u201cLonnie Tate,\u201d and one suspects that Koernig gets the credit for the clean flow of the copy in this novel. Before deviating into broadcast journalism, he served a stint with the Associated Press, an organization that rewards precision in writing more than it does imagination.<\/p>\n