This here's a recipe for unpleasantness.

Mal ,'Objects In Space'


We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good  

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


Volans - Jan 15, 2004 3:16:07 am PST #549 of 10002
move out and draw fire

OK, I got a stack of Bujold books yesterday. I'd started on Mirror Dance but I'm doing the amazing thing of putting it down and trying to go back and read in order. I'm having to skip a bit anyway, since my husband took Borders with him to work, bitching constantly about how moronic and juvenile the books are.

Dude needs to get his T. Rex under control.

I liked the first Anita Blake book, but it didn't take me 7 books to give up. More like 4 or 5, and I'd already bought them all and loaded them on my PDA for a long plane flight. At least on a PDA no one can see what you are reading - I did feel like washing my hands, my PDA, and maybe wiping its memory a few times.

Of course, I gave up on Anne Rice 20 pages in to The Vampire Lestat. I've taken a running jump at some of her other books, including the Sleeping Beauty ones, but I just can make myself read them.

Anne Rice gossip: a friend of mine used to teach with her, and said that her given name at birth was George. WTF?


Steph L. - Jan 15, 2004 4:47:38 am PST #550 of 10002
Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe

I think a lot of the series writers don't understand two concepts - the characters need to grow/change and when they grow and change the relationship to the beginning character should be seeable.

Anne Rice has this problem, too. In fact, I think Anita Blake's characters are recognizable as the same characters who started out in book 1, but I sure don't feel that way about Rice's characters.


Strix - Jan 15, 2004 7:38:16 am PST #551 of 10002
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger

I really liked the character in LKH' s series. - not identifiy, but she rang True. But It seemed to that she had to cross a line in evrybook. There don't seem to be anymore lines, so the books are boreing

I agree with you. And then when she started the Gentry books, she just made an elven Anita who didn't have the lines Anita had to find and cross, so she just fucked and got more and more powers.

If I ever finish this succubus book, please kill me if my character acquires a new power every other chapter. I mean, what's the point? If there's no weakness, then there's no conflict, right? And that's where the Anita books have gone wrong: there's no moral quandry anymore about killing or sex, or her love triangle. And there's no actual PLOT anymore -- when's the last time she had an actual CASE?


Katerina Bee - Jan 15, 2004 7:43:26 am PST #552 of 10002
Herding cats for fun

I always thought that a series that becomes boring often suffers from an author who started out crafting the first novel with great love and enthusiasm and ended up making a lot of money. Then author becomes distracted by the pleasures of wealth and devolves into ho-hum, crank out another one on schedule, I'm so important, pass me a scone.

edited, in an attempt at grammaticalness


Katerina Bee - Jan 15, 2004 7:44:56 am PST #553 of 10002
Herding cats for fun

And there's no actual PLOT anymore -- when's the last time she had an actual CASE?

You mean, waste time working when there's boinking to be done?


Strix - Jan 15, 2004 7:48:08 am PST #554 of 10002
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger

Yo. With a PRETURNATURALly well-hung hottie.

The porn lost me on the cervix-bumping explication in NiC. Ew. So not sexy.


bon bon - Jan 15, 2004 8:11:33 am PST #555 of 10002
It's five thousand for kissing, ten thousand for snuggling... End of list.

Then author becomes distracted by the pleasures of wealth and devolves into ho-hum, crank out another one on schedule, I'm so important, pass me a scone.

I would distribute the responsibility for devolving series among publisher, author, author's credit card company, and fans. What do you do when you have a contract and no ideas for the series? I imagine LKH is just as frustrated as we are.


§ ita § - Jan 15, 2004 8:16:34 am PST #556 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

I imagine LKH is just as frustrated as we are.

Well, at least she can drown her sorrows in a paycheck.


Katerina Bee - Jan 15, 2004 8:24:54 am PST #557 of 10002
Herding cats for fun

Yo. With a PRETURNATURALly well-hung hottie.

Mmmm, effulgent.


deborah grabien - Jan 15, 2004 8:27:29 am PST #558 of 10002
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

What do you do when you have a contract and no ideas for the series?

Part of the reponsibility is purely on the author. If she knows damned well she's out of steam, she'd best say so. If the series has made her rich and famous, her publisher will usually be thrilled when they get the call from her agent to tell them "Ms. Blingle has an idea for a Brand! New! Series!"

Part of it is on the publisher, and they're usually pretty good at it, because, well, declining sales means the series is running out of gas.

And part of it is certainly the fan base. Because no matter how much private kvetching the fans do about a series? So long as they keep buying it, so will the publisher.