Worst. Foreshortening. Ever.
I've been very depressed lately, and so I've been reading more escapist fiction, but also more inclined to be cranky and fault-finding. Hence this post. I just finished Shadowsinger, the fifth and final book in L.E. Modesitt's "Spellsong Cycle," and I've enjoyed this series, every book of which is all about women using magic to unleash UNGODLY DESTRUCTION upon evil misogynists and then angsting about it. By the fifth book, the angsting gets a bit repetitive and the magic = nuclear weapons metaphor unpleasantly heavy-handed, but still, satisfying when the womanhaters get toasted.
I consider it a guilty pleasure, partly for reveling in the violence, but also because Modesitt is one of those prolific writers who just don't get any less stilted with practice. He's the sort who seems to think that avoiding the word "said" at all costs is the hallmark of Good Writing.
But what I really want to bitch about share is the jacket art, by Darrell Sweet, who has had great success as a sci fi/fantasy illustrator despite a sometimes shaky grasp of human anatomy.
Based on the cover, I had read quite a ways into this one wondering when the new dwarf character was going to be introduced. I finally realized that he is meant to represent the heroine's love interest. He's described in the text as "stocky," but I don't think this is actually meant to be a euphemism for rhizomelic dwarfism.
The heroes travel with a radical-seperatist army of women soldiers, whom Sweet represents here metonymically, as a blow-up doll in armor.
So, what should I read next? You can see, my standards are not high.
I consider it a guilty pleasure, partly for reveling in the violence, but also because Modesitt is one of those prolific writers who just don't get any less stilted with practice. He's the sort who seems to think that avoiding the word "said" at all costs is the hallmark of Good Writing.
But what I really want to bitch about share is the jacket art, by Darrell Sweet, who has had great success as a sci fi/fantasy illustrator despite a sometimes shaky grasp of human anatomy.
Based on the cover, I had read quite a ways into this one wondering when the new dwarf character was going to be introduced. I finally realized that he is meant to represent the heroine's love interest. He's described in the text as "stocky," but I don't think this is actually meant to be a euphemism for rhizomelic dwarfism.
The heroes travel with a radical-seperatist army of women soldiers, whom Sweet represents here metonymically, as a blow-up doll in armor.
So, what should I read next? You can see, my standards are not high.