*kill* *kill*
Picked up Steven Brust's The Paths of the Dead the other day, with some doubt. I've never been able to get into the Vlad Taltos universe books -- I find he's built too convoluted a backstory, and it's almost impossible to get past the constant mention of stuff that's gone before and the vast number of previously-introduced characters. I've heard that these are actually just novelizations of a longstanding role-playing campaign, and I can easily believe it.
But this one is the first book of a trilogy, and I got the feeling from the dust jacket that it was intended to be a good lead-in point for the series, so what the hell, I decided to give it a chance. And as far as the impenetrable backstory goes, yeah, it's somewhat better. But less than a hundred pages in and I am ready to *murder* the guy. ALL the characters talk exactly the same way, and they all have an incredibly irritating speech pattern:
"But why is that?"
"You want to know why that is?"
"Yes, I do want to know that."
"Very well, then I'll tell you."
"Please do tell me."
"[blah blah blah, finally tells]"
And this is going on in almost every single conversation in some form. It's horrible.
What happened to Brust? To Reign In Hell is a great read; it still stands up for me even after all the years since I first read it. While this is apparently intended as a big relaunching-type novel -- it was released in hardcover and all -- and it's embarrassingly bad. Very disappointing.
But this one is the first book of a trilogy, and I got the feeling from the dust jacket that it was intended to be a good lead-in point for the series, so what the hell, I decided to give it a chance. And as far as the impenetrable backstory goes, yeah, it's somewhat better. But less than a hundred pages in and I am ready to *murder* the guy. ALL the characters talk exactly the same way, and they all have an incredibly irritating speech pattern:
"But why is that?"
"You want to know why that is?"
"Yes, I do want to know that."
"Very well, then I'll tell you."
"Please do tell me."
"[blah blah blah, finally tells]"
And this is going on in almost every single conversation in some form. It's horrible.
What happened to Brust? To Reign In Hell is a great read; it still stands up for me even after all the years since I first read it. While this is apparently intended as a big relaunching-type novel -- it was released in hardcover and all -- and it's embarrassingly bad. Very disappointing.