Unseelie
The Lady of the Sorrows (The Bitterbynde, book 2) by Cecilia Dart-Thornton spent a lot of time annoying me, since it magnified the problems I had with the first book, The Ill-Made Mute, and added some new ones. For the old problems, we have Dart-Thornton spending a lot of time describing the surroundings. A lot of time. Yeah, it's done in pretty language, but enough already. The characters stop the action every so often to tell stories. Very frustrating.
The major new problem is that the protagonist has become far more passive. Things happen to Rohain, and Rohain rarely initiates them, instead relying on others' plans and mostly coasting. It's more frustrating to learn in the very long flashback that the character was once far more proactive. I have a personal dislike of passive protagonists.
The second major problem is that I don't care about the protagonist's problems this time around. The Ill-Made Mute's plot is about surviving several dangerous situations and the quest to recover a lost memory, face, and voice. Important, dramatic things. The Lady of the Sorrows is about trying to pass as nobility and retrieve a mushy lost maybe-love who's a ludicrously perfect man. The court is cruel. Thorn is nowhere to be seen. The meals are sumptuously over the top. Boo-hoo. I don't care.
Major problem number three is a gigantic flashback. Flashbacks can be difficult to do well, and I always wonder what the character is doing in the present as this huge packet of information is being remembered. This one drops like a stone.
I don't know if I'll bother with book three, The Battle of Ever-Night.
I also read Mercedes Lackey's Exile's Honor, which had been a Christmas gift I hadn't asked for. To my great surprise--*cough*--it's like any other Valdemar book she's written in the last few years, perfectly generic. Just insert Character X into Valdemar Formula Template, add a few individual details to pretend that this isn't a rehash of the last 10 Valdemar books, have the character struggle to fit in, then fit in, then face a trial by fire and be a hero, and finally realize that he's/she's now happy and in his/her proper place as a Herald.
Her tendency to overuse emphasis on words also kills me. You know, like this. It gives the narrative a jerky, spastic rhythm. Well, at least I hadn't paid for it.
The major new problem is that the protagonist has become far more passive. Things happen to Rohain, and Rohain rarely initiates them, instead relying on others' plans and mostly coasting. It's more frustrating to learn in the very long flashback that the character was once far more proactive. I have a personal dislike of passive protagonists.
The second major problem is that I don't care about the protagonist's problems this time around. The Ill-Made Mute's plot is about surviving several dangerous situations and the quest to recover a lost memory, face, and voice. Important, dramatic things. The Lady of the Sorrows is about trying to pass as nobility and retrieve a mushy lost maybe-love who's a ludicrously perfect man. The court is cruel. Thorn is nowhere to be seen. The meals are sumptuously over the top. Boo-hoo. I don't care.
Major problem number three is a gigantic flashback. Flashbacks can be difficult to do well, and I always wonder what the character is doing in the present as this huge packet of information is being remembered. This one drops like a stone.
I don't know if I'll bother with book three, The Battle of Ever-Night.
I also read Mercedes Lackey's Exile's Honor, which had been a Christmas gift I hadn't asked for. To my great surprise--*cough*--it's like any other Valdemar book she's written in the last few years, perfectly generic. Just insert Character X into Valdemar Formula Template, add a few individual details to pretend that this isn't a rehash of the last 10 Valdemar books, have the character struggle to fit in, then fit in, then face a trial by fire and be a hero, and finally realize that he's/she's now happy and in his/her proper place as a Herald.
Her tendency to overuse emphasis on words also kills me. You know, like this. It gives the narrative a jerky, spastic rhythm. Well, at least I hadn't paid for it.