Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios

“’If I wanted you dead, you would be dead’?” He sucked some blood from between his teeth, then spat it onto the cobbles. “What is that? A line from some mid-century melodrama? You hear that onstage a few nights ago?”

In “Skullsworn” by Brian Staveley

Reasons to avoid some Fantasy:

1. 1 - Trilogies - a story seldom needs 3 volumes, nobody wants to read the 'excluded middle' of tosh, let alone wait for the third volume when they have forgotten the contents of the first - strike George R.R. Martin;

1. 2 - Sequel proliferation. Ditto objection 1 squared - strike Eddings et al;

1. 3 - Formulaic - It's often better to re-read Tolkien, skipping some of his embarrassing attempts at females than read the whole thing again with different silly names - strike all sorts of piffle;

1. 4 - Silly names - countries; cities; people. How about concepts; recipes; politics - invent something - move to include Iain M. Banks 'Culture' - or does invention have to belong to THE science fiction part of SF?

1. 5 - Written by die cast. Surely much is the product of hashish and D&D - this you can make up for yourself;

1. 6 - Poor writing - to wit the obviously much beloved Staveley - whilst his books were entertaining they are limited by his repetitive vocabulary; why can't his educated characters master the conditional subjunctive…?

If you're into SF, read on.