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Finchlark
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Quote: awrigley, Thursday, 11 Jun 2009 10:01Quote: Finchlark, Tuesday, 9 Jun 2009 19:49Quote: awrigley, Tuesday, 9 Jun 2009 18:44Athene That is first time authors only. Someone gave me State of Fear by Michael Crichton for Christmas, [...] Andrew I read it and couldn't stop reading. Absolutely loved it. Just goes to show. Finchlark The Economist (6 June 2009), in a review of a book called Ultimatum, describes State of Fear as 'Michael Crichton's diatribe about climate change'. It says that Ultimatum is much better. Better than a Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October too apparently. What it has in common with both of these author's books is that it plays to the reader's fears. It was written by Matthew Glass, a pseudonym for an Australian-born doctor living in the UK who 'writes in his spare time' and who wants to remain anonymous. It is allegedly his first novel. Clearly didn't have enough spare time to join YWO. The Economist reviews are usually quite reliable, so will try this one out. Andrew Just had a look online. Will keep an eye out for this, if you get to it first let me know what you think.
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le coeur
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Quote: Brian Hamilton-Smith, Thursday, 11 Jun 2009 09:37Quote: Athene, Tuesday, 9 Jun 2009 17:38I give up on plenty of books - on the principle that if a book hasn't grabbed my interest after twenty or thirty pages, it's not likely I'm going to enjoy the rest of it. There's so much good stuff out there to read, why waste time finishing something you're not enjoying? I did once break that habit, for The Da Vinci Code: I just had to keep on reading to see if it could possibly get any worse. It could and it did. I still find it hard to believe that the writer had somehow missed all the publicity when The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail was admitted to be a fraud - in The Da Vinci Code he's quoting it as (sorry) gospel. And as for all the cryptic stuff ... did anyone take more than 5 seconds to solve the clue about Newton? (the one which took the protagonist several days, as I recall). Athene On a recent holiday, I picked up two of those paperbacks that other tourists leave behind and read them on the beach. And a pair of doozies they were, too. The first was Angels and Demons, which featured a supposedly Harvard-educated expert spending days solving clues that anyone who had been on a morning tour of Rome could have figured out in five minutes. But the second was even worse, and is my nomination for the worst book I've ever finished reading (the ones I didn't complete don't really count, as there is a possiblity they got better - A Dance to the Music of Time would get my vote as a book I found impossible to complete, but it is so long I can hardly be alone on that score): Ladykiller by Martina Cole. It is impossibly, excruciatingly, embarrassingly bad. It features policemen investigating a series of murders who have no knowledge of procedures, a female Inspector who sleeps with the gangster father of one of the victims, a lame cast of Cockney characters including tart-with-a-heart prostitutes, Irish Londoners who prove their Irishness by drinking Bushmills in every other scene, and a killer whose childhood memories include forced colonic irrigation by his mother as his siblings held him down (which, to be honest, was a quite a good sroryline). But what was really bad was the writing: every third page, a character was 'incredulous'. Every second page, someone's 'heart fell into his/her boots'. I wish I could remember all the crimes against writing committed in that book, but I had to drink a lot of Croatian brandy to expunge it from my brain. Compared to Ms Cole, Dan Brown is a literary giant. Sir, your talents are wasted on this site and I salute the best book critique I have read for a long while. lol. It's a pity you aren't a critic for the grauniad who might then promote and encourage new writers instead of the overhyped cliche mongers which they do with such gay abandon and force publishers to re evaluate their criteria. The establishments current criteria of 'you can sell any shit' as long as you promote it hard enough is becoming more tiresome every day and tesco shelves are sagging under the sheer weight of remainders for £2 a pop. Oddly enough, your review of ms coles diatribe is so 'good' it may well encourage me to read it just to see how bad it is. Reverse psychology can work, but I think I'll get it from the library so as not to increase her wealth by much.
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NickP
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One thing I would say: many readers want to be involved in an involving story and they don't give a shit whether characters have sinking hearts, sigh all the time or even are "incredulous". Brown, Cole, Higgins...they are read and enjoyed WIDELY. They tell stories of places and people familiar from TV and film. They deal in the stuff of cliche, basically. So...what do we conclude? That we writers should dumb down? No. But sometimes we could concentrate more on the mechanics of generating tension in a reader, and less on "new ways of looking at the world" and beautiful phrases that can sometimes drag a reader out of the story.
"...the likes of NickP can rant on if they like"
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sulcus
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Quote: NickP, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 06:34No. But sometimes we could concentrate more on the mechanics of generating tension in a reader, and less on "new ways of looking at the world" and beautiful phrases that can sometimes drag a reader out of the story. A dagger through my heart ...
"A,B&E", "Not In My Name" and "52FF" (flash fiction anthology) all available on Amazon Kindle"How a psychopath makes sweet love. I can get you ringside. Royal box even."
