some thoughts on Fiery Cross
As everyone else has already put the fifth Harry Potter book behind them, I have finally gotten around to reading the fifth Outlander book - late as always. To be honest, I had the chance around a year ago, but browsing through a friend's copy I found the word "Roger" on every second page, and since I had already named him Dull Roger by the fourth book I wasn't all that keen to start reading.
Well, she handed me her copy the other day again and said she hadn't gotten around to reading it either (only the first hundred pages or so), so I might as well have a first go.
And now I finished it. Which I guess is a compliment to the story, since it's 900 pages and I read it in just a few days.
It's still a very charming story, and I'll hand it to her, Roger had improved a lot since the last book. He still doesn't stand a chance next to John or Fergus and Marsali (yeah, both of them together, please), but I didn't mind having him on every second page.
What's becoming painfully obvious, though, is that the woman no longer has a plot. I'm not saying that the first books were thoroughly plotted or anything, but they had some sort of theme.
Outlander was about Claire's choice between her two centuries and husbands, Dragonfly in Amber was about the attempt to stop Culloden, Voyager... well, by Voyager it started to drift since the first half was about finding Jamie and the second about finding Ian, but still, both halves had a plot. By Drums of Autumn it was drifting wildly, and this time around I found myself wondering if she shouldn't have written an episodic book a'la James Herriot instead. It became increasingly annoying to try and figure out if the pointless episodes thrown in everywhere were just that, or if they were some sort of foreshadowing.
Of course, some of them were foreshadowing, to different plots. There was The Forming of the Militia and the Not So Great Battle. There was The Murder at River Run (probably the closest thing to a main plot in the book). There was The Death of Roger's Singing Career. There was The Tale of the Beardsleys (utterly uninteresting, IMO). But one thing there wasn't, was a theme, no matter how vague, that actually lasted through the book. Mini plots turned up again at exactly the point where you'd stop caring because something else was more interesting.
As a soap opera it's sometimes pretty engaging. But at other times, I sat there thinking, "Nine hundred pages and you think this needs to be included?"
And I'm sorry, but Stephen Bonnet isn't a good enough villain for two books and more. Not after a complex character like Jack Randall and a sparkly one like Geilie Duncan. Bonnet is the sort of villain I want to put over my knee and give a good spanking - and I don't mean that in the sexy sense.
Considering all this, it's pretty unfortunate that the characters choose to name their kitten Adso of Milk. Not because it reminded me that the story was fictitious, but because it did so by invoking the reminder of a thick and entertaining piece of historical fiction that is better written than Fiery Cross, better plotted, better researched, and has way more to say.
In fact, I'm rereading Name of the Rose now, and when I got to the first lines of Adso's manuscript I laughed out loud at Eco's language. It's a harder book to read, and I won't finish it in three days like I did with Fiery Cross, but Gabaldon's move still strikes me as a way of saying "Hey! In case you were enjoying this, do you remember all the things it isn't?"
Of course, all that aside, I still liked seeing Adso's name attached to that little kitten...
Well, she handed me her copy the other day again and said she hadn't gotten around to reading it either (only the first hundred pages or so), so I might as well have a first go.
And now I finished it. Which I guess is a compliment to the story, since it's 900 pages and I read it in just a few days.
It's still a very charming story, and I'll hand it to her, Roger had improved a lot since the last book. He still doesn't stand a chance next to John or Fergus and Marsali (yeah, both of them together, please), but I didn't mind having him on every second page.
What's becoming painfully obvious, though, is that the woman no longer has a plot. I'm not saying that the first books were thoroughly plotted or anything, but they had some sort of theme.
Outlander was about Claire's choice between her two centuries and husbands, Dragonfly in Amber was about the attempt to stop Culloden, Voyager... well, by Voyager it started to drift since the first half was about finding Jamie and the second about finding Ian, but still, both halves had a plot. By Drums of Autumn it was drifting wildly, and this time around I found myself wondering if she shouldn't have written an episodic book a'la James Herriot instead. It became increasingly annoying to try and figure out if the pointless episodes thrown in everywhere were just that, or if they were some sort of foreshadowing.
Of course, some of them were foreshadowing, to different plots. There was The Forming of the Militia and the Not So Great Battle. There was The Murder at River Run (probably the closest thing to a main plot in the book). There was The Death of Roger's Singing Career. There was The Tale of the Beardsleys (utterly uninteresting, IMO). But one thing there wasn't, was a theme, no matter how vague, that actually lasted through the book. Mini plots turned up again at exactly the point where you'd stop caring because something else was more interesting.
As a soap opera it's sometimes pretty engaging. But at other times, I sat there thinking, "Nine hundred pages and you think this needs to be included?"
And I'm sorry, but Stephen Bonnet isn't a good enough villain for two books and more. Not after a complex character like Jack Randall and a sparkly one like Geilie Duncan. Bonnet is the sort of villain I want to put over my knee and give a good spanking - and I don't mean that in the sexy sense.
Considering all this, it's pretty unfortunate that the characters choose to name their kitten Adso of Milk. Not because it reminded me that the story was fictitious, but because it did so by invoking the reminder of a thick and entertaining piece of historical fiction that is better written than Fiery Cross, better plotted, better researched, and has way more to say.
In fact, I'm rereading Name of the Rose now, and when I got to the first lines of Adso's manuscript I laughed out loud at Eco's language. It's a harder book to read, and I won't finish it in three days like I did with Fiery Cross, but Gabaldon's move still strikes me as a way of saying "Hey! In case you were enjoying this, do you remember all the things it isn't?"
Of course, all that aside, I still liked seeing Adso's name attached to that little kitten...