Why is it that some books you struggle with and others fly?
I have been reading the 11th book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Series. I had read 350 of the 800 pages but I was plodding. Some of this is due the writing. The series badly needs editting to remove the padding. What was once entertaining has become stodge.
On Sunday however I left it around my folks. I don't like having two books on the go but I wanted to read something and picked up Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the Queen. A light 320 page coming of age fantasy in her Heralds of Valdemar series. As I write I've read 219 pages and I should finish it before tomorrow evening.
Unlike the Jordan this flies and I want to pick it up. Its not stunningly well written. I expect the writing is at the Mills & Boon level (sorry Sharon couldn't resisit it ;) ). Indeed many fantasy novels are quasi romance novels. But Lackey doesn't pad she doesn't try to be more than she is. She tells her story and gets on with it and as such I want to turn the page instead of feeling I have to.
6 comments:
Struggling... I'm having the same experience with a trilogy by Stephen Lawhead (Taliesin, Arthur and...?) Sometimes it's interesting, but mostly I find it rather badly written, going into lots of detail about nothing. For instance, describing every detail of a coronation when I just want to get to the next event... is that shallow of me? :-).
The thing is, when you've already got the point of it "this bit is where X is made King" you don't want to have to read "X is being made King!" for the next ten pages when nothing in particular is happening. If they're looking daggers at each other and trying to poison the priest, that's fine, but if all it is is 'long live the King!', I want to move on.
But I read all of the first two books, will read the third book, and then I'll send them to a charity shop.
I haven't managed to engage with either Robert Jordon or Stephen Lawhead. I am still scarred by Terry Goodkind.
I in the process of flying through Gwyneth Jones' 'Bold as Love' series at the moment ... three and a half books in ten days, one twice, one and a half to go. Fantastic.
Diddums, never read Lawhead. I wish sometimes they'd get on with it. Jordan keeps introducing more and more characters. 350 pages in to book 11 and the main charcter hasn't appearred
Ally. I enjoyed the first few Goodkinds but have now given up since I could see no end in sight. Never read any jones' novels
I get very irritated when some things are repeated again later in the book, simply to make up enough words to please the publisher!
I struggle to read all books. I never have time. Or maybe not the right motivation now. I used to read before I had a computer, but now my priorities lie elsewhere, that and the pets of course. Shame really because I did enjoy a good novel at one time.
I have a policy of only reading the first book in a fifteen-volume series. The rest are never nearly as good as the first. This was after talking to friends who have had neurons stolen by Goodkind and Jordan's later volumes (both of whom wrote very good first volumes to their series).
I am making one exception for George Martin's series. His first volume was so good that I had to keep going.
P.S. I have never seen a more British blog! It just drips with the stuff ('the stuff' Britishity, Britishitude).
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