The GF book thread

[Paul]

9 hours ago, Section_31 said:

What are your thoughts on Lee Child's and Dan Brown's writing styles? I keep hearing that they're "good storytellers not great writers", is that snobbery do you reckon?

 

Been watching some YouTube interviews of Child's and really like his attitude. Started writing when he was pissed off because he'd been made redundant and used to have his boss's computers hacked when he was  a shop steward at Granada. 

I think some people feel criticism of these two is some form of snobbery. However, I love genre fiction and very rarely stray from it to anything even vaguely “high brow”. That said, genre fiction is absolutely not synonymous with poor writing; indeed increasingly the opposite is the case. 
 

Dan Brown’s “prose” though is utterly risible. It’s basically those unpublishable free kindle books standard of writing. If he could create even a single two-dimensional character then that would be a step up. They’re so cynically structured too. Quite obviously written with both eyes on the screen rather than page as “chapters” are effectively scenes, often cutting between locations rapidly with single page or even paragraph chapters.
 

I read the first one because there was so much fuss about it at that time but it was a struggle despite a vaguely engaging (albeit ridiculous) plot. However, I couldn’t muster the will to read another - especially as they’re all just formulaic re-hashes of his first one. 
 

As for Lee Child, despite similar criticism being applicable and the cliches being numerous, he’s nowhere near Dan Brown in terms of how bad his stuff is. I’ve read one and won’t bother with another, but it was merely crap rather than embarrassing. Dan Brown’s stuff is fucking cringeworthy though. 

[Sut]

12 hours ago, Mudface said:

I'm not exactly a literary person by any stretch of the imagination, but Dan Brown is absolutely fucking awful both in terms of writing and storytelling. I bought a couple of his one holiday and managed to struggle through the laughable Da Vinci Code, but I barely lasted a couple of chapters of the other book (Angels and Demons, I think). It was like some 10 year old kid's English essay.

Given I teach ten year olds, I'm quite affronted on their behalf. I didn't even make it halfway through the Da Vinci Code. I can't understand the fuss, really.

 

If anyone is after a decent crime novel, Nobody's Angel is a novel written by Jack Clark and published by Hard Case Crime. He was a taxi driver in Chicago and was writing this novel on his downtime. He self-published it and was selling it to his passengers before it was picked up by HCC. It's a boss book, as are a lot of those Hard Case Crimes.

[Mudface]

1 hour ago, Sut said:

Given I teach ten year olds, I'm quite affronted on their behalf. I didn't even make it halfway through the Da Vinci Code. I can't understand the fuss, really.

 

If anyone is after a decent crime novel, Nobody's Angel is a novel written by Jack Clark and published by Hard Case Crime. He was a taxi driver in Chicago and was writing this novel on his downtime. He self-published it and was selling it to his passengers before it was picked up by HCC. It's a boss book, as are a lot of those Hard Case Crimes.

Haha, Paul's description of him as 'unpublishable free kindle books standard of writing' is better then.

[Dr Nowt]

[Mudface]

1 hour ago, Lizzie Birdsworths Wrinkled Chopper said:

There's some good pastiches in this thread, e.g.-

 

"Well," intoned the intruder, "are you going to press Y on the keyboard?"

The man sighed breathlessly. "I can't press Y on the keyboard unless I have your word that you will not kill me."
The intruder sighed too, and wistfully gazed at the ceiling. "I can't promise you I won't kill you," he said, "but I give you my word, I will not kill you."
"They're not the same thing," said the man.
"No," protested the intruder, "they're not."
They gazed at each other for a few quiet, silence-filled moments. Mutual appreciation was now in full bloom between them, their respective personal charismas shining like freshly-polished copper.
"Press Y," the intruder declared.
"Okay," the man conceded bitterly. He turned, the whisper of his jumper brushing against his muscular lower back startling him badly for a moment. An interesting polyester/cotton blend, he had bought it in Kashmir for a buck fifty in Indian money, never knowing that it would see a night such as this.
A fan of ethnic clothing, he often espoused their virtues in plain sight - and defiance - of his superiors at the many lectures he gave around the world. Little had he also known that this firebrand spark, this loose cannon, straight-shooting mentality he had cultivated with the fertilizer of rebellion, may prove his downfall.
The man pushed Y with a practiced hand. No-one in the northern United States knew how to deal with computers better than him. The codes began to flash rapidly across the screen, their downward scroll enough to stoke the raging fires of shame sparking into life inside the man's toned gut.
He had always been slim, but he could stand to be slimmer.
The intruder slurped the codes greedily into his eyes, a small smile of ecstasy halving the bottom third of his face, in effect making this area of his face 1/2 of 1/3 nefarious delight.

[Section_31]

1 hour ago, Mudface said:

There's some good pastiches in this thread, e.g.-

 

 

 

That's class:

 

"While running, I felt muscular and compact, like corned beef."

 

 

Brown does his writing in his loft. He told fans that he uses inversion therapy to help with writer's block. He uses gravity boots and says, "hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective"

[Sut]

What a cunt.

