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How I love the Style Invitational. A recent contest was to update lines from literature with product placement. As is often the case, I found the first runner up much funnier than the winner: "And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the amazing Ginsu knife to slay his son, and the angel of the Lord called out, 'But wait, there's more!'"
Not done with the new Laurell Hamilton, Incubus Dreams (shut up, you know you want to), but I had to write now and say: So, I already read a chunk of this, as described here. Many of the typos have been cleaned up, but there are still apostrophes popping out where no apostrophe should go (wasn't the name of Anita's firm Animators Inc. back in the beginning? At least Animator's Inc. makes marginal sense, whereas it's for its is just annoying). The real problem is that this puppy clocks in at 658 pages, and I'm on page 249. So far we've had a wedding (not a main character's), sex and near sex with bonus violence, a visit from Ronnie the ex-best friend and another from Richard, and now a nasty client. What made me stop reading to rant was the misspelling of "privilege" twice in one paragraph (she's quite likely wrong about the legal analysis in that paragraph too, since lawyers' conversations with third party nonlawyers can so be privileged from discovery by opposing parties, but whatever). That's spellcheck, for God's sake, not even something a human being has to pay attention to like it's and its.
But that's not the basic problem, which is that girlfriend needs an editor. Cut out Anita's angsty musings about how hard it is to have these hot men panting to service her -- one of them is even defined as "the wife" by himself and several others -- and we could have gotten all the action, including infodumps, done in 50 pages tops. I checked at Amazon, and the reissued Guilty Pleasures is 272 pages in paperback, 320 hardcover, making Incubus Dreams twice as long. The last thing Hamilton needs is to go Stephen King on us; she's not that good.
Reading the book has been making me think about sequels. The standard line is that the sequel is a troubled animal because what the reader wants is, ideally, the same thing, only different this time. It is this, not just laziness or lack of new ideas, that can so fatally infect series novels -- the way that the audience demands new adventures in which nothing changes. In fan fiction -- and maybe in a way in tie-in novels -- you can get that pleasure in repetition through variation because each new story has its own reset button at the end; nobody expects the story to become part of official, acknowledged canon. But Hamilton is stuck between offering change and comfort, and while psychologically Anita's perpetually whiny internal monologue makes sense to me, because people do get trapped in patterns even as their lives change around them, it's just no fun to read. Plus, at this point, the lady has been protesting too much about her discomfort with fucking multiple guys for several novels now. Anita's making noises about growing up, but so far it's just talk. And nearly-explicit sex, which also makes me nuts -- if you're growing up, use a frelling noun to describe a penis, because "ripeness," "width" and the like just make me wonder what it is, exactly, that's ripe -- a peach perhaps? Weird mental image, for sure. This tension between giving us the pleasure we experienced in the original and making it different perhaps suggests one attraction of the trilogy/five-year plan: by conceiving of the story as one single entity spread across multiple books, you can let the characters live rather than relive.
The book is quite a contrast to the other gotta-have-it-now book that arrived in the same Amazon shipment, Terry Pratchett's Going Postal. Pratchett lacks Hamilton's series troubles for a number of reasons, not just because he's a better writer. For one thing, Going Postal centers on a completely new character, Moist -- which I sort of think is supposed to make us think "Moishe," or Jewish, because he's also got a Germanic last name. Moist is a habitual swindler, saved from execution by Vetinari and put to work as the new postmaster. (Sadly, Vimes is only name-checked, but in a way that's entirely in character.) The job has been vacant for decades, and the old post office is full of tons of undelivered mail and staffed by two wackos, plus Moist's parole officer, a golem working his way to freedom. Vetinari has resurrected the post to deal with the problems posed by the new communications monopoly of the clacks system, whose owners have increased prices and decreased service in order to treat the clacks as a cash cow.
There's not much that's funny here, as opposed to quirky and charming. The plot is hackneyed, as the bad guy forced to play good learns that good has rewards of its own and confronts the kind of bad guy he used to be on behalf of the common people. That sounds like I didn't like the book, though I did. The pleasure is all in the execution, the way in which the plot unfolds rather than the directions. As always, Pratchett's strength is in making his characters feel like real people, no matter how ridiculous their behavior or their circumstances, and I have to admit I teared up at the end. There's a reason plots become hackneyed, after all; when done right, they can make you feel a connection to the characters and to what is good and bad in humanity generally. And "redemption despite yourself" is a much more flexible plot than "Anita fights monsters, fucks monsters, gains new powers," so Pratchett can reuse his more easily than Hamilton hers without annoying me.
