So So Very Bad

I've just finished reading a very poorly written book.

At first I thought it was this book, The Key to Conspiracy by Thalia Gryphon. Which was recently reviewed at Dear Author. Except that I read number one in the series, The Key to Conflict.  

I have several issues with this book.

1. The characters

2. The dialouge

3. The writing

It is a comprehensive list.  Be warned. There are spoilers ahead, although why you'd care after reading this review, I'd never know.

The characters were generally annoying.  After about halfway through the book, I really got tired of the parade of SUPER HOTT! OMG SEXXXY para-whatevers! Apparently in this world, there are no normal-looking people. 

The main character, Gillian (or Gill, the author uses a nickname to break up the flow of Gillian does... sentences instead of rewriting) is TSTL.  This is not a label I throw out lightly, but I feel it is warranted. We are endlessly told how smart, tough and skilled this woman is. We are never really shown anything.  She whines, she gets drunk in dangerous territory, and she is really confused about issues a real psychologist should understand. Like the definition of rape. 

She is repeatedly assaulted without her knowledge (she was dreaming) and did not consent to having sex with her attacker or consent to him coming and making her have dreamsex with him. She does not know who is in her dreams or what is going on. This is rape. Saying otherwise is terrifying. If you are so drunk you cannot say yes or no, it's rape. If you don't know what's going on, it's rape. Does the fact that she had orgasms negate her lack of consent? Apparently Gillian thinks so, which makes me wonder how she managed her PhD, her internships, and well, her life so far.

For a psychologist, she is very lacking in self-awareness.

"I did not survive battlefield conditions in Serbia...blah blah blah I'm not delicate or stupid!" I know someone who did, and they wouldn't be caught dead saying something like that. Also, they wouldn't be caught dead being as TSTL as she is over and over again. Because they survived Serbia and where ever else she said she'd been. I'm not going to re-check that quote, but "survive battlefield conditions"? Who says that? 

The dialogue forgot it was supposed to sound like people talking. There was a consistent lack of contractions.  People don't really speak the way they write. Perhaps vampire=super formal diction, but with all of the other issues, I'm doubtful. 

Technically, this book was in need of a rewrite. The repetition, the mixed constructions and complete lack of showing the action (remember that old rule? show, don't tell) made me feel like someone was telling me about this story that could have been really interesting. Except that I needed to stop listening to the teller, and just read the book myself before the end gets blabbed. 

This book is filled with wasted detail. So much time is spent on unnecessary information. We are told who characters are after we have met them several times, we are told boring and unnecessary information on the different types of the magically-inclined, we are even told who JRR Tolkien is, and that he wrote the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. 

Surprisingly enough, the sex scenes we the best written in the book. Even though I have no desire to read more about the exact dimensions of Gill's canal (and am so unbelievably sick of the phrase "ridged canal") Gryphon uses imagery, description and setting to show the reader the action, instead of telling us what is happening. 

This book was one big info-dump. 

This book had a lot going for it. I really liked the idea of psychologist to the undead. How many times have you read an urban fantasy and gone "Hey, that dude is totally messed up, therapy is totally necessary." I thought the flame thrower was cool. 

I only wish that Gryphon had a more aggressive editor. Apparently LKH's Darla was a line editor (?proofreader?).  I would suggest a professional editor who is willing to suggest more substantive and aggressive changes. There is a good book in there, waiting to get out. It just needs a lot of help.  If that doesn't work, Gryphon may want to switch to writing erotica. Writing sex seems to be her stronger suit.

Connie Willis

As a review goes, this should be somewhat short.  

I love Connie Willis. She's wonderful, go read her stuff.

Why do I love her?

I've only read two of her novels, To Say Nothing Of The Dog and The Bellwether. They both were wonderful.

TSNOTD is a time-travel story about a young man and the boss from hell. It is a mystery and a who-done-it as well as a what-the-hell-happened? 

The Bellwether is also a mystery of a sort.  

They are both laugh out loud funny. The characters are amazing and real and the stories aren't flashy, but they will be amazing. 

I read both of those books a while ago, which is why there's a distinct lack of detail, but you should still read them.  These books are smart and also entertaining. I still giggle when certain scenes from these novels drift through my consciousness.

Go. Read.

testing...

Funner than I thought

http://www.bitstrips.com/read.php?comic_id=18097&feed=a_x

yup. now I've just gotta figure out how to post this directly.

well, here's something

update: I'm imbedding it now that I know how.

Returning....

I'm back. and with a purpose.




I've joined Samurai Knitter's Strikke-along.

I feel myself very qualified, and in several ways.

How I am qualified to Strikke-along:

1. I do think that Viggo Mortenson is extremely hot.
2. I will be knitting things to get me ready for winter. As a Canadian living in Edmonton, winter lasts a long long time. Wardrobes become necessary.
3. A proper winter wardrobe consists of several hats with matching mittens and scarves. These items should be also of varying degrees of warmth, so that you are covered from October to March.
4. I worked for Ikea. And I definitely shop there too.
5. There will be colourwork. Definitely two colors, maybe three. It depends on how I feel. There will be stars and lice and crosses and flowers, all looking properly Nordic.
6. I will (sometimes) be knitting on alpaca that I got from a Norwegian friend of mine. But it will be a lacy scarf, so I'm not sure how much this applies.
7. I think Norway looks pretty. I've never been there, but I've seen pictures.

No Motivation, So Much Work

That just sums up where I am right now. I have a ton of things to do, both interesting and completley horrible, yet I really don't want to do any of it.

Spring has sprung, and being inside, in the big old building of work is not really as appealing as it could be.

I'm finally getting over Daylight Saving Time Anger because the sun is now rising when I'm leaving for work. To have the sun being up when I'm going to work in the morning and then to have it go away was... crushing. Now that it's back, going to work in the morning is not quite so horrible as it once was.

I am not a morning person, and to be up when the freaking sun isn't even up yet makes me cranky.

In other, better news, I can knit again.

Yay! I've dropped my project, my pink mitten things, and had to rearrange things a bit. I'm not too crushed becasue stockinette is now evil, and the colors were seriously beginning to pool. I will probably have to do a big old chunk of ripping anyway now, and put in some sort of change so that the pooling gets fixed and I don't have to spend the rest of my life knitting the exact same stitch over and over and over again. Which makes it that much harder to not get sore wrists.

My new Plan

1) Knit in seed stitch, avoid the stockinette. Long strings of the same stitch = hurting non-fun.
2) TAKE BREAKS. Do serpent arms and serpent fingers to loosen up.
3) Use laceweight yarn and 2.75 mm needles. all in all my current project weighs 50 grams. This includes the ball of yarn, needles and knitted fabric.
4) If things super hurt, take a break and try some tiger balm. It stinks, but it really does make things feel better.

This is good because lace is good for spring, super cheap per project, very travel-friendly (as long as your pattern is not too complex) and did I mention cheap? And tends to be very very impressive to the non-knitter's gaze.