Sunday, July 27, 2008

Bulwer-Lytton Lives


Every so often I screw up big time when I hit the library. This was one of them. The cover art should have been a clue, the hyphenated author's name another, but the fact it was published by Tor rather than Harlequin led me astray. I have a weakness for an occasional dip into sword and sorcery type books that goes back to when I first discovered Fritz Leiber back in high school. With a few rare exceptions, of course, most of what gets printed as sword and sorcery these days is a waste of paper, but I'm always hoping that I'll stumble across an author new to me who can actually write.

Dart-Thornton, unfortunately, doesn't qualify. This particular piece of dreck includes deathless prose like "If you stay here, I shall long for you as a fledging longs to fly, yet I will be as happy as a pig in mud, knowing you are safe. But if you come with me, I shall be as happy as a lark in flight and tragic as a fish in a dry riverbed, fearing for your security."

The truly depressing part is this volume is part I of a trilogy. This woman got paid for writing not just one awful book, but three.

3 comments:

  1. LOL -- Trees died for this?

    That is the most god-awful prose I have ever witnessed.

    My sister used to read s#*t like this, bless her depraved soul.

    Reading this causes me to think I could actually make a living writing. Perhaps that is one thing they won't ship to China...

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  2. Tragic as a fish in a dry riverbed?

    Oh, I am so using that the next time Cupcake whines about something.

    And I missed commenting on your post a while back about missing Miss Marple.

    I am so addicted. I go to bed each night with either a Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple DVD in the machine.

    And I'm reading some Miss Marple short mysteries right now.

    I love Agatha Christie's characters.

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