Not done with the new Laurell Hamilton, Incubus Dreams (shut up, you know you want to), but I had to write now and say: So, I already read a chunk of this, as described here. Many of the typos have been cleaned up, but there are still apostrophes popping out where no apostrophe should go (wasn't the name of Anita's firm Animators Inc. back in the beginning? At least Animator's Inc. makes marginal sense, whereas it's for its is just annoying). The real problem is that this puppy clocks in at 658 pages, and I'm on page 249. So far we've had a wedding (not a main character's), sex and near sex with bonus violence, a visit from Ronnie the ex-best friend and another from Richard, and now a nasty client. What made me stop reading to rant was the misspelling of "privilege" twice in one paragraph (she's quite likely wrong about the legal analysis in that paragraph too, since lawyers' conversations with third party nonlawyers can so be privileged from discovery by opposing parties, but whatever). That's spellcheck, for God's sake, not even something a human being has to pay attention to like it's and its.
But that's not the basic problem, which is that girlfriend needs an editor. Cut out Anita's angsty musings about how hard it is to have these hot men panting to service her -- one of them is even defined as "the wife" by himself and several others -- and we could have gotten all the action, including infodumps, done in 50 pages tops. I checked at Amazon, and the reissued Guilty Pleasures is 272 pages in paperback, 320 hardcover, making Incubus Dreams twice as long. The last thing Hamilton needs is to go Stephen King on us; she's not that good.
Reading the book has been making me think about sequels. The standard line is that the sequel is a troubled animal because what the reader wants is, ideally, the same thing, only different this time. It is this, not just laziness or lack of new ideas, that can so fatally infect series novels -- the way that the audience demands new adventures in which nothing changes. In fan fiction -- and maybe in a way in tie-in novels -- you can get that pleasure in repetition through variation because each new story has its own reset button at the end; nobody expects the story to become part of official, acknowledged canon. But Hamilton is stuck between offering change and comfort, and while psychologically Anita's perpetually whiny internal monologue makes sense to me, because people do get trapped in patterns even as their lives change around them, it's just no fun to read. Plus, at this point, the lady has been protesting too much about her discomfort with fucking multiple guys for several novels now. Anita's making noises about growing up, but so far it's just talk. And nearly-explicit sex, which also makes me nuts -- if you're growing up, use a frelling noun to describe a penis, because "ripeness," "width" and the like just make me wonder what it is, exactly, that's ripe -- a peach perhaps? Weird mental image, for sure. This tension between giving us the pleasure we experienced in the original and making it different perhaps suggests one attraction of the trilogy/five-year plan: by conceiving of the story as one single entity spread across multiple books, you can let the characters live rather than relive.
The book is quite a contrast to the other gotta-have-it-now book that arrived in the same Amazon shipment, Terry Pratchett's Going Postal. Pratchett lacks Hamilton's series troubles for a number of reasons, not just because he's a better writer. For one thing, Going Postal centers on a completely new character, Moist -- which I sort of think is supposed to make us think "Moishe," or Jewish, because he's also got a Germanic last name. Moist is a habitual swindler, saved from execution by Vetinari and put to work as the new postmaster. (Sadly, Vimes is only name-checked, but in a way that's entirely in character.) The job has been vacant for decades, and the old post office is full of tons of undelivered mail and staffed by two wackos, plus Moist's parole officer, a golem working his way to freedom. Vetinari has resurrected the post to deal with the problems posed by the new communications monopoly of the clacks system, whose owners have increased prices and decreased service in order to treat the clacks as a cash cow.
There's not much that's funny here, as opposed to quirky and charming. The plot is hackneyed, as the bad guy forced to play good learns that good has rewards of its own and confronts the kind of bad guy he used to be on behalf of the common people. That sounds like I didn't like the book, though I did. The pleasure is all in the execution, the way in which the plot unfolds rather than the directions. As always, Pratchett's strength is in making his characters feel like real people, no matter how ridiculous their behavior or their circumstances, and I have to admit I teared up at the end. There's a reason plots become hackneyed, after all; when done right, they can make you feel a connection to the characters and to what is good and bad in humanity generally. And "redemption despite yourself" is a much more flexible plot than "Anita fights monsters, fucks monsters, gains new powers," so Pratchett can reuse his more easily than Hamilton hers without annoying me.
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From:
50 pages tops
This is the last Anita book I buy, and this time I really mean it. Back when I looked forward to Anita, I read them for the danger and the tension; both have long since disappeared.
