Audio Book Review, "The Haunting of Hill House"

Review in Brief

The book, "The Haunting of Hill House" is not good.

The Plot Goeth Thusly

            In order to study supernatural phenomenon a psychiatrist gathers a group of people for a study in a haunted house.  The main viewpoint character of Eleanor slowly goes mad in the house as supernatural shit keeps happening.

My First Complaint: Boring

The book is boring.  I cannot fault the prose of the work, as the words have a descriptive power and flow that is nice, the performer allows the words to trip off their tongue quite eloquently.  But the plot drags and there is just not enough meat to the story.  By "meat" I mean revelations, there are few if any twists or surprises, these people are in a haunted house with some architectural quirks (that I am sure are metaphors) and they get spooked by ghosts.

            I guess I was expecting more of a “And Then There Were None” type situation, where the characters clash with one another, all have secrets and ultimately they unravel as the situation spirals out of control.  But aside from several instances of ghosts causing noise and everyone being afraid the vast majority of the book is the main character, Eleanor’s internal monologue which vacillates between demure and bitchy.

My Next Complaint: The Main Character

Eleanor is such a hard protagonist to root for.  The implication in the novel is that she starts out as a good-natured shrinking violet who has had little love in her life and the house sort of twists her insecurities into general bitchiness and ultimately self-destruction.  But, her dialogue is boring, and she is a boring person. At some point you need the viewpoint character of your book to have more of a personality than feckless human chew toy.  I don’t know, I got no vibes of internal struggle, just a steady descent from pathetic to miserable, and ultimately back to pathetic.  Not so much a character arc as a character boomerang.

            How would I have fixed this?  Simple, I would have had more characters.

            For a book where the premise is, “Psychiatrist conducts a study,” the Doctor has a comically small pool of participants.  Seriously, there are two people involved in the study, demure Eleanor and the free-spirited Theodora.  There is another guy there, Luke who is a member of the family that owns the house, but he’s not part of the study.  Beyond that there are some extremely tertiary characters, the Doctor’s wife (who is a sort of proto Gwyneth Paltrow for her use of bullshit in the study) and her… bodyguard(?) Arthur who mostly serves as a gruff salt of the earth contrast to the rest of the cast.  And I guess the rude house help… But fuck’em, their whole personalities begin and end with them being curt to the guests.

Just to sidetrack a moment, I am not going to watch this show.
Calling this nonsense a "lab" is such horse shit that I feel insulted on behalf of science.
Netflix should be ashamed.

None of the other characters work.  The Doctor comes off to me as a doddering old fool with no real method to the study that forms the impetus for the story.  Theodora has traits but mostly exists as a foil for Eleanor, and her establishing section of the novel paints her as so flighty and detached that she effectively has no motivation.  Luke is just a swaggering dick and offers no conflict to the story (we are told he is a liar and a cad... But it never amounts to anything in the narrative.  How about having him act that way?), mostly he just spends all of his time pouring drinks and playing chess with the Doctor (seriously, that is how a large chunk of his time on page is spent).  Then the Doctor’s hen-pecking idiot wife shows up with her servant(?) Arthur, a dull-witted thug.  Give me someone to care about, and then have that person clash with characters who I also care about.

            Overall there is just a lack of inter character drama and a lack of layers for the cast.  Eleanor is the focus, sure it is good to have a core character, but there is no mystery element, no one is more/less/something other than they appear to be, at least not in a way that comes up in the story or impacts the plot.  It is odd to have characters that all have dimension and contrast with one another just fine… But nothing really comes of it.

Why I Got This Book

I got this on sale for Halloween and because the "Inspired by" limited series on Netflix was so good.  How such a great Netflix series was inspired by it is like the evolutionary steps that moved from especially smart monkeys up to Humans, you can see how it happened, but is such a significant change that you have to marvel at it.

"Hey, what if the Ghosts were metaphors for something and we could couple the aftermath of living in the house with the events as they happened to create a mystery that the audience will feel engaged unraveling?"  "That sounds like a great idea!"

