Just a quickie, since I’ve not posted in a while. First draft of Grief is now finished to my great relief, now I just have to go through it and rewrite the bits I did while feeling really ill (about a third probably!), vet dialogue after the advice of the lovely Sandy Auden, prune a couple of threads and ideas that never really amounted to much, and then try to trim down the last scene which ended up being FAR too long. Just thought I’d mention two books I’ve read recently, one to garner opinions of those who’ve read it and the other to simply recommend it (not that anyone will need my urging because the b*stard sells really well)
Firstly, The Etched City by K. J. Bishop, which was a very odd tale and one I’m really not sure what to make of it. The main character is an amoral gun for hire, which is of course fine with me, but I never found myself engaged or giving a damn about him or the doctor who’s the other big figure. The writing is extremely good, but the plot never went anywhere really, it just drifted along and then ended. The most interesting sub-plot, about the incidence of deformities in newborns, never went anywhere at all despite hinting that it would be a central aspect. What did other people think about it?
Secondly, Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie. It’s always interesting to see how people end a series, and attempts to turn the genre on its head aside, Joe still had to end his trilogy in a satisfying way. Fortunately, I don’t think anyone will be disappointed. The book slows a little just after halfway making me wonder if Joe was feeling a bit tired and wasn’t sure exactly where he was going, but then he jumped back into mayhem and all was right with the world again. All in all, good family fun, if you have that sort of family…
Told you!
Yeah yeah, I don’t rememeber ever challenging your assertion!
Why let a tiny detail like that get in the way of a good “I told you so”?
Told you!
Yeah yeah, I don’t rememeber ever challenging your assertion!
Why let a tiny detail like that get in the way of a good “I told you so”?
The Etched City is quite an oddity. It’s very much a book written as if a dream, and well off the beaten track of most fantasy. I’d quite agree that there was a lack of definition of the leads. They just did their thing, and we don’t really care much about them. But I consider this something of an atmosphere piece. Going back to the idea of the book being like a dream, I think the blankness and lack of substance of the characters fits it fairly well. Certainly after I finished it it seemed quite ethereal enough to me, but maybe I was very tired when I read much of it.
I think the deformed babies were a sideproduct of the etcher – her art accessed magic which altered the reality of the city. Her passion for the gun-for-hire ‘infected’ (and magically empowered?) her; she drew on his immoral acts, the ghosts of his past, and hence the place turned into a nightmare.
Haven’t read the Abercrombie, but it’s on my hitlist.
Ah, now that’s an interesting read of it – I see what you meant there. Didn’t quite work for me in that way but I was very tired when I was reading it so I think it’s fair to say I wasn’t going to see too many levels there! I think there was too much left in a dream-like state for me – I tend to like the images but want to feel there’s a logic and understanding behind them, and for a few aspects I didn’t feel there was an underlying reason. I can’t remember it well enough for an example, but I think there were a few instances of me thinking ‘ah, that was convenient’ which happens often in dream-like novels, the logistics sometimes don’t get the required attention.
The Etched City is quite an oddity. It’s very much a book written as if a dream, and well off the beaten track of most fantasy. I’d quite agree that there was a lack of definition of the leads. They just did their thing, and we don’t really care much about them. But I consider this something of an atmosphere piece. Going back to the idea of the book being like a dream, I think the blankness and lack of substance of the characters fits it fairly well. Certainly after I finished it it seemed quite ethereal enough to me, but maybe I was very tired when I read much of it.
I think the deformed babies were a sideproduct of the etcher – her art accessed magic which altered the reality of the city. Her passion for the gun-for-hire ‘infected’ (and magically empowered?) her; she drew on his immoral acts, the ghosts of his past, and hence the place turned into a nightmare.
Haven’t read the Abercrombie, but it’s on my hitlist.
Ah, now that’s an interesting read of it – I see what you meant there. Didn’t quite work for me in that way but I was very tired when I was reading it so I think it’s fair to say I wasn’t going to see too many levels there! I think there was too much left in a dream-like state for me – I tend to like the images but want to feel there’s a logic and understanding behind them, and for a few aspects I didn’t feel there was an underlying reason. I can’t remember it well enough for an example, but I think there were a few instances of me thinking ‘ah, that was convenient’ which happens often in dream-like novels, the logistics sometimes don’t get the required attention.