Books Part III
Sam's got a business dinner tonight and I'm bored.
Bonds of Vengeance - Winds of the Forelands book 3 by David B. Coe
Fantasy
The mediocrity of this series is really starting to get to me. Like all authors, Coe falls in love with a few phrases and uses them repeatedly. A lot of things loom and are ominous in Dragonlance, for example. But Coe's choices are uncommon phrasings and he uses them WAY TOO MUCH. For example, pretty much everyone is giving wan smiles. Constantly. To everyone. All the time. Occasionally Coe figures out that he's saying "wan" too much and someone gives a thin smile. My annoyance with this particular phrase is only compounded by the fact that I absolutely despise the word "wan" because I don't feel like there's any non-retarded-sounding way to pronounce it.
Also, people are doing things as an afterthought far too often. You know, as in "The king dismissed his minister from his chamber, then, as if an afterthought, ordered his guards away as well." I made that one up, but this "as if an afterthought" thing is great...when it's not overdone. People don't do things "as if an afterthought" very often, so the phrase shouldn't come up very often. But in this series it does.
Even more annoying than wan smiles though, is this. People's mouths are always twisting, or else they have a "sour" expression. Now, for the life of me, I cannot figure out what this looks like. For example, "His mouth twisted sourly" (which happens a lot). What does that look like? I HAVE NO IDEA. I tried to do it in the mirror and I still have no idea. The most I can muster is a look of disgust, but that's not always appropriate to the situation in which Coe is using the phrase.
I might have stopped reading the series here except that I already bought the next book. Oh well, it's not a BAD series, it's just not that great.
Arbitrary Rating: 3/5
How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them--A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide by Howard Mittlemark and Sandra Newman
Self Help (I guess)
Now this doesn't really count as a novel, but I read it and it's a book, so it's here. Also it's hilarious. As someone who wrote plenty of bad stories in junior high and high school, I can identify with a lot of these mistakes and it made me giggle almost nonstop the whole time I was reading it. It helps that the book is very cleverly written; for every mistake, the authors write up an over-the-top example from an imaginary novel. It's highly entertaining even if you never plan to write a novel. Since I'm not a published author (and really wouldn't call myself an unpublished author either), I can't give a good opinion as to how helpful the advice is in this book. I can, however, tell you that it was ridiculously fun to read.
Arbitrary Rating: 5/5
Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett
Fantasy/Satire
I've heard nothing but good things about Pratchett for a long time, and Sam and I had both been wanting to read something of his. However, he's written so many books that we really weren't sure to start. Apparently they all read just fine as stand-alone novels, but there is an "order" to them that some people suggest you follow. So we went to Half Price Books and grabbed the two least-worn used copies we could find. I started with Witches Abroad.
Pratchett is to Fantasy as Douglas Adams is to sci-fi. That just about sums it up for me. He writes fantasy (not really high fantasy--more like fairy tale-type fantasy) in a humorous British voice. I dig the style, enjoyed the book, and would read more of his stuff. Sam went ahead and ordered like 10 more Pratchett books on ebay, so I'm sure I'll be reading more. But for now, back to Coe...
Arbitrary Rating: 4/5
Shapers of Darkness - Winds of the Forelands book 4 by David B. Coe
Fantasy
Running out of things to say. Series is still mediocre, and I'm now officially annoyed that there is no longer any specific main character like there was in the first book. With so many kingdoms and dukedoms, each with their own dukes, duchesses, heirs, and ministers, I'm finding it very hard to keep characters straight. Since everyone is either a duke or minister of the courts, everyone shares certain personality traits that makes it even harder. It's not like you can be all "Oh this is that character that is a duke." No. You can't even do it based on physical characteristics because all of the ministers are a race of people of slight build with white hair and golden eyes. GIVE ME A BREAK COE. He helpfully includes a nice little glossary of characters in the beginning of this book, but even the glossary itself is mind-boggling. Of course, now that I've read four of these I have to read the fifth, if for no other reason than to find out how it ends. I know I'm whining about the books a lot, but for the most part I'm not bored when I read them. There is just a lot about them that annoys me.