Ultimate Conclusion

            I wouldn’t recommend this even for people interested in the horror canon.  There are just better books out there.  If you want supernatural horror, listen to “Dracula”, and if you are looking for an ensemble piece set in a spooky house then go with the previously mentioned, “And Then There Were None” (which is not perfect, but it is better than this).

            “The Haunting of Hill House” fails with the supreme kiss of death for any work of fiction, the 8 deadly words, “I don’t care what happens to these people.”

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Audio Book Review, "The Scribbly Man"

TLDR: It Sucks

Prologue

            To start off this discussion I want to first talk about another book that is more interesting than this one, “Sheepfarmer's Daughter” by Elizabeth Moon, in her fantasy saga, “The Deed of Paksenarrion”.  I read that book ages ago and for all that time I was trying to get my thoughts about it down on paper.  I would start, get bogged down, start talking about the Hero’s Journey and how character arcs are supposed to work… Then I would stop and throw it all out.

            There was too much to talk about with “Sheepfarmer's Daughter”.  I wrote other massive book reviews for the other murderer’s row “Worst books I have managed to finish”, a strange subgenre of things I tell people to stay away from.  There was my review of “Year One” which I again mention “Sheepfarmer's Daughter”.  And my review of the boring as fuck “Genesis”, a review that I am kind of proud of.  But I was still not able to hammer out all the things I wanted to get into with the first “Deed of Paksenarrion” book.

            There are other things that I feel almost obligated to write about one day to explain in excruciating detail why I dislike them so much, but I don’t feel so bad about Elizabeth Moon’s book now, because something new has taken the laurel as the worst book I have ever managed to finish, Terry Goodkind’s “The Scribbly Man”.

Introduction

I came into reading this aware of Terry Goodkind's status as a prolific writer who helped define the fantasy genre over the decades... I expected this to be good.

Let me start with the first of many complaints, this is not a "Book 1" it is the direct continuation of an earlier series, events from that previous series define the main view point characters, the world, and serve as the inciting action for this story.  I got this assuming it was the author building a new series from the ground up, it is not, and the lack of clear upfront explanation of things makes the material surprisingly obtuse.  What is more, and this only matters to fans of his work (and there is a horde, this thing is intensely well reviewed) the book is comically short, it would be a quarter of a typical fantasy novel, even one meant to start a series.

 

For reference, this book (which I still hate) is 15 hours and 48 minutes.
"Scribbly Man" is 3 hours and 50 minutes.

The Plot

            The King and his wife who is sort of the Pope of a fantasy world are confronted by someone telling them that a “Golden Goddess” is coming to conquer their planet.  This guy is carted off for interrogation and a Witch shows up to be a new character (her presence should be a big red flag to everyone else… and somehow they treat her like they’ve known her for years).

            Turns out the guy in the interrogation tried to kill the Pope with the help of the titular “Scribbly Man” a monster from another world as a herald of the Golden Goddess.  The Pope lives, and together with the other characters they later resolve to fight the bad guy… And that is it.  Shockingly short book, I would not have stuck it out if it were longer.

Some Complaints

My initial and core complaints about this title have to do with the comically bad writing.  Dialogue is so stilted that the voice actor seems to have no idea how to deliver the lines, halting, flat, and repetitive.  I swear to god, the number of times the word "Gift" or "Witch Woman" show up in some chapters the words start to lose all meaning.  And of course "Scribbly Man" and "Golden Goddess" which are repeated dozens of times to the point where you just want to shake them and say, call one of them "They" or "Gary" or something else so that I can stop rolling my eyes at how overly formal you are all being.

And everything has such boring nomenclature.  "War Wizard" "Sword of Truth" "Confessor" "Witch Woman", they all feel like place holders that you put into the script until you can think of something distinct or punchy to give the world flavor like "Fremen" in Dune, “Istari” in Lord of the Rings, or “Jedi” in Star Wars.  “Scribbly” lacks sophistication with the writing terminology and that makes it feel flat.  I don’t need a whole fictional language or whatever, but come up with something more interesting sounding that “War Wizard”.

 

Tank Mage would have at least been a cool visual.
But he is just the 10,000th fantasy jerk off with a sword.

