In Which Vampy Reviews Bookses
Oct. 4th, 2004 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sadlikeknivesDude. Anne Rice's hissyfit got a blurb in Entertainment Weekly. I cackled hysterically.
In honor of this, I shall review two books I read over the weekend. Keep in mind I don't have either of them with me. They're at home. I'm at school.
In the book before this one,Mary Sue Aliane of Olau and Pirate's Swoop, daughter of the King's Champion and the spymaster of England Tortall, went off in a boat without telling anyone where she was going and was captured by pirates. She was sold into slavery in New Zealand the Copper Islands. The native people of the Copper Islands, the Maori raka, have been oppressed by the colonialist luarin (read: whites) for three hundred years. But there's a prophecy that says that a girl who is 'twice-royal' will become queen. Everyone thinks this is the firstborn daughter of the guy Our Heroine gets sold to, Saraiyu Balitang. Aly gets hand-picked by Puck Kyprioth, the trickster god, to help Saraiyu ascend the throne.
When Trickster's Queen opens, the family is on their way back to the capital after the death of the head of the family, Duke Mequen. The rebellion is acting secretly, destroying crops and whatnot. Saraiyu is the only fucking person not in on the plan. The main problems seems to be that A: the king is a four-year-old boy, it's the regents who are evil, and B: the heir is Saraiyu's four-year-old half-brother. No one particularly wants to kill the two toddlers, but they can't figure out a way around it.
Rioting starts breaking out in the streets of the capital. The regents become aware that the people adore the Balitangs, and offer to marry Saraiyu to the four-year-old. Saraiyu falls for a visitingEgyptian Carthaki healer, and runs away with him. But all is not lost! Saraiyu's little sister, Dovasary, is much more suited to leadership than her sister, which I had figured out within the first twenty pages of the first book.
The princess-regent has the court mages concoct a storm while the king, the heir, and three other boys are on a sailing trip for the king's fifth birthday. The head of the King's Guard survives and, pissed, joins the rebellion. The people know it's murder, especially after the court mages disappear. Her bad.
Dovasary and company are riding back from a meeting when people begin showering her with flowers. An assassin takes a shot at her, and the rioting starts. The next morning, there is a great battle, and Dovasary becomes queen.
Aly marries a crow-turned-man, gets pregnant, and decides not to go back toEngland Tortall after all. She also learns to respect her mother. All in all, an entertaining read, if a bit lame and formulaic.
Oh, my God. Where to begin? This. Book. Sucks. Like, a lot. Like, the clerk at the bookstore told me not to waste my money on it. It's six hundred and twenty pages of pure shite.
For starters, the damn thing's full of typos. Typos spell check will pick up in a heartbeat. Like 'diety.' It's 'DEITY', woman! 'DEITY!' And she does not make this particular spelling mistake once. No, she makes it like, twenty times, over the course of a five-page phone call that's apparently meant to demonstrate that LKH read a book on tarot cards.
I lost track of the people Anita had had sex with before page fifty, mostly because I boredly flipped past the sex scenes. We get waaaaay too much TMI when Nathaniel tells Anita she is a 'rainmaker' (apparently a term for a female ejaculator). Anita forms a new triumvirate of power with Damian as her 'vampire servant' and Nathaniel as her 'animal to call.' Seeing as how she's human and all, this is so very not supposed to be possible. She refers to a man as her 'wife' and he doesn't mind. I was unaware this was possible, either.
LKH completely disregards things she'd mentioned in previous books. 'It's illegal to make anyone under the age of eighteen a lycanthrope' becomes 'It's illegal to knowingly make anyone a lycanthrope', with no explanation. The rules of shapeshifting change. With no explanation. She disregards Gregory's redemption (most recently demonstrated in the last fucking book, when he sticks by his brother no matter what) in favor of having him be a sex-crazed idiot who apparently wants to fuck Anita. She's already got six of those; she doesn't need another one.
Everyone's favorite hot blond sociopath, Edward, is mentioned, briefly, as not liking a particular type of holster. Probably because fen were promised he'd be the star of the book, and by page four hundred we'd realized he wasn't going to be in it. Throwing your fans a bone is one thing. Discussing holster preference is not throwing your fans a bone.