Arbitrary Rating: 3/5
EDIT: I can't believe I forgot this one!
The Roald Dahl Omnibus by Roald Dahl
Short Stories
An acquaintance of mine kindly lent me this book after I expressed my love of Roald Dahl and also my ignorance of the fact that he's written many short stories for grown-ups. This book is exactly that: a collection of short stories for adults. The stories are taken from Someone Like You, Kiss Kiss, and Switch Bitch, which I can only assume are books of short stories he's written, and I can further assume that this omnibus is sort of like a "best of" album for Roald Dahl. A few of these stories originally appeared in The New Yorker, and three (all from Switch Bitch), originally appeared in Playboy. Playboy! I had no idea.
At any rate, I adore Roald Dahl even more after reading this. Some of the stories were copyright as early as 1948, so it's definitely not a modern style although the stories take place in "modern" settings, at least for the time. Anyway, he definitely has a style. Most of the stories start out with someone coming up with some brilliant scheme, but somehow everything goes horribly wrong at the end. Pretty much every single story in this 630 page volume is at least slightly creepy. Even the story that is entirely about a child trying to get across a carpet without touching the "deadly" black parts of it (only the yellow lines are safe! You have all done this) ends with him falling into the deadly snakes. That's the least creepy of all of the stories. There is one where a German couple has just had a baby and the woman is freaking out because her last 3 babies all died before age 2, and she is crying and being all "he MUST live, doctor!" and after about two and a half pages of this the doctor is all "Now don't you worry, Frau Hitler, your baby will be fine."
Even the stories he wrote for Playboy are the same way. One has the main character and a friend scheme to sleep with each other's wives without the wives knowing it by sneaking into each other's houses at night and pretending to be each other, then sneaking back before the morning. After they successfully pull it off (after much planning), the main character's wife comes down and bursts into tears, saying how she didn't want to bring it up before because she was embarrassed, but she'd never liked sex. But after last night it was all different and wonderful and won't life be so grand from now on??
Roald Dahl is a sick bastard and I love it.
Arbitrary Rating: 5/5
Bonds of Vengeance - Winds of the Forelands book 3 by David B. Coe
Fantasy
The mediocrity of this series is really starting to get to me. Like all authors, Coe falls in love with a few phrases and uses them repeatedly. A lot of things loom and are ominous in Dragonlance, for example. But Coe's choices are uncommon phrasings and he uses them WAY TOO MUCH. For example, pretty much everyone is giving wan smiles. Constantly. To everyone. All the time. Occasionally Coe figures out that he's saying "wan" too much and someone gives a thin smile. My annoyance with this particular phrase is only compounded by the fact that I absolutely despise the word "wan" because I don't feel like there's any non-retarded-sounding way to pronounce it.
Also, people are doing things as an afterthought far too often. You know, as in "The king dismissed his minister from his chamber, then, as if an afterthought, ordered his guards away as well." I made that one up, but this "as if an afterthought" thing is great...when it's not overdone. People don't do things "as if an afterthought" very often, so the phrase shouldn't come up very often. But in this series it does.
Even more annoying than wan smiles though, is this. People's mouths are always twisting, or else they have a "sour" expression. Now, for the life of me, I cannot figure out what this looks like. For example, "His mouth twisted sourly" (which happens a lot). What does that look like? I HAVE NO IDEA. I tried to do it in the mirror and I still have no idea. The most I can muster is a look of disgust, but that's not always appropriate to the situation in which Coe is using the phrase.
I might have stopped reading the series here except that I already bought the next book. Oh well, it's not a BAD series, it's just not that great.
Arbitrary Rating: 3/5
How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them--A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide by Howard Mittlemark and Sandra Newman
Self Help (I guess)
Now this doesn't really count as a novel, but I read it and it's a book, so it's here. Also it's hilarious. As someone who wrote plenty of bad stories in junior high and high school, I can identify with a lot of these mistakes and it made me giggle almost nonstop the whole time I was reading it. It helps that the book is very cleverly written; for every mistake, the authors write up an over-the-top example from an imaginary novel. It's highly entertaining even if you never plan to write a novel. Since I'm not a published author (and really wouldn't call myself an unpublished author either), I can't give a good opinion as to how helpful the advice is in this book. I can, however, tell you that it was ridiculously fun to read.