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NickP
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Quote: sulcus, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 07:11Quote: NickP, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 06:34No. But sometimes we could concentrate more on the mechanics of generating tension in a reader, and less on "new ways of looking at the world" and beautiful phrases that can sometimes drag a reader out of the story. A dagger through my heart ... Don't take it personally. A man's reach should exceed his grasp...
"...the likes of NickP can rant on if they like"
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sulcus
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Quote: NickP, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 07:50Quote: sulcus, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 07:11Quote: NickP, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 06:34No. But sometimes we could concentrate more on the mechanics of generating tension in a reader, and less on "new ways of looking at the world" and beautiful phrases that can sometimes drag a reader out of the story. A dagger through my heart ... Don't take it personally. A man's reach should exceed his grasp... Hey Nick, I don't take anything on this site personally ... These urang utang arms of mine come in well handy
This post was last edited by sulcus, 12 Jun 2009, 08:07
"A,B&E", "Not In My Name" and "52FF" (flash fiction anthology) all available on Amazon Kindle"How a psychopath makes sweet love. I can get you ringside. Royal box even."
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Brian Hamilton-Smith
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Quote: NickP, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 06:34One thing I would say: many readers want to be involved in an involving story and they don't give a shit whether characters have sinking hearts, sigh all the time or even are "incredulous". Brown, Cole, Higgins...they are read and enjoyed WIDELY. They tell stories of places and people familiar from TV and film. They deal in the stuff of cliche, basically. So...what do we conclude? That we writers should dumb down? No. But sometimes we could concentrate more on the mechanics of generating tension in a reader, and less on "new ways of looking at the world" and beautiful phrases that can sometimes drag a reader out of the story. This should perhaps be sellotaped to the screens of many of YWO's budding literary genii: "beautiful phrases can sometimes drag a reader out of the story." Having said that, I'm not entirely sure that the widespread popularity of Martina Cole is really an issue. The fact that she writes repetitive, uninspiring prose and has a cast of characters that derive from fictional prototypes and not real life and her plots are equally unoriginal and formulaic is not a 'crime' at all, really. Her books are written with one purpose only - to sell. The relative goodness or badness of her writing is a matter for the reader to decide. It's like comparing Beethoven to Gary Barlow - the audiences are different. And, to coin a cliche, is is all a matter of taste. But the thing about taste is education, and varied reading expands and refines it. An active, critical mind looks for new things, not more of the same. Martina Cole churns out books that are the same length, with almost identical covers (although the publisher would be responsible for that), and concern the same mythical East End stereotypes. Throughout the 600 pages of The Ladykiller, there was not one 'beautiful phrase' that lifted the book out of the medocrity of trashy fiction, nothing that indicated there was an intelligence at work behind the writing beyond a cynical exploitation of the idiot classes. To laud such writers merely because they are successful is to be part of the 'dumbing down' - like so many things nowadays, if it makes money it is admired. I don't mind conceding that Martina Cole is not evil, and she has committed no crimes. But, in every possible sense (apart from the inverse contemporary idiom) that can be appied to a published writer, she is bad. As an adjunct to this, on my previous holiday I had a book enthusiastically thrust into my hand by an intelligent-looking lady. She had been reading Victoria Hislop's The Island and informed me 'I've just finished this - it's the best book I've ever read.' After reading a few pages, I wondered just how many books the woman had ever read.
This post was last edited by Brian Hamilton-Smith, 12 Jun 2009, 12:46
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awrigley
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Quote: NickP, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 07:50Quote: sulcus, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 07:11Quote: NickP, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 06:34No. But sometimes we could concentrate more on the mechanics of generating tension in a reader, and less on "new ways of looking at the world" and beautiful phrases that can sometimes drag a reader out of the story. A dagger through my heart ... Don't take it personally. A man's reach should exceed his grasp... At the edge of the green At the brink of the blue All split asunder By lightening and thunder Going for broke Never say nope Take another toke It must be the dope... Somewhere way past midnight, the galloping poet lunged beyond his reach and lost both stirrups
Memory... What was that?
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sulcus
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Quote: awrigley, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 13:07Quote: NickP, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 07:50Quote: sulcus, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 07:11Quote: NickP, Friday, 12 Jun 2009 06:34 At the edge of the green At the brink of the blue All split asunder By lightening and thunder Going for broke Never say nope Take another toke It must be the dope... Somewhere way past midnight, the galloping poet lunged beyond his reach and lost both stirrups Shame I'm deuteranopic then
"A,B&E", "Not In My Name" and "52FF" (flash fiction anthology) all available on Amazon Kindle"How a psychopath makes sweet love. I can get you ringside. Royal box even."
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pam123writing
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Left on a train and picked up by me to scan through. Biggest load of shite I've ever seen and I only read three pages. A Halo For The Devil by Barbara Cartland. The worrying thing is, the woman wrote over 600 of these little charmers and made millions. 
"And, in the end, the love you take / Is equal to the love you make." Lennon and McCartney 1969
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What's the worst book you've ever read
11 Jun 2009, 10:39
