Well past due, I’ve finally managed to power my way through the second book of David Drake’s Lord of the Isles series. The first book was really good. There were some flaws with the writing but I could get past those because it WAS a good book and a first book. The second book is much worse.
In the first book, they killed off the best character and everyone else fell into their predetermined roles, using no logical deduction but always coming to the right conclusions. The critics talked about how well Drake threaded multiple story-lines together and tied them at the end. Shouldn’t it matter that three of those four story lines didn’t matter? I mean, Garric, who is the main character, and his sister and two friends each have their own story arc but none but Garric’s (at least until the end) has anything to do with the rest of the story.
Granted, the scenes in and of themselves were largely entertaining. Like the one group of humans who were dumped into an alternate dimension and built a fort so that they could fight off a group of bad guys every night. That was kind of amusing. But it didn’t have anything to do with anything else.
It was kind of like reading a Conan book that just wouldn’t end.
But now I’m done it and I’m glad because if I stuck it on my bookshelf unfinished, I’d have to start all over again, again, and now I can put it away, knowing that it’s not in my queue. I hate giving up on things.
Minigoal #5
On to The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman. Next Monday, I expect to have The Subtle Knife finished.
Oh, and by Friday, I’ll have another blog entry up.
Until later,
39 books to go!
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12 comments:
I've never met anyone else who is so determined to read bad books. If it sucks, pick a different one! There are so many good books out there and you've only got so many hours in a day that it seems a waste to plod through cruddy writing.
Yes, I know I complained the whole way through Chainfire, but it was a gift from you and I really kept thinking it would get better!
Interesting that the person who encourages others not to waste time on bad books must, himself, read them through. Curious.
Perhaps he believes he's doing the rest of us a public service - he takes the blow so the rest of us won't have to. Ain't that sweet!
what a compassionate, selfless dude!
Sometimes a bad book is like a bad movie; you HAVE to finish it.
But then there are those that are like Return to Frogtown where you should probably leave the movie and go play ping-pong in the other room or something.
I would also include House of the Dead in that category. And Batman & Robin.
Playing catch with razor sharp throwing stars would have been superior to Return to Frogtown in it's entirety.
House of the Dead is AGONIZING in its badness.
I had such high hopes that it would be hilariously awful, but, alas, Uwe Boll is incapable of hilarity.
What do you expect from a movie based on a video game? The only good one so far was Mortal Kombat and that's a relative measure.
I think Uwe Boll's next film should be TETRIS.
Think off all the matrix-esque camera shots to be had as the blocks spin into position!
All I was hoping for, Lum, was cheesy zombie fun times. Instead, it was too bad to even make fun of. I mean, come on, it had ZOMBIE CONQUISTADORS and the sub captain from Das Boot, and STILL blew.
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