The Strain..
..of reading another book with way too much description. Sigh, and I don’t want to stop reading this story of a vampiric virus rampaging New York. Seriously, vampire stories = good times. Although the convoluted start that alludes to way too much research and an awful amount of character and suspense building is starting to get annoying. Much of it reading like a text book on CDC, hospital, airport and any other procedures that someone can throw in there just to throw in. Is it really integral to the story that I get a complete framework on every minute detail of the inter-workings of baggage handling or the canary division of the CDC and even the full background of why miners used canaries in the first place. I am tired simply recalling those details. And do we need to know the plenary unconnected upbringings of various individuals without even a hint as to how they’re connected to the story. Without a doubt, they’ll be connected later and most likely play a pivotal role (even if they’re 80 and couldn’t possibly battle vampires with a heart condition and mangled hands: suspension of disbelief, suspension of disbelief), however as of right now it’s extremely disjointed. Of course, that sounds like a funny complaint coming from me, the king of random sidelines and mental offshoots. Still, get to the point.
To any budding writers out there, or if by a one in a billion chance there are any official like famous writers reading this, please just do me one favor: don’t get so full of yourself and your massive store of adjectives that you write three pages on what a tree looks like in your world. It could be the most exquisite thing I’ve ever read in my entire life and I would still just be super annoyed reading it because I know it wouldn’t be the only three page description on something in your book, something that is for all intents and purposes meaningless to your story and its advancement. For sure, a certain amount of detail is wonderful and the descriptions and or information to some aspects of your worlds are vital, nonetheless, we’re not mental midgets incapable of imagining your world. Give your readers some credit, lead us into your world, don’t just pour it down our throats.
And truly the most ironic part of this is almost all my favorite authors are guilty of this heinous crime, probably why I detest such deplorable vanity, like reading the umpteenth description of one of many feasts in your books Mr. Lawhead, or when Brandon Sanderson (the man finishing The Wheel of Time series for the late Robert Jordan) stretched the beginning of the twelfth book beyond reckoning so they could amplify Robert Jordan’s last book into three. The rest of the twelfth book was superb, but you can tell there is quite a bit of filler that ends up being no more than simple fodder.
Of course, if I could ever if find the time to finish my own book, I would love for someone to rip me a new one for such blunders. Especially if, even with those cardinal sins, they still couldn’t put it down. Now, that’s a compliment to an author. So even though you irk me to no ends: my hat’s off to you, my Captains of Literature. Per contra, I would be abundantly grateful if you kept those wordy ramblings about the grace of a tree branch or how the king’s wondrous ale was made in supreme detail to your notes.
Anyways, the book has been drawn out and reeks of gettothepoint-itis and I’m not even that far in yet. My best guess is Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan wrote one book and then someone decided to tremendously pad it out for a trilogy. Honestly, money ruins art every time. Despite the fact, I’m trying to give this “masterpiece” the benefit of the doubt, and yet it still makes me wonder why so much time is spent building up the suspense when the cover of the book tells you it’s about vampires. I feel like they we’re going for the whole Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” thing, but why ruin that by giving it away for free on the cover. That’s one revelation that isn’t going to hit me like Jack’s Mack Truck.
That is all.
Tags: Brandon Sanderson, Captains of Literature, Chuck Hogan, Flowery, Guillermo Del Toro, Ostentatious, Robert Jordan, Stephen King, Stephen Lawhead
Random Nonsense | random | 
November 15, 2009 10:05 pm
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