[Evelyn Tentions]

On 05/05/2020 at 21:08, Section_31 said:

That's class:

 

"While running, I felt muscular and compact, like corned beef."

 

 

Brown does his writing in his loft. He told fans that he uses inversion therapy to help with writer's block. He uses gravity boots and says, "hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective"

Maybe you have to be hanging upside down when you read his books to make any sense of his drivel.

[Paul]

I finished the latest Stephen King book of four short stories, If It Bleeds. The title story which features Holly Gibney again, is great as it the first one about a kid’s friendship with a reclusive billionaire. The other two are entertaining too if not quite at the same level.
 

There’s a weirdly structured one that’s a bit daft but has an amazing scene in it and the other is another of King’s “being a writer is hard” stories. 
 

Overall a great read. I’m now rattling through the new Mark Lawrence, The Girl And The Stars, which opens a new trilogy in the same world as the brilliant Red Sister books. 

[VladimirIlyich]

On 04/05/2020 at 20:57, Section_31 said:

What are your thoughts on Lee Child's and Dan Brown's writing styles? I keep hearing that they're "good storytellers not great writers", is that snobbery do you reckon?

 

Been watching some YouTube interviews of Child's and really like his attitude. Started writing when he was pissed off because he'd been made redundant and used to have his boss's computers hacked when he was  a shop steward at Granada. 

I've read a couple of Lee Child books and have to say he is crap. Generic stuff about some 6ft 6 ex marine who was played by 5ft 2 Tom Cruise in a film or two. I read one book which was meh,then tried a second book which was almost identical to the first one. Haven't bothered since.

[SasaS]

I'm now on Michael Connolly's Bosch et al series, as audio books, the books are pretty good, well structured and paced and pretty competently and realistically presented police procedurals that keep you interested.

 

The problem is only, I'm now on the no. 19 or so, The Burning Room, where fucking Titus Welliver takes over as reader, just because he was somehow cast as Bosch in the TV version (didn't see it, but I wouldn't cast him, pictured Bosch more as some kind of younger Gene Hackman).

 

Anyway,  Welliver is so poor as a narrator it is almost unbearable after high standards set by previous readers  who are not TV stars, but know how to narrate audio books, which Welliver  doesn't. He reads too fast, drones on in a flat, monotone voice, doesn't know how to pace his reading, make a pause when something important has been said etc. He actually mumbles a lot, which is shocking for a professional audio book narrator and a (presumably) trained actor. People who read the earlier books must really think what's the point in trying, it was taken from them just because he is a big name.

[Bob]

On 05/05/2020 at 06:53, Paul said:

I think some people feel criticism of these two is some form of snobbery. However, I love genre fiction and very rarely stray from it to anything even vaguely “high brow”. That said, genre fiction is absolutely not synonymous with poor writing; indeed increasingly the opposite is the case. 
 

Dan Brown’s “prose” though is utterly risible. It’s basically those unpublishable free kindle books standard of writing. If he could create even a single two-dimensional character then that would be a step up. They’re so cynically structured too. Quite obviously written with both eyes on the screen rather than page as “chapters” are effectively scenes, often cutting between locations rapidly with single page or even paragraph chapters.
 

I read the first one because there was so much fuss about it at that time but it was a struggle despite a vaguely engaging (albeit ridiculous) plot. However, I couldn’t muster the will to read another - especially as they’re all just formulaic re-hashes of his first one. 
 

As for Lee Child, despite similar criticism being applicable and the cliches being numerous, he’s nowhere near Dan Brown in terms of how bad his stuff is. I’ve read one and won’t bother with another, but it was merely crap rather than embarrassing. Dan Brown’s stuff is fucking cringeworthy though. 

I’ve only read one of each authors books as I’m not a big reader but the on of Brown’s I read - while reasonably enjoyable - was absolutely this.

 

i can’t remember what it was called but it was about a previously undiscovered sea creature / alien found somewhere in the Antarctic.

 

[Bob]

On 23/04/2020 at 20:26, Bjornebye said:

Ive got Life of Pi to read. I'll wait for you to finish before I bother. 

Ended up thoroughly enjoying it. Had put it down for about three weeks around a third of they way in, but then when I started it again I rushed through the lot (by my normal standards) and finished off the last 100 pages this morning.

 

parts of it are beautifully written, and like nothing I’ve read before.

 

id recommend it.

[Sut]

I've just finished John D MacDonald's One Monday We Killed Them All. It's only short but isn't too bad. I've got a couple I've just started. One, The Elementals by Michael McDowell is a gothic horror set in the Deep South. The other is The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddartha Mukherjee.

[Elite]

Just started 'Fifty Dead Men Walking' I vaguely remember the film a few years ago. 

[VladimirIlyich]

On 10/05/2020 at 12:55, SasaS said:

I'm now on Michael Connolly's Bosch et al series, as audio books, the books are pretty good, well structured and paced and pretty competently and realistically presented police procedurals that keep you interested.

 

The problem is only, I'm now on the no. 19 or so, The Burning Room, where fucking Titus Welliver takes over as reader, just because he was somehow cast as Bosch in the TV version (didn't see it, but I wouldn't cast him, pictured Bosch more as some kind of younger Gene Hackman).

