guardianlunnaei

Warning!:  Mild spoiler warnings for a handful of books.  Nothing to do with plot so much as a brief look at first chapters for the sake of examples...

I think I’ve become rather spoiled and picky about the books I read.  I finished an AMAZING book last week; Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.  It’s a little on the dark side, lots of action and/or intrigue, and when “something” isn’t happening it’s chalked full of either witty banter, or it’s the reader’s insight into how wrong the characters are in their assumptions of other characters and/or situations, which is always amusing. XD  The guy has also come up with the most ingenious and /original/ magic system I’ve seen in a fantasy setting of /any/ kind.  It’s a mix of psionic and physical abilities and all based on metals rather than elements.  Great book, and I can’t wait to get my hands on book two of the trilogy.

But until then, I’ve got to find something else to read while passing my lunch time at work.  And that’s...when I found out how....picky I’ve gotten.  I expect a book to catch my interest and hold it, I expect the writer to drop me into the middle of something interesting right from the beginning, and dare me to keep reading to find out what happens next.  And I found a book that absolutely refused to do this.

Picked up “Take a Thief” by....um...can’t remember at the moment.  In any case...I just couldn’t do it.  The writing style was kind of weird, and I’m not entirely sure I could explain in what way.  I could have lived with the odd style, though, had it caught my interest...but it just....didn’t...wouldn’t.  Chapter one followed the daily routine of a young, poor boy, from starting a fire, to unloading a cart to heading to school merely for a the free and semi-decent breakfast, to sneaking into a lord’s home and disguising himself as a page so he could pilfer some food before stuffing himself in a loft above a laundry area so he could sleep. ....The sneaking in to the lord’s home at least /sounds/ like it should be exciting in /some/ way, but it wasn’t.  He got in unnoticed, changed clothes....avoided tables where his poorer manners would get him discovered....stuffed his pockets with pilfered food, dirtied his clothes so he’d be sent to clean up....changes clothes again and heads to find a place to eat and then sleep where he’d be unlikely to be found... It was all so...mundane...  Chapter two wasn’t much better.  Now...usually when I find that I’m having troubles getting into a book I’ll jump to somewhere in the middle and read a random page or two.  Might have to try a couple times, but usually I’ll find something intriguing, exciting, confusing, curious, /something/ that makes me suddenly /really/ want to know how they got into that situation, or who that person is, or what they heck they’re talking about, or maybe just what is going on!!.....but no....not this one....

So that’s when it hit me that I’ve not had this problem before.  I mean...I’ve had a few books that were a little hard to get into, but nothing like this.  And more recently everything I’ve read has dropped me right into the middle of the action and/or the intrigue from chapter one, if not from the prologue.

Take Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series (now to be finished by Brandon Sanderson).  First chapter or so of the first book (which, mind you, I’ve not read in YEARS) starts off with the preparations for an annual festival, odd strangers showing up in town, the only living parent of one of the main characters taking /ill/, and the town being attacked by creatures that had been assumed to be myths, nothing more than stories told to children to frighten them into behaving.  The series itself has a few slow points, as you’d expect from any book or series of books, but the original author had an AMAZINGLY detailed and thought-out history in place, was WONDERFUL about reminding you when and where you’d seen a particular character (there’s 11 books out right now, after all, and Brandon will be writing the 12th and final book), and had a fun and well thought out magic system for his world.

Tedd Dekker’s “Showdown” was one that hooked you right away too.  It’s something of a thriller without being an outright horror, that’s intriguing and keeps you hanging on every page until the end, while you’re trying to figure out what the HECK is happening to this town!!!  Chapter one a stranger walks into a town, seen by a boy and an old mute man.  They see this stranger as a walking skeleton one moment, then a normal man the next.  Stranger walks over, plucks out the man’s eyes and stuffs them into his own....and walks away.  The old man’s eyes appear to be untouched and as far as anyone else in the town can tell the man died of a heart attack.  And no one believes the boy when he tries to tell them what he saw....  Again.  Straight into WTF and the innate need to know what in the world just happened, are things as they seem, and what will this stranger do next?

Mistborn.  Let me just say...wow.  Amazing book, really.  Again, a little on the dark side.  Whole premise of the book is; what would happen if the prophesied hero failed to defeat the Dark Lord?  Amazing question to ask in the fantasy genre, daring and bold to say the least, and the man makes it work.  Prologue has a man walking into the slave huts on a lord’s plantation.  He enters at night out of the mists, feared by the slaves as mysterious and dangerous, many believe the mists will consume your soul.  This stranger talks of rebellion and freedom...and then, to save a slave girl from being raped and killed by her master this stranger slaughters the lord and his household before telling the now freed and confused slaves to leave before this murder is discovered and they are killed for it.  And that’s just the prologue!  I’m telling you, even the “slow” points in this book aren’t really all that slow.  The man is an amazing writer, and I’m thinking a new favorite.

And so....I’ve been spoiled.  Take a Thief just...didn’t do it for me.  I’ve started another one called “Dwellers” by Roger Elwood.  It’s also an odd writing style, but it’s at least intriguing.  I think I know what’s so odd about the style that Dwellers and Take a Thief are written in.  They’re so blunt and straight forward, you don’t get an abundance of description, and almost feel like you’re being “told” more than “shown”.  Oh well....Dwellers can “tell” me for now, at least it’s interesting and has kept me guessing so far.  Anyway...I’m done with my rant and a half.  Kudos to those that actually read this whole things and cake and ice cream (or brownies....cookies....whatever your indulgent preference) for those that have read or will decide to read any of the books I’ve mentioned. XD;;;;