Some More Complaints

The plotting makes little sense too, there is a part where the heroes all decide to interrogate a villain, so they walk into a cell and then they stop and have a 10-minute private conversation that they all could have had in another room.  It is like the chapter is in the wrong place.  Same goes for lots of cuts to the action.  A chapter ends with the Confessor in complete control of a situation, zero tension, and then when we come back the villain has stabbed her, and an unseen monster has viciously attacked her.  What?  You were fine?  Why didn’t the last chapter we saw you in end with a violent attack?

There is also just a lack of characters.  There are 2 main, 2 supporting, and 3 minor in a book about a fantasy kingdom being invaded by incorporeal mind controlling ghost monsters from the stars.  Where is the war council?  Where are prominent heroes, intellectuals, and advisers outside of the two heroes and the random "Witch Woman" who happens to show up the same day as the evil ghosts... and for some reason no one treats that as massively suspicious.

There is the real twist that needed to happen, the “Witch Woman” should have been concocting the whole alien invasion thing to put her in a position to harm the two main heroes… She even has motivation to do so… not that it makes any sense because it was the conclusion to the last series of books, but the Witch doesn’t seem to take, “Sorry I screwed up the source of one of your many super powers… But I literally was thwarting the end of life on this planet.  You should probably just get over it.”

"Sure, the dead would have walked the earth...
But you would have gotten to keep your ability to tell people's fortunes.  Idiot."

Some More Complaints

Also, the heroes are assholes.  One of them uses magic to completely enslave the will of a person who is already brainwashed by the villain and she is so pissed of at him for telling her that the bad guys are coming she kills him… Like he was a victim of the monsters.  And what is more that scene has another hero brutally and casually mutilate the guy to break the villain’s control over him, it is unpleasant and shocking… and the main heroes are just like, “Ha!  I’m starting to like her!”  Which is gross.

Another small thing, the title is stupid.  This is the start of the series and while “Scribbly Man” is said to the point where the words boarder on meaningless it is not technically the main threat, the “Golden Goddess” is.  And what is more there is some asinine argument between the two main characters about how one promised the other a “Golden Age” and she is mad at him because she is now conflating “Golden Age” and “Golden Goddess” in a train of logic I could not follow.  The book, which takes place as a SEQUEL to the past series should have been called “The Golden Age” to show the contrast between the promise of the main hero and the looming threat of the villain, you know, the parallel he was trying to establish and failed to.

A Backhanded Compliment

To switch gears, I will give it one credit.  The idea of the shimmering ghost like entity, the titular Scribbly Man is a good image.  The way its tracks are described, the idea that it has claws and venom, that it is especially alien and sees causing fear and killing akin to sexual pleasure.  They are a fitting threat to the protagonists who are the undisputed supreme monarchs of an entire planet with magic powers and seemingly limitless resources… Yeesh… way to write identifiable characters am I right?  Guess that isn’t a lot of credit there…

This is from the show... Which is... Shockingly bad.
Also, gotta love that old trope of superior bloodlines making them magically awesome

Conclusion

Note: I did not pay full price for this, I got it for $1.99 and still thought about returning it.  Overall, this is garbage.  The sort of flat clunky mess that I would expect as the first fantasy novel hacked out by a 15-year-old.  Made all the more disappointing because it is apparently the work of a rock star in the genre.  Baffling.

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10 Short Audible Reviews

            Here are Ten short reviews of the last Ten books I have listened to with Audible.  That is to say, these are books, not the Audible originals I also received which are often more complex productions and good in their own way… But I am just going for books on this one.

            I should note that I only listed the authors and not the audio performers, this is my own bias because I am reviewing these first as books.  That being said, the audio performances were good in all of these and in some cases I would argue elevated the material.

“Talking to Strangers” by Malcolm Gladwell

            This is a less focused thesis statement than his previous books, but regardless it introduces numerous instances of communications theory and practice that have broken down in some keyway leading to trouble.  Recommended for those who like non-fiction having to do with communications and current events.

“Outland” by Dennis E. Taylor

            This is the start to a new science fiction series by the author that appeals to the same part of my brain that really liked Gary Paulsen novels growing up.  I would most compare it to “Tunnel in the Sky” by Robert Heinlein.  If you like high concept science fiction I would recommend it, but I would recommend his “We Are Legion (We Are Bob)” series first, it is SO GOOD.