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Re: 50 pages tops
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Re: 50 pages tops
I doubt this will be my last Hamilton novel either ... but I think from now on it's used copies months after the release, rather than even Amazon's discounted new price.
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Re: 50 pages tops
I'll be going to NYC after the holiday party to stay there until Saturday -- any chance you want to take the train back together?
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Re: 50 pages tops
Yes, train ride back sounds very plausible to me. See you next week!
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no subject
And surprise, a whole plot point ... wasn't. I think I now read these for the 4 readable pages of copy she provides.
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no subject
I like the Anita books MUCH better than the Merry Gentry ones -- too much faerie court or just that thing I have against little green men. I remember thinking while reading the last faerie book that she sure had spent a hell of a lot of pages on a whole lot of nothing.
I may find that's true of Incubus Dreams, too, but so far, the multiple partner thing has hit enough of my own kinks to continue to be entertaining. Cerulean Sins was my favorite of the series so far, so...Wish she'd get off her high horse about the boys doin' each other, though.
I'm reading Emma Holly for my m/m, m/f, m/f/m lit fix. It's like fan fic, only without knowing the characters ahead of time. ;)
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I now picture CKR as Edward, and it makes it all just that much better.
The Edward-centric book is the one I enjoyed least -- I missed the shape shifters -- but I like Edward a lot as a character.
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no subject
I'm not sure if this means I'm care-free or just careless. ;-)
Personally, long as it was, I thought Incubus Dreams was a nice turning point in the Soap Opera that is Anita's Life. She actuallys (gasp!) seemed to be gaining sanity in the area of relationships. Certainly, it's not all hugs and puppies, but an improvement is an improvement and if the angst remained, it was, at least, angst moving toward a resolution of sorts. Light can be seen at the end of the tunnel (until the next book, of course).
As for "Going Postal" I think Pratchett has achieved a third (or possibly fourth) tier with the Discworld books, where you had those initial stand-alones, and then the sequels (Witches, Death, City Guards, etc.) built upon the narrative foundations laid out by the first ones. Then you had some cross-overs like "Maskerade" "Fifth Elephant" and "Carpe Jugulum". And now you get things like "Going Postal" which take the secondarily generated ideas, like The Anhk Morpork Times and the whole "Golem Liberation" concept as mere background. All the stuff set up by 'Feet of Clay', which needed "Guards! Guards!" before it, is now taken for granted by the latest book as setting.
I'm not sure I'm explaining it well, but the sense of Pratchett's novels now being several steps removed from their initial premises seemed very apparent and, to my mind, it gives his body of work a nice multi-layered feel.
Agree with you on the clever but not funny thing, btw. And the not being disappointed by it. My only complaint was the constant repition of that "The most valuable thing: hope." line. Hitting us over the head with the theme like that seemed just a little clunky.
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no subject
I get what you're saying about Pratchett, and it makes sense. Maybe he's achieved a version of what JK Rowling is having to try, writing a series of books at different levels of moral complexity. Feet of Clay remains my favorite of the Discworld books.
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no subject
*winces* Of course, I still reads Regency romance where someone refers to a penis as burgeoning masculinity and giggles, so really, I'm no judge.
Though I have entertained myself by coming up behind a coworker reading Catherine Coulter and saying "You're reading girly porn!"
Ooh. And I almost forgot! I'm glad you think you can make it to NY that weekend. I'm currently staring at my future carry on bag, trying to figure out what I consider essential. So far, DVDs and my lipstick are all that's made the cut. And clean underwear. Essentials should the rest of my luggage be lost.
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From:
Anita went south after Obsidian Butterfly IMO
I *loved* finding out more about Edward. I loved the tragedy of Edward: someone who'd lost his soul and missed it, and was willing to go through the motions of love and family in the faint hope of getting it back.
I was eager to read the next installment, believing this new, more mature storytelling would continue. Instead, the next book (I don't even remember the name) was to my mind little more than soft porno and tiresome soap opera -- with a gloss of a plotline that struck me as a retread of about two previous books, where it had been done better, possibly because it was then fresher. It really pissed me off.
I think Hamilton has gone full tilt boogie into non-disguised Mary Sue-dom. I'm tired of Vampire Court games. I'm amazingly tired of the triad. I'm tired of these things because there's nothing fresh in them: it's SSDD, the characters don't seem to learn or change or grow ... and I think Hamilton's tired of them, too, which is why we're getting non-stop sex scenes instead of a compelling story.
Sorry for the rant. But I used to love the Anita books, and now see them as exercises in self-indulgence. Think of me as The Reader Scorned :)
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Re: Anita went south after Obsidian Butterfly IMO