The bad guys have already struck in New Orleans, and put the vampire executioner for Louisiana in the hospital, but no one seems to know about it. One would think vampire serial killers would be front-page news, but apparently not. In the end, half the bad guys get away. WTF is that about?
What I'm trying to say is basically the same thing as the bookstore clerk told me. Do not buy this book. Do not read this book. Save yourself the pain. Now, if you'll excuse me, TR's promised me the use of her barbecue for the book-burning.
In honor of this, I shall review two books I read over the weekend. Keep in mind I don't have either of them with me. They're at home. I'm at school.
In the book before this one,
When Trickster's Queen opens, the family is on their way back to the capital after the death of the head of the family, Duke Mequen. The rebellion is acting secretly, destroying crops and whatnot. Saraiyu is the only fucking person not in on the plan. The main problems seems to be that A: the king is a four-year-old boy, it's the regents who are evil, and B: the heir is Saraiyu's four-year-old half-brother. No one particularly wants to kill the two toddlers, but they can't figure out a way around it.
Rioting starts breaking out in the streets of the capital. The regents become aware that the people adore the Balitangs, and offer to marry Saraiyu to the four-year-old. Saraiyu falls for a visiting
The princess-regent has the court mages concoct a storm while the king, the heir, and three other boys are on a sailing trip for the king's fifth birthday. The head of the King's Guard survives and, pissed, joins the rebellion. The people know it's murder, especially after the court mages disappear. Her bad.
Dovasary and company are riding back from a meeting when people begin showering her with flowers. An assassin takes a shot at her, and the rioting starts. The next morning, there is a great battle, and Dovasary becomes queen.
Aly marries a crow-turned-man, gets pregnant, and decides not to go back to
Oh, my God. Where to begin? This. Book. Sucks. Like, a lot. Like, the clerk at the bookstore told me not to waste my money on it. It's six hundred and twenty pages of pure shite.
For starters, the damn thing's full of typos. Typos spell check will pick up in a heartbeat. Like 'diety.' It's 'DEITY', woman! 'DEITY!' And she does not make this particular spelling mistake once. No, she makes it like, twenty times, over the course of a five-page phone call that's apparently meant to demonstrate that LKH read a book on tarot cards.
I lost track of the people Anita had had sex with before page fifty, mostly because I boredly flipped past the sex scenes. We get waaaaay too much TMI when Nathaniel tells Anita she is a 'rainmaker' (apparently a term for a female ejaculator). Anita forms a new triumvirate of power with Damian as her 'vampire servant' and Nathaniel as her 'animal to call.' Seeing as how she's human and all, this is so very not supposed to be possible. She refers to a man as her 'wife' and he doesn't mind. I was unaware this was possible, either.
LKH completely disregards things she'd mentioned in previous books. 'It's illegal to make anyone under the age of eighteen a lycanthrope' becomes 'It's illegal to knowingly make anyone a lycanthrope', with no explanation. The rules of shapeshifting change. With no explanation. She disregards Gregory's redemption (most recently demonstrated in the last fucking book, when he sticks by his brother no matter what) in favor of having him be a sex-crazed idiot who apparently wants to fuck Anita. She's already got six of those; she doesn't need another one.
Everyone's favorite hot blond sociopath, Edward, is mentioned, briefly, as not liking a particular type of holster. Probably because fen were promised he'd be the star of the book, and by page four hundred we'd realized he wasn't going to be in it. Throwing your fans a bone is one thing. Discussing holster preference is not throwing your fans a bone.
The bad guys have already struck in New Orleans, and put the vampire executioner for Louisiana in the hospital, but no one seems to know about it. One would think vampire serial killers would be front-page news, but apparently not. In the end, half the bad guys get away. WTF is that about?
What I'm trying to say is basically the same thing as the bookstore clerk told me. Do not buy this book. Do not read this book. Save yourself the pain. Now, if you'll excuse me, TR's promised me the use of her barbecue for the book-burning.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-10-04 11:49 pm (UTC)Bat. Shit. Crazy. Like Bushian levels of the crazy.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 05:38 pm (UTC)I worry, though, because Laurell K Hamilton (see above) is a follower of The Way of the Rice. She banned fanfiction a while back, and now she appears to have followed her editor.
And, like Rice, her early stuff was really good.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 05:39 pm (UTC)Think then type, Vampy. Think then type.