“Blindspot” by Mahzarin R Banaji and Anthony G Greenwald

            This was reading for my new position as a student at George Washington University, as it details how hidden bias exists in ways that are often too subtle to detect.  It also explains how these things developed within society and how recognizing them can be useful.  If you like social science then I recommend it.  I talk about it more here.

This book series deserves a special commendation because it is legendarily good at being self published.
No Joke, this is an inspiration to all writers who want to be successful one day.

“Age of Legend” by Michael J Sullivan

            This is the latest in a series that I like overall, but I actually think this is the weakest entry in the series.  I genuinely enjoy all of the work by Sullivan that I have listened to and have talked to him via email, where he complimented my solution to his use of the term “underscore” by a society that had no concept of written language (my solution was to say it referred to scoring the underside of a boot or shoe to give it traction and grip, rather than underlining a word).  I talked about more of his material here.

“Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d’Art” by Christopher Moore

            I am legitimately shocked that I have not mentioned this author before in this blog.  He does magical comedy and has written numerous titles I would recommend without hesitation.  This one I am hesitant to recommend because it is WEIRD.  I like the concept, that some mysterious supernatural being is responsible for the murder of Vincent van Gogh and it relates to a magical blue paint… but boy does it take a turn into crazy town.  I would only recommend it if you are okay with the sort of, “it is so weird that it makes it seem real” that you get from Joe Hill stories about a magical car that turns children into hook toothed monsters.

“Siege Tactics” by Drew Hayes

            Another, “4^th book in its series”.  I wrote a longer review for this one on Audible and I will share the thrust of it here: the series is getting bloated with too many characters and WAY TOO MUCH explanation of the world’s metaphysics.  I still like the books because they are creative, and adventurous, and the characters are good… but I kind of want there to be an epic final conclusion to the overall story soon.

             I talk about the first book in the series here.

I find pretty much all of the art surrounding this story to be just neat.

“The Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett

            No joke, this was part of a three book effort started in May of 2017 with “A Canticle for Leibowitz”, continued in May 2018 with “Silence”, and finished in April this year with this.  My goal was to try and read books whose CORE had to do with the Christian faith and how it is explored in various contexts.  “Canticle” was about a post apocalypse, “Silence” was a historical about the persecuted outsider, and “Pillars” is very much about it being a core and powerful player in day to day life.

            I genuinely consider “Pillars” to be one of my favorite books of all time.  As a civic planner, political scientist, and student of history the exploration of the technical, political, and social dynamics present in this book hit every part of my brain.

            I should definitely write more about my journey thru Christian (Catholic) fiction and my thoughts on the subject matter.  Probably juxtapose it with thoughts about my trip to Vatican City last year… I will have to think about it.

“The Vexed Generation” by Scott Meyer

            This is the 6^th book in its series, and it is also a soft reboot.  I consider this a return to form for the series’ writing in regard to humor and fresh characterization, especially after almost quitting the series in frustration after book 5 (which I consider the absolute nadir of the series).  What once was old is now new again as the children of the original protagonist have to step in, learn things, and then save the day.  It is neat.

I do have one big complaint: The book is trying to have things both ways on the topic of the reboot.  Either be a jumping on point, with fresh characters seeing things for the first time and having to learn it all from an outside perspective… Or start the book with a, “This is the premise” rundown.  Don’t do both.  Write the book as if no one has read the previous, and that means not putting that at the start and trusting the readers (even long-time readers) to appreciate the sense of discovery the rest of the book offers.

 

This story is just what you would expect from the cover.

“Pawn of Prophecy” by David Eddings

            If you tried to write the most archetypal fantasy story ever… Well you would probably get something like a shitty “Lord of The Rings”… but if you tried to do such a task while aware of and avoiding comparisons to LotR then you might write “Dawn of Prophecy” and its series The Belgariad.

            It is a solid FINE.  I would consider it part of the “canon” of fantasy, as it was written with the idea of being a quintessential fantasy story in mind, but it will not give you anything you haven’t seen in other fantasy books.

