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Wed Reading Meme
Oct. 8th, 2014 08:59 pmIn the weird things that happen at work category? Yesterday morning, one of our managers discovered a 9 mm bullet hole in her window. Apparently there was a gunfight in the street the night before. People freaked. I just shrugged it off, having spent most of my working life in neighborhoods that you can't work in after dark - for fear of well being mugged, raped or shot.
In aside, I sort of wrote a Buffy meta. Didn't get hardly any comments. LJ has changed a lot - back in the day, I'd get at least ten.
1. What you just finished reading?
The Duke's Tattoo. Don't remember the author's name. It was fun. The ending fell a little flat for me though. I described it in a prior entry in more detail.
2. What you are reading now?
Plodding through the final book in Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan Bounty Hunter series. The final book, the 13th in the series...Witch with No Name - wraps up many loose ends - but lacks the wit, charm, and tension of the previous novels. Somewhere around book 9 or 10, the series became more focused on big picture themes and less on character. The mythology expanded as did the main characters powers, but many of the characters seemed to lose some of what made them interesting. Also the dialogue, and writing style...became more formulaic and less gripping.
Almost as if the writer had grown tired of her own story and characters and wished she could just move on. This, I've discovered, happens a lot with long running serials - whether they are novels, tv shows, or movies (okay less so with movies), where the writer eventually just burns out. In part because of the pressure to publish one book a year. In this case Harrison published both books in the same year - the Undead Pool (Book 12) came out in the Spring, and now, Book 13 arrives in the fall. As a result both books felt a bit rushed, and one can't help but wonder how much better they may have been if a good editor had spent some time with them, or the writer had been given more time to think them through.
Part of the reason GRR Martin's world and characters are more fleshed out - is he is given more time to write his books.
It's one of the major failings of the urban fantasy genre - the rushed publishing schedules of the books. It's equally a failing of tv shows - that rushed schedule. The better television serials - have more time and less episodes to churn out, so less tendency towards burn-out or sloppy writing.
3 What I'll be reading next?
I don't know. Went on a book buying spree...as if I really need any more books, should read the ones that I currently have.
* Fannie Flagg's The All Girl Filing Station Reunion
* Rosemary Roger's classic Sweet Savage Love (which is now available on Kindle for a die for price, well maybe not to die for...but still. )
* Lev Grossmen's The Magicians
* Meredith Duran's Fool Me Twice, and Bound to You
* Against the Grain - a paleo cookbook.
So one of those I expect. Or something else. I have a reading itch to scratch and its not being scratched. Would help if I could identify the itch and what exactly would scratch it.
In aside, I sort of wrote a Buffy meta. Didn't get hardly any comments. LJ has changed a lot - back in the day, I'd get at least ten.
1. What you just finished reading?
The Duke's Tattoo. Don't remember the author's name. It was fun. The ending fell a little flat for me though. I described it in a prior entry in more detail.
2. What you are reading now?
Plodding through the final book in Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan Bounty Hunter series. The final book, the 13th in the series...Witch with No Name - wraps up many loose ends - but lacks the wit, charm, and tension of the previous novels. Somewhere around book 9 or 10, the series became more focused on big picture themes and less on character. The mythology expanded as did the main characters powers, but many of the characters seemed to lose some of what made them interesting. Also the dialogue, and writing style...became more formulaic and less gripping.
Almost as if the writer had grown tired of her own story and characters and wished she could just move on. This, I've discovered, happens a lot with long running serials - whether they are novels, tv shows, or movies (okay less so with movies), where the writer eventually just burns out. In part because of the pressure to publish one book a year. In this case Harrison published both books in the same year - the Undead Pool (Book 12) came out in the Spring, and now, Book 13 arrives in the fall. As a result both books felt a bit rushed, and one can't help but wonder how much better they may have been if a good editor had spent some time with them, or the writer had been given more time to think them through.
Part of the reason GRR Martin's world and characters are more fleshed out - is he is given more time to write his books.
It's one of the major failings of the urban fantasy genre - the rushed publishing schedules of the books. It's equally a failing of tv shows - that rushed schedule. The better television serials - have more time and less episodes to churn out, so less tendency towards burn-out or sloppy writing.
3 What I'll be reading next?
I don't know. Went on a book buying spree...as if I really need any more books, should read the ones that I currently have.
* Fannie Flagg's The All Girl Filing Station Reunion
* Rosemary Roger's classic Sweet Savage Love (which is now available on Kindle for a die for price, well maybe not to die for...but still. )
* Lev Grossmen's The Magicians
* Meredith Duran's Fool Me Twice, and Bound to You
* Against the Grain - a paleo cookbook.
So one of those I expect. Or something else. I have a reading itch to scratch and its not being scratched. Would help if I could identify the itch and what exactly would scratch it.