"Sue me for not being Flaubert," Jakes once told
People contributor Susan Schindehette. "I've given it the best shot I can." But Martin H. Greenberg and Walter Herrscher, writing in the
Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1983, lauded Jakes as "a natural storyteller" whose body of work is consistently characterized by "attention to detail, careful plotting, epic sweep, and--where required--strong historical research." Discussing the author's early work, Greenberg and Herrscher stated: "Jakes was much more than simply a pedestrian science fiction writer. He did some outstanding work in this demanding popular genre, and his collection,
The Best of John Jakes, contains excellent work, most notably the novella
Here Is Thy Sting, which focuses on the meaning of death, and 'The Sellers of the Dream,' a moving and devastating attack on our consumer society." Greenberg and Herrscher also praised Jakes's "Brak the Barbarian" series, which lampoons the "sword and sorcery" genre; his sci-fi/western
Six-Gun Planet; and his futuristic novel
On Wheels, which both men judge to be "a minor masterpiece of social speculation."
Whatever the merits of Jakes's early work, it brought him little recognition and only a modest secondary income. He felt he'd bottomed out as a writer in 1973, when he accepted an assignment to write a novelization of the last film in the "Planet of the Apes" movie series.
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