“14” by Peter Clines

            I like Peter Clines well enough… because he is kind of what I would see myself as were I to really go for broke writing a novel instead of just talking about it all the time.

            This book is well structured, has natural dialogue, has character arcs, fun and inventive set pieces, and stakes.  Sure I called certain things that would happen, but the way he visualizes certain things, the creepy elements being creepy, and the adventurous nature of the story all come together well.

            If you like science fiction mystery stories, dialogue driven humor, and cosmic horror I can recommend this.

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Audio Book Discussion, "Blindspot"

I am returning to higher education in the coming weeks.  I have been futzing about with a longer and more navel gazing blog on the topic, mostly having to do with how I decided to try, the hoops I jumped thru, and what I hope to accomplish… That is for another day.

                Today I am going to briefly talk about a book I am reading for my return to Graduate School that I have been listening to on Audible.  This is part of the University’s summer reading and… kind of a mission statement for the University.

The School

                I am going to be attending George Washington University in the Foggy Bottom area of Washington DC.  I will be seeking my Doctorate and I hope to study voting systems, my ultimate goal would be to get a popular referendum passed… Somewhere… that would allow for ranked choice voting, a system I was surprised to learn is gaining traction in the United States and I think is the key to saving the Republic.  Or at least hitting the snooze button on our inevitable collapse for another couple decades.

The Book

                George Washington has decided to emphasize learning about hidden biases.  To do this they have put out for summer reading, “Blindspot” by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald.  Not the TV show, “Blindspot” starring the intensely hot, Jaimie Alexander… I like athletic women with tattoos.

                The book is about biases and mental categorization with the key analogy being the literal blind spot all human eyes have but we are not aware off without doing some deliberate effort to “show” it to ourselves.

                What has surprised me most so far reading the book is how much of it I already knew or anticipated.  Studying politics you begin to understand how people have a mental image of certain jobs, certain ethnicities, and misconceptions about every other possible way to categorize people.

Stereotypes

                In “Blindspot” one of the chapters deals with stereotyping, and it begins with this old… Riddle I guess would be the best term.  The riddle helps frame the rest of the chapter.  Here it is,

------

A young boy and his father are on their way home from soccer practice when a distracted driver crosses the center line and hits them head-on. The father dies at the scene of this horrible car accident, but the boy is still alive when the emergency medical technicians arrive. The injured boy is transported in an ambulance to the hospital, where's he taken immediately into surgery.

However, the awaiting surgeon steps out of the operating room and says, "Call Dr. Baker stat to the operating room. I can't operate on this boy. He's my son!"

The question: Who is the surgeon?

------

                If you are unfamiliar with the riddle take your time to think about it.

 

This is from an article about Daylight Savings time.
I hate Daylights Savings as a concept.  It is cosmically stupid.

                The answer is that the Surgeon, a role that is typically MALE, is actually the boy’s MOTHER.  Gasp!  Twist!

                Not really.  I had heard it before all the way back in middle school along with other problem solvers… I figured out the answer then too.  Something in retrospect I now attribute to having watched a lot of diverse media growing up (you can read a little about that here).  I mean, Doctor Crusher was a woman and a doctor on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.  The idea of a woman doctor is not all that world flipping.

                But I also get the point.  People do often default to certain mental images that shape what they expect and how they react to the world around them.  The book goes on to talk about one of the first studies on the topic of stereotypes that has been replicated in recent history to show the evolving nature of stereotypes.  FYI: Germans, for the last hundred years, have been consistently thought of as industrious and scientifically minded.

                The topic then moves into what would more often be called intersectional identities, or intersectionality.  That by layering different categories you can picture in your minds eye a distinct individual.  Their example was to first picture a professor, which they said, “white male, tweed jacket, pipe, etc…” they then started talking about how you could build a person by stacking certain ideas.  For instance, “Professor, French, Black, Muslim, Lesbian”.  To show how your mind can construct an image.

                Their idea is that stereotypes help humans to construct individuals based on these categories layering on top of one another until a unique person is constructed.  This allows you to see people as individuals, but also as the sum of their “parts” for lack of a better word.

