What characterises fanfic with all original characters and settings? Is it to do with the language, the tropes, the what?

I didn't think that the DaVinci Code was that great:

This is a phenomenon, a spiritual healing that is bringing Americans back to France and is telling the world the truth about the most dramatic cover-up in history," said Olivia Hsu Decker, a high-end California real estate agent who buys into the book's plot line. She also happens to own the 17th-century Château de Villette outside of Paris where the book's eccentric British art historian and evil manservant live and where, she said, the director-producer Ron Howard will film part of the movie for Columbia Pictures.

::barf::

I have contempt for that book.

Reading The DaVinci Code was like unto reading a crossword puzzle, IMO.

The Rule of Four tread similar ground in much better fashion. It had actual character development, reasonably well-crafted prose, and a sought-after prize (spoiler: a treasure trove of art and literature that had been squirreled away to save them from Savonarola's Bonfire of the Vanities ) was far more intriguing than something that has already been bandied about in various books for decades.

Ha! It's so silly it belongs between the covers of a bestseller.

Alex Irvine's novel One King, One Soldier, which is an addled romp through 1950s America, 1890s Abyssinia, the crackpot significance of baseball, and the hooey parts of Arthurian legend, is blurbed on the front cover by someone who insists that "If you loved The DaVinci Code, you'll love this book!!"

I met Irvine recently, and asked him what kind of crack the reviewer was smoking (because it's both a wrong comparison, and not exactly a compliment). He thought that the reviewer just completely didn't get the book, but wanted to be friendly, so he blurbed in as exuberant and pointlessly commercial a fashion as possible, and some shmuck in the marketing department fell for it whole hog.

We both laughed over it, because if you pick up One King, One Soldier looking for a page-turner beach read, you're going to be deeply confused and probably annoyed if you ever figure out the joke is on you.

an addled romp through 1950s America, 1890s Abyssinia, the crackpot significance of baseball, and the hooey parts of Arthurian legend

Sounds fun!

That does sound fun.

It's a good book. A mind-bending book, because I got about 150 pages into it before I was really sure it was a joke, but a good one. Lots of strange resonances and connections, and a lot of cheerful nonsense.

Irvine described it to me as riffing inside-out on the Grail legend, turning it into "a quest for renunciation".

In stores now!

There was a thing on NPR this morning with a British woman who's written a book, it seemed, about a magician who was helping the British army in the 1800's. It's fantasy. Has anyone heard of such a book. I was late catching the program and didn't hear the name and thought I might check it out.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I'll bet.