 

Anyway,  Welliver is so poor as a narrator it is almost unbearable after high standards set by previous readers  who are not TV stars, but know how to narrate audio books, which Welliver  doesn't. He reads too fast, drones on in a flat, monotone voice, doesn't know how to pace his reading, make a pause when something important has been said etc. He actually mumbles a lot, which is shocking for a professional audio book narrator and a (presumably) trained actor. People who read the earlier books must really think what's the point in trying, it was taken from them just because he is a big name.

He's very good as Bosch though.

[SasaS]

31 minutes ago, VladimirIlyich said:

He's very good as Bosch though.

He is an actor. The quality of his narration picks up when he is reading scenes involving different characters, he can do the voices so his droning and mumbling is less annoying. His diction, as in enunciation, however, is surprisingly bad for a trained actor.

[mattyq]

On 10/05/2020 at 12:55, SasaS said:

I'm now on Michael Connolly's Bosch et al series, as audio books, the books are pretty good, well structured and paced and pretty competently and realistically presented police procedurals that keep you interested.

 

The problem is only, I'm now on the no. 19 or so, The Burning Room, where fucking Titus Welliver takes over as reader, just because he was somehow cast as Bosch in the TV version (didn't see it, but I wouldn't cast him, pictured Bosch more as some kind of younger Gene Hackman).

 

Anyway,  Welliver is so poor as a narrator it is almost unbearable after high standards set by previous readers  who are not TV stars, but know how to narrate audio books, which Welliver  doesn't. He reads too fast, drones on in a flat, monotone voice, doesn't know how to pace his reading, make a pause when something important has been said etc. He actually mumbles a lot, which is shocking for a professional audio book narrator and a (presumably) trained actor. People who read the earlier books must really think what's the point in trying, it was taken from them just because he is a big name.

I love the Patrick OBrian books of Jack Aubrey etc more than anything else and his 2nd book, Post Captain, is my favourite book of all time so was made up when i saw a BBC production of the book on Youtube.

Could only manage 10 minutes of it for similar reasons... the 2 actors were completely shit, monotone and mumbled. Bastards 

[Dr Nowt]

Just re-read The Death of Grass, having been introduced to it at GCSE. First time I’ve read a book cover-to-cover in 24 hours in many a long year.

 

A virus emanating from China and hobbling the whole world just seemed too fanciful for me to relate to, but I suppose it’s a classic for a reason.
 

Anyway, Lord of the Flies next.

[Elite]

1 hour ago, Dr Nowt said:

Just re-read The Death of Grass, having been introduced to it at GCSE. First time I’ve read a book cover-to-cover in 24 hours in many a long year.

 

A virus emanating from China and hobbling the whole world just seemed too fanciful for me to relate to, but I suppose it’s a classic for a reason.
 

Anyway, Lord of the Flies next.

Isn't the answer to that dog piss?

[Tony Moanero]

Boss birthday prezzie.

 

[Paul]

11 hours ago, Dr Nowt said:

Just re-read The Death of Grass, having been introduced to it at GCSE. First time I’ve read a book cover-to-cover in 24 hours in many a long year.

 

A virus emanating from China and hobbling the whole world just seemed too fanciful for me to relate to, but I suppose it’s a classic for a reason.
 

Anyway, Lord of the Flies next.

Fucking great book! Never knew it had been a GCSE text though. That’s really surprised me. I’d love to teach it. I loved John Christopher in my early teens. Read pretty much everything he wrote. 

[Dr Nowt]

5 hours ago, Paul said:

Fucking great book! Never knew it had been a GCSE text though. That’s really surprised me. I’d love to teach it. I loved John Christopher in my early teens. Read pretty much everything he wrote. 

I was interested to read that. My old school is well known round here for being uninspiring educationally - I was prompted to apply for a hardship fund a few years ago at uni, purely for having attended it in the early 90s - but I had a fairly eccentric GCSE English teacher who would sometimes bring in books of his own to get us thinking and taught them with contagious passion.

My brother, who now teaches and researches within literature abroad and attended the same school before me, and I were only talking about it the other day as he said the same teacher had sometimes brought texts like Brave New World Revisited, Cooper-Clarke poetry and various darkly comic adult books in and given ad-hoc lessons on them. My memory of detail in that era is hazy, but from what you've said I suspect The Death of Grass may well not have been on the syllabus and had just been presented like that, thinking back.

 

I only realised the other day it was Christopher who wrote The Tripods. He was a hell of a writer, though I know the tv adaptation was panned. Memories of being about 7 and the sinister fear I may get ‘capped’ out in the back garden came straight back.

[Sut]

On 16/05/2020 at 21:20, Tony Moanero said:

Boss birthday prezzie.

 

That's a costume she wears in Rear Window. She never looked more beautiful than during that slow motion intro when she wakes up Jimmy Stewart with a kiss.

 

 

[Edward.]

Seems like I have been waiting ages for the new Harry Dresden book, then two come along at once.

 

https://www.tor.com/2020/03/24/jim-butcher-announces-new-dresden-files-book-battle-ground/