Again, this chapter was nearly an hour long on the audiobook, I am not giving you all the material.  I do have a reason for explaining all of this.  To set up for an insight I WAS EXPECTING, but NEVER SHOWED UP.

The Un-Twist

                See, the chapter starts with the Surgeon riddle, and at several points during the chapter sexual orientation is mentioned.  The Muslim, French, Lesbian being the one I relayed to you.  So I was EXPECTING, that the chapter would end with a subversion of the Surgeon Riddle.

------

A young boy and his father are on their way home from soccer practice when a distracted driver crosses the center line and hits them head-on. The father dies at the scene of this horrible car accident, but the boy is still alive when the emergency medical technicians arrive. The injured boy is transported in an ambulance to the hospital, where's he taken immediately into surgery.

However, the awaiting surgeon steps out of the operating room and says, "Call Dr. Baker stat to the operating room. I can't operate on this boy. He's my son!"

The question: Who is the surgeon?

------

                I was expecting the new answer to be, “The surgeon is also the boy’s father.  His parents are a gay couple.”  Apparently, I am either ahead of the curve on subverting expectations in the world by acknowledging that gay surgeons exist in the context of a riddle… Or maybe I should just get around to writing a novel because I am apparently pretty good at writing twists that book end a quasi-narrative.

This is not a well composed photo.  There is so much dead space to the left.

Other Book Elements

                The final thing I want to mention is that the narrator, Eric Jason Martin, has a cadence almost exactly like the opening narration of “The Outer Limits”.  It is not distracting, I kind of like it.

To School

                I am very close to the last day of my current job, less than two weeks.  It is in many ways somewhat scary-exciting.  A life roller coaster for which I am in an interminably long line waiting to take off down the track.

                I am so eager; it is kind of exhausting.  If for no other reason that I will get to read books and have people ask me my thoughts on them.  I had no idea I would miss that so much.

______________________________

            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, share on Twitter (click that link to follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.

Audible Review, "Year One" by Nora Roberts

As you might be able to tell from previous blogs, I have an Audible account.  Listening to audio books is the chief reason I have been able to introduce myself to so many books while at the same time being able to go on long walks to drop weight.

It is unsafe to read while walking, don’t do that.

Audible is good at what I would call “Toe Dipping”.  Running sales on books that are the start of a series or gateway titles into an author’s work.  This allows their listeners to dip their toes into a much larger pool of literature to check the temperature.  No need to commit more than a few bucks, but potentially finding something great.

I have taken a few opportunities to try out authors I otherwise wouldn’t.  Most recently it was Nora Roberts.  A woman whose ability to bang out so many books is shocking, and I decided to try her first foray into fantasy, “Year One”.  At least I think it is her first fantasy story, she has written so many books one of them is bound to have a witch or wizard in there just by accident, like how someone you know is almost certainly superstitious about something stupid, but it never comes up and you don’t notice.

Mild Spoilers, but I am not recommending the book, so take that under advisement.  Also, prophecy plays apart in the narrative, if you are paying attention the book spoils itself, which feeds into my central gripe of the book’s lack of tension.

The Plot

After a mysterious bird flu sweeps across the planet killing billions, Magic returns to earth.  Witches, elves, fairies, and other supernatural entities emerge.  How a group of survivors cope with not only an apocalypse but a complete rewriting of how they understand the world serves as the focus of the narrative.

The Good

There are scenes that are effective.  A news station finally broadcasts how bad things really are to the public because the panic is causing mass hysteria… that is an effective way to end the first act.  Traveling thru a subway tunnel that is full of crazy murderous wizards and people who have turned into violent rapists because of the breakdown of society is an effective and atmospheric start to the book’s second act.  No one part of the book is all that bad on its own, it is more about how those parts hang together.

The Bad: Tension

The scenes do not hang together all that well.  Generally, there is little tension to the narrative because not enough information is given to the audience for them to anticipate something happening.  I am reminded of an interview by Alfred Hitchcock about how you can bore an audience by not giving them enough information about how much danger exists in a scene.

