“It (Alcohol) brings out the devil in some men and takes their soul away,” Emery answered staunchly. “I’ve seen many a good man ravaged by the drink.”

Winston is a disgraceful alcoholic (or drinkwater) and presumed murderer of his father, Lord Tabor. Cyrus Everett is Lord Tabor’s bailiff who falsely accuses Winston of murdering his father and almost murders Winston as well. However, Winston is taken in by an old man, Emery, who nurses him back to health and teaches him how to defend himself with a sword.

The story then goes on to show how Winston learns to stay away from the drink, becomes a knight and plans his revenge against Cyrus who is wreaking havoc on Winston’s family and village.

I normally enjoy medieval tales, but I just did not like the main character and it spoiled the whole story for me. I found Winston to be a fool, even when he became a knight and I didn’t think he deserved the lordship or the girl he professed to love because I felt that the men who helped him did most of the work for him.

All in all I found the story and the characters quite boring. ( )

Drinkwater is a tale about a knight and how he overcomes problems with drinking and family. Told in first person, this was a great story. A little slow moving at first but very good. ( )

Drinkwater is an entertaining tale in need of a good editor. The story and plot are sound and the pace of the book doesn't lag. However, the dialog is stilted and awkward at times. It reads a bit like an AA manual and is somewhat preachy. The author needs a trusted and able friend to read through the story and iron it out for him. Keep working on the story, it's worth it! ( )

You know, I must be quite thick-headed. When I saw Otto Scamfer’s Drinkwater: A Sobering Tale about a Medieval Knight offered up as a Member Giveaway, I somehow failed to notice that alcoholism was its primary focus, despite the fact that the title contains two puns on drinking and sobriety. Working off of the description the author provided, I fancied it to be a fun historical swashbuckler that just happened to have a drunkard as its hero, which seemed to me a pretty original touch. Imagine my surprise when the e-text arrived in my inbox, and turned out to be little better than an anti-alcohol tract with a plot attached!

I relate this story mostly to provide a bit of background, as I realize these circumstances may have biased me against it. In the end, though, I feel its faults speak for themselves.

The unlikely hero of our story is Winston Tabor, a lord’s son and more than a bit of a sot. As the story opens, his father Lord Tabor has just been assassinated by the bailiff, Cyrus Everett, in such a way to make it look as though Winston were responsible. Warned by his beloved tutor (Prince Caspian, anyone?), the drunken youth escapes to the woods, pursued by Cyrus. The drink having dulled his sentences, he is unable to make much of a defense against the bailiff, and is left almost dead in an obscure corner of the forest. Luckily, a hermit discovers him there, brings him into his home, and proceeds to nurse him back to health. (Lesson: no matter how obscure a corner of the forest one finds, there is bound to be a helpful hermit wandering there. You just can’t get away from them.) Winston spends the rest of the book recovering from alcoholism, falling in love, befriending various medieval personages, and planning his revenge upon Cyrus.

I have probably already made it clear that the plot is almost painfully predictable. It contains all the Important and Necessary Events one would expect from such a book as this, with nary a variation to make them interesting. As I read, I found myself mentally making such remarks as, “Oh, she married him? Of course. Oh, yeah, she died. Of course. And now he died. Of course. He’s trying to marry her? Of course.” Now, I’m not saying I have to be surprised at every turn, but the problem lies in the “Of course.” Every time a variety of situations might arise, it is always the least surprising and least original that came to pass. Always.

The characters, likewise, are cardboard cut-outs. Cyrus Everett has no personal qualities aside from being Bad and Fat. Indeed, as the novel wears on, Winston-as-narrator uses his proper name less and less and starts calling him just “the fat man,” and not in a cool Maltese Falcon way either; this struck me as being more than a little offensive. Emery is your conventional Old Hermit Man except that, in a bizarre twist, he reveals that he once travelled to the East with Marco Polo, which not only makes him Multicultural but also means that he can teach his guest Epic Eastern Sword-Fighting Skillz That Will Completely Bewilder His Dastardly Foes. Donovan is the Lovable Rogue who unexpectedly does everyone a Good Turn. Meranda is Love Interest. Eric is the Childhood Friend with Big Muscles and Soldiers. Oh, and then there’s the Black Knight, who may possibly be the most stereotypical, undeveloped, and unnecessary villain I’ve ever encountered. As for Winston himself, he vacillates between Irresponsible Sot, Lovelorn Fool, and Ruthless Killing Machine. There is no in-between.

Now, onto the alcoholism issue. I agree with Scamfer that this is a problem, and I would have liked to have seen a complex fictional exploration of that problem, but these sections are handled in so preachy and didactic a manner that the presentation rather hurts his intended message than helps it. Oftentimes, message does take precedence over story, which should never happen in a novel. Moreover, his moral point here is rather undercut by some of the content elsewhere. The romance between Winston and Meranda is so sudden and poorly developed that one cannot help but wonder if it has to do with anything more with physical appearance; for an author who refers to traditional Christianity so often within his book, such a romance is unnervingly skin-deep. Most disturbing is the sheer amount of bloodthirstiness Winston exhibits. Revenge plots are always complicated from a moral perspective, but I don’t think I have ever before been asked to take a hero’s assertion that he enjoys killing his enemies at face value.

But probably the thing that bothered me most consistently was the writing. To begin with, Scamfer hasn’t the faintest idea of how to punctuate a sentence, and totally ignores the necessity of a comma in cases of direct address. Instead of “you Winston” it should be “you, Winston”; instead of “where do you live Meranda?” it should be “where do you live, Meranda?”; etc. There are many more examples of grammatical and stylistic awkwardness, but this review is far too long already.

Perhaps Drinkwater’s faults are not such to arouse the disapproval of all kinds of readers, but it mystifies me how certain Amazon reviewers can proclaim it the best novel they’ve read in recent years. On the other hand, it is by far the worst novel I hope to read for many a year to come. ( )

Drinkwater by otto scamfer is a good read! it is a book about one man's struggle with alcohol, his triumphs, it tells of the rewards of good friendships entwined with a little romance it assist everyday individuals into believing that they can make their impossible Possible. It not only contains good advise for those struggling with alcoholism but for those who feel "beaten down" and worn by what we call "lifes impossiblities".
A guaranteed good read! A good book to take on vacation. ( )