Coming soon to DotA's library: 'the big book of Malazan baby names'
Malazan books are also somewhat like Russian novels in that a character may have multiple names, depending on who is talking to them.
Coming soon to DotA's library: 'the big book of Malazan baby names'
I read the first Hunger Games. I thought the premise/setup was ridiculous, but I made it to the end. Didn't read the rest.
Potter, I like.
The Malazan Books (and indeed the Black Company books they bear some influence of) are great.
I can't rant about a book I'm currently reading, but I've tried Temeraire a handful of times and I can't figure how an author makes such a cool concept so boring. On the other hand, I quite liked Uprooted.
All this stuff about names... There was a guy I went to highschool with who called himself Fat Cats, another who called himself Ducky, another was Korah, as in the rebel from the Bible, I was 'Einstein', or 'Giggidy' (A Family Guy reference I did not get).... People do use such names.
All right, so 'cause this thread says vent, I shall vent.
Sooo, in my browsing through agents and such on querytracker, I came across a success interview and fell in love with the query. Everything about it screamed "totally up my alley." This was exactly the kind of book I'd read to absolute pieces. I needed it now, right now, didn't matter that I was in the middle of reading something else, this book demanded my attention. I fought the initial urge to buy it as an ebook and got it through the library's system instead (which is important) and settled in to start reading something I knew I was going to love.
After twelve pages, all I can say about it is that it's a few rungs above indecipherable? Really though, it's like the opening has been strapped to a rocket. In twelve pages (which aren't actually "pages", just finger flicks on my phone since I borrowed it as an e-book, so in print, it's maybe five, six pages long, maybe 2,000 words, if that) seven named characters are introduced, two walk-on unnamed characters blow past, the location switches four times, one of the named characters is murdered, the main character doesn't get a name till page eight and then he gets three and is apparently a knight? I don't know. Oh, and gets magic from the murdered guy (well, he already had magic, but got more magic?). Aaaaaaand then a conspiracy is introduced and someone witnesses something they shouldn't and there's a war and a bunch of soldiers coming home but that plot thread gets maybe half a paragraph before it's subsequently forgotten and I'm sitting here, reaching for the hand brake. Stop! Stop, I say! You're going way too frickin' fast! Especially since this is supposed to be secondary world fantasy meaning, more description please? So far, there's an under-described hallway, a (waiting?) room with a desk, a street, and another room with a chair (of some sort, it doesn't get much more description other than 'chair').
I reach the end of those twelve pages, gasping. Oh, good, I think, there's a line break. This was just some kind of weird, attention-grabbing prologue-thing to get my interest piqued. Now it's going to actually describe things and orient me to where the hell I am and what is going on.
Ah... no. No, that'd be asking too much. Nope, the story just blazes onward, with me floundering along behind going, What? What the heck? What is this even? Where am I, what am I supposed to be visualizing, who are any of these people and why were seven of them introduced in less than a breath? No, I still don't know who half these people are and I keep having to flip back to figure out who was introduced when and if that woman is the secretary, the nurse, or someone entirely different.
So yeah. I'm done with this book. I'm an immersion reader. I want to be transported. And I want to sink in to a story. I don't like getting thrown into the middle of things with nothing described, relying on me having watched enough historical dramas set in the late 1800's/turn of the last century to give me a semi-clear picture of what the heck this is supposed to look like.
Grr. Thankfully I didn't buy the thing. I'd be screaming about my wasted dollars at this point.
Venting, done.
Yikes. What book?
I'm serious i'm so mad that this thing is so popular
I haven’t read either book. Given the timeline between manuscript completion and actual publication, does it seem likely Red Sister was a direct take off of Neverknight?
July 2016 for Neverknight. April 2017 for Red Sister.
I haven’t read either book. Given the timeline between manuscript completion and actual publication, does it seem likely Red Sister was a direct take off of Neverknight?
July 2016 for Neverknight. April 2017 for Red Sister.
Honestly, Nevernight sounds so cliche it isn’t shocking at all to see something eerily like it. At one point EoS was ranked near Grey Sister so I checked the books out and... No, not going there.
But, get used to this sort of thing. When carousing the Hollywood screenwriting scene I met a guy who wrote a screenplay, sent it to Cali, he was flown out there, wined, dined, fawned over, they alked 6 figures, and then! Another studio announced a movie called (if memory serves) Drumline. Boom! It was damned near identical to his screenplay, everyone he’d spoken to said, yeah, shit happens, tough luck, maybe next time. This sort of thing is shockingly common, a million monkeys typing and they’ll produce damned similar stories quite often.
I can’t call this a vent about a book I’m reading, because I didn’t make it past the first page... It opens with weather, which hey! I’m cool with, but the “yawning puddle” makes me gurgle a bit. Leaping over a yawning puddle... This is freakin’ reaching, man. Either the character is Evil Knievel and this is a monster puddle... Or, okay... I survive the yawning puddddddle, I’ve seen worse, I can forgive it. The writing is meh but okay, and a few paragraphs later, there is a sentence that just... Yikes. Awkward, most likely the result of an incomplete edit. Sure, that shit happens, it happens to Brandon Sanderson in a different more forgivable way, but all this on page one? And then, another pet peeve my inner editor can’t bypass... click... done. Sad to say, this is similar to my experiences with most books.
Eve of Snows, book I released about 5 months ago. When it hit #1 in category in the UK, Grey Sister (and lots of Diana Gabaldon books) and EoS were in the 1-2 area, I often check out books in the nearby ranks and on EoS’ also boughts... the aforementioned book above recently took #1 on the also boughts from nowwhere, and I took a look. Was not impressed. But then, Name of the Wind doesn’t impress me either, and many thousands love it, LOL. To each their own.
I always want to like epic fantasy, but my inner editor is a nasty ol’ cuss. Name of the Wind, it isn’t so much the writing but the character and story which leaves me flat.
Cliche is fine, until they’re piled one on top of the other it can get annoying... but then again, Avatar was a walking cliche in pretty CGI and it was still entertaining... but books don’t have the luxury of visuals, LOL.
No idea if Eve would interest you, but hey, check it out. You never know.
If i don't like any of the characters in a story, I can't get through it. Bottom line. Unless i'm feeling particularly masochistic and haven't made it to my goodreads goal yet...
I'll do so