This book is full of LONG discussions between characters about things, and those discussions are dull.  There is a tone/theme of, “How strange that we now live off the land after being city dwellers for so long… Isn’t it great?” which is fine, but it gets repetitive, and it is strange to me that there is more awe and personal soul searching about living in a rural setting than there is ABOUT FUCKING MAGIC BEING REAL.

There is also a redundancy to listing traits, I think the books tells us that the main character is a chef like 19 times and it has zero relevance to the story.  She’s a doctor, he was a writer, that guy is into tech, but I rarely get a sense of people beyond their skill sets… and I guess a bunch of them get a love interest, but since the characters rarely if ever have ulterior motives or apprehensions they all seem to be in love because they are attracted by how bland each other are.

In a more interesting story a character might feel conflicted about being in love with someone because they are scared of their magical powers, feel guilty about moving on from a lost loved one, might want to leave the community and want the lover to come with them, and that stuff is almost there, but no… There isn’t even a love triangle, which would be cliché, but at least it would be something.

This meme dead yet?

There are scenes that have tension, violent people are seen, and then are encountered later when the characters are in a weaker and more panicked state, planting and payoff.  It is the arc of the story which is not great at planting things.  At least to me.

Some information is put out there related to how there is a group of dangerous people roaming around, with some descriptions of their attitudes and symbols, but their methodology, where they are or where they are headed, no mini-skirmish with them ever happens.  Some refugees from their violent acts show up, but there is no first-person scene of the bad guys being bad to the characters.  We have a concept of the bad guy army/community, but no visceral encounters.

There is a somewhat effective villain in the form of the Dark Angel like characters that menace the main character and her husband.  They are ostensibly dealt with near the end of the second act in a clever way, it is a good magic battle which utilizes the environment well and there are stakes.  When they show up again it is after no information is given about them still being alive after being “killed” in a fight with the heroes… But, they are so obviously not killed in that fight that I wasn’t surprised, I was just baffled that they showed up again when they did because IT MAKES ZERO SENSE for them to be there in that way.  The inclusion of the Dark Angel characters (I am calling them that, the book just describes them as having wings) works until they come back, then it falls apart.

You do not really feel the looming threats is what I am talking about.  They are there, we know of them, (as readers) we fully expect them to show up eventually because this is a book we are reading, and a confrontation makes sense, but it still feels like they came out of nowhere when they do show up.  Like, “Oh yeah, those guys.”

Tho, abrupt encounters might just be a staple of the genre.

Some More Bad: Character Traits and Act Breaks

To go back to something I mentioned earlier about the main character being a chef, it is not a metaphor for anything, her decision to take along a set of designer chef knives when fleeing the city is not a set up for anything (I expected her to use them as weapons or part of some ritual, nope), and ultimately the chef part is just a character trait that gets referenced a lot but has no bearing on the plot.  When they keep talking about her being a good cook I just don’t care, especially considering her actual role in the story that makes her important has NOTHING TO DO WITH HER SKILLS.

The book also has a weird structure for its acts.

• ·         Act I is about the plague and ends with the news broadcast about how bad things are.
• ·         Act II is about getting out of the city and meeting up with various other minor characters ending with the fight with the dark angels.
• ·         Act III is about the town of “New Hope” a post apocalypse colony and it ends with the whole thing being destroyed (it is cheap when it happens and that more than anything kind of killed the story for me). 
• ·         There is then an Act IV which feels either like an overlong epilogue or like the first few chapters of another book.  It is about the main character (by virtue of being the last one standing) finding someone to help her after the destruction of New Hope, it ends with the birth of the Messiah (hence the novel’s title “Year One”).
• ·         Then there is the Epilogue in which a wizard shows up and tells the characters something they already know to set up the sequel.

I am fine with Acts I and II, but the others do not work for me.  III is especially boring and the ending does not feel earned.

Even More Bad: Magic *Yawn*

Lastly, I want to talk about the magic.  Call me a nerd but I like when people spend time explaining their goofy as magic systems like it is some kind of Role Playing Game and you need to know when to drink a mana potion.  I have invented my own magic systems for stories, they are fun.