Arbitrary Rating: 5/5
Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett
Fantasy/Satire
I've heard nothing but good things about Pratchett for a long time, and Sam and I had both been wanting to read something of his. However, he's written so many books that we really weren't sure to start. Apparently they all read just fine as stand-alone novels, but there is an "order" to them that some people suggest you follow. So we went to Half Price Books and grabbed the two least-worn used copies we could find. I started with Witches Abroad.
Pratchett is to Fantasy as Douglas Adams is to sci-fi. That just about sums it up for me. He writes fantasy (not really high fantasy--more like fairy tale-type fantasy) in a humorous British voice. I dig the style, enjoyed the book, and would read more of his stuff. Sam went ahead and ordered like 10 more Pratchett books on ebay, so I'm sure I'll be reading more. But for now, back to Coe...
Arbitrary Rating: 4/5
Shapers of Darkness - Winds of the Forelands book 4 by David B. Coe
Fantasy
Running out of things to say. Series is still mediocre, and I'm now officially annoyed that there is no longer any specific main character like there was in the first book. With so many kingdoms and dukedoms, each with their own dukes, duchesses, heirs, and ministers, I'm finding it very hard to keep characters straight. Since everyone is either a duke or minister of the courts, everyone shares certain personality traits that makes it even harder. It's not like you can be all "Oh this is that character that is a duke." No. You can't even do it based on physical characteristics because all of the ministers are a race of people of slight build with white hair and golden eyes. GIVE ME A BREAK COE. He helpfully includes a nice little glossary of characters in the beginning of this book, but even the glossary itself is mind-boggling. Of course, now that I've read four of these I have to read the fifth, if for no other reason than to find out how it ends. I know I'm whining about the books a lot, but for the most part I'm not bored when I read them. There is just a lot about them that annoys me.
Arbitrary Rating: 3/5
EDIT: I can't believe I forgot this one!
The Roald Dahl Omnibus by Roald Dahl
Short Stories
An acquaintance of mine kindly lent me this book after I expressed my love of Roald Dahl and also my ignorance of the fact that he's written many short stories for grown-ups. This book is exactly that: a collection of short stories for adults. The stories are taken from Someone Like You, Kiss Kiss, and Switch Bitch, which I can only assume are books of short stories he's written, and I can further assume that this omnibus is sort of like a "best of" album for Roald Dahl. A few of these stories originally appeared in The New Yorker, and three (all from Switch Bitch), originally appeared in Playboy. Playboy! I had no idea.
At any rate, I adore Roald Dahl even more after reading this. Some of the stories were copyright as early as 1948, so it's definitely not a modern style although the stories take place in "modern" settings, at least for the time. Anyway, he definitely has a style. Most of the stories start out with someone coming up with some brilliant scheme, but somehow everything goes horribly wrong at the end. Pretty much every single story in this 630 page volume is at least slightly creepy. Even the story that is entirely about a child trying to get across a carpet without touching the "deadly" black parts of it (only the yellow lines are safe! You have all done this) ends with him falling into the deadly snakes. That's the least creepy of all of the stories. There is one where a German couple has just had a baby and the woman is freaking out because her last 3 babies all died before age 2, and she is crying and being all "he MUST live, doctor!" and after about two and a half pages of this the doctor is all "Now don't you worry, Frau Hitler, your baby will be fine."
Even the stories he wrote for Playboy are the same way. One has the main character and a friend scheme to sleep with each other's wives without the wives knowing it by sneaking into each other's houses at night and pretending to be each other, then sneaking back before the morning. After they successfully pull it off (after much planning), the main character's wife comes down and bursts into tears, saying how she didn't want to bring it up before because she was embarrassed, but she'd never liked sex. But after last night it was all different and wonderful and won't life be so grand from now on??
Roald Dahl is a sick bastard and I love it.
Arbitrary Rating: 5/5