Experiences of an Extraordinary Autistic Man – Hans-Martin Ramsl
For some reason, I thought I had got this book from somewhere other than Kindle Unlimited. Subsequently, I was quite surprised to see it load up as being 16 pages long on my tablet. I think I’ve read quite a lot of these self-published books recently and the quality is highly variable. Perhaps it’s time I returned to traditionally published books for a while.
I think this book is meant to be written from the point of a fictional autistic man. I have no idea if the author is autistic or not because there’s no author information within the book. The character – LeRoy Sandler – is basically your standard Hollywood Asperger stereotype. Although perhaps even more hyperbolic than Hollywood representations tend to be.
Not only once did people ask why I was staring at them. My reaction was to quickly look totally away without any comment, since I did not know which comment would be appropriate. However, I think that by now, I tackled that challenged successfully.
This man has created his own private server and network which he has then proceeded to link up to all his household appliances, and they are then linked up to each other. Setting the scene for the autistic technology genius trope. This is then followed up with the stereotype of the autistic hacker who somehow manages to walk into the Chinese Embassy and steal encrypted documents. Which are also in Chinese. Which he, of course, manages to translate. This is all then contrast against the standard no emotion, no eye contact autistic traits just to complete the stereotype. If the author is indeed the basis for this character then it is a much more acceptable portrayal, but as things stand Leroy Sandler is the most stereotypical “Asperger Genius” that I have read in a book.
This book contains a lot of grammatical errors, something I have come to expect from self-published kindle books on autism. Some of them mean that the sentences make absolutely no sense, and others meant I had to go back and reread sections to work out what the author meant. All within sixteen pages.
Worth reading?
Not really. It’s sixteen pages, there are grammatical errors throughout and it is a good candidate for most hyperbolic autism stereotype in a fictional character.
Value for money?
Kindle Unlimited subscribers can read this for free as part of their subscription but it’s not worth the £0.99 otherwise.
Books on Autism 