The magic in this book is vague and boring.  I was expecting it to be a lot weirder, because there is mention of a naked woman riding a unicorn at one point and there is a Fairy supporting character… But it gets real dull real fast.  There is just talk about Dark and Light, and honestly that was simplistic in “Star Wars” which is a space-fantasy aimed at a much younger audience. 

In a book there is no reason not to spend time discussing the implications of magic, how it works, how it makes you feel, but they just keep coming back to light and dark.  “I feel the light within me.”  That is dull.

Paradoxically it is treated like a big deal, but never feels that way, aside from some villainous characters (thin and pathetic characters clearly portrayed as being wrong) nobody really gives a shit about magic, they treat their friend’s ability to fly almost like they got a new bread maker, “That is cool, Fred… I guess.  It is a bit doughy, keep practicing.”  I get no sense of awe, nor any real understanding of the metaphysics at work here.  It is just boring and obtuse.

I am not so subtly making fun of my friends who own a bread maker.

In Summation

I thought this was going to be a mix of Stephen King’s “The Stand” and Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files”, and that is still my go to comparison, but the characters are not as flawed and interesting as they need to be, the threats don’t feel as oppressive and immediate as they need to, and the philosophy behind the magic is vague and dull.

It is not the worst book I have managed to read all the way thru.  Maybe one day I will get around to writing a blog about Elizabeth Moon’s “Sheepfarmer’s Daughter”.

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Audible Review, "American Pharaoh"

As a promotion for the most recent Triple Crown winner, Audible gave out free copies of “American Pharaoh: The Untold Story of the Triple Crown Winner’s Legendary Rise”.  In my eternal endevour to sample different things for no other reason than to make myself into a more well-read and well-rounded person with a myriad of experiences and perspectives... I said, "Eh, I'll give it a shot."

I also thought “American Pharaoh” might be a break from my usual fantasy, science fiction, and crime books.  I had never read a book entirely focused on a sport before and this was a chance for the author to sell me not only on horse racing (something I consider deeply stupid) but also on the genre of sports writing in general.  Did it accomplish that task?

NOPE.

The author, Joe Drape is annoyingly enamored with a sport and takes as a given that horse racing appeals to the listener.  Which I guess is a fair assumption to make, why else would someone be reading this thing if they didn't pick it up with at least some affection for the subject matter?  As I got it for free via the promotion I seem to lack the requisite mind set.

I not only dislike watching horse racing, I have an actual disdain for gambling, seeing it as a major drag on society.  When “American Pharaoh” started describing the whole thing as quintessentially American, not just horse racing, but gambling too I became rather disgusted.  Also, quintessentially American?  You know, in a book about a horse owned by, Ahmed Zayat, who is Egyptian…. Eh, that part doesn’t matter, the US is a nation of immigrants and if some insanely wealthy person wants to race his animal eugenics experiments for ungodly amounts of money he can do that.

However, let me try to explain to you what I think “quintessentially American” means in the context of sports.  To me, “quintessentially American” means a being with talent using that talent to find success in an industry where talent is rewarded, so far this rather fits the bill right?  The horse has talent, it won the races.

Yeah, here is the thing, that horse was bred to be amazing, it was trained its entire life to be amazing, the horse did not choose to do this, did not make sacrifices to do this, American Pharaoh is a product.  The horse has no agency, no personality, and does not experience the thrill of victory not the agony of defeat.

Say what you will about how trite the self actualization thru the "Big Fight" is...
It works as a narrative and no horse is capable of experiencing it.

A final criticism, maybe don't start so early with the horse breeding part.  That is an odd first footing.  I get it, selling horse spunk is kind of the whole point, it is where the money is.  But maybe, I don't know, start more with the exciting part, the horse racing part.  Maybe rewind to the conception later after you have given the audience a fun opener.  Because starting off with Ahmed Zayat watching a horse he named after his daughter getting violently plowed by a stud is one of the creepiest collision of images this side of President Trump talking about Ivanka Trump.  The whole enterprise of raising animals for this sort of thing strikes me as creepy and weird.

Whatever.  I am certainly not the audience for this fucking thing, and my review is really for those people who might like the occasional nonfiction title to break things up but are not invested in the subject matter.  Don’t read this if you are not already in the tank for this sort of thing.

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