From Central California and Northern England, two aspiring writers natter and share a blog. We like to talk about our disparate but oh-so-similar lives, offer opinions on literature and movies... and endlessly reminisce about Bioware RPG's.


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Sunday, August 29, 2010

Am I Broken?

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, mostly because I put down The Black Prism by Brent Weeks, and I'm not so sure I want to pick it back up again. I have a passing interest, but it's nothing against my wanting to finish Zahn's Thrawn trilogy. And the reason I've been doing a lot of thinking is because, aside from one other poorly-worded review, I'm the only one on Amazon who had anything critical to say about this book. It could mean any number of things, but, end result, I'm worried!

The book had a lot of really good things going for it. The magic system was unique, the characters were interesting, and even the world itself was neat in the way it was set up. But there were so many things that bothered me to the point of aggravation, and most of those things centered on the writing itself, and how the story was communicated.

For the most part, when I read, I like books that are straight to the point as soon as possible. I'm perfectly aware that in a fantasy world some explanation is required. But there's no reason why you can't take a step back and distribute that page's worth of exposition and loop it into the story somehow. I just dunno why. It bugs me. And it bugs me when everything has to be explained, like we aren't smart enough to figure some things out. I like very little hand-holding unless it's absolutely necessary.

Enough of that. Anyway, I'm just trying to decide why I didn't like The Black Prism, because I'm feeling kinda crazy that I didn't. Meh.

2 comments:

  1. Hmm. I'm going to have to pick this one up sometime and see what I think, as I typically have problems of the same type and caliber. Execution, for me, is a critical component of story telling.

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  2. Same here. Brent Weeks is a very nice and talented author, but he makes some decisions that just baffle me. Way too much exposition and modern prose for my liking.

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