Book Suggestion

[Farseer]

Re: my Night Angel rant

I had already started a rather lengthy reply before finishing the second Night Angel trilogy book, 'Shadow's Edge', but thought I'd postpone it until I was either finished the entire trilogy or in a more positive frame of mind.

Now that I am finished, I can compare the experience to bursting a boil...significant pain, pus and rubbish everywhere, and then finally the relief that it's over. If I hadn't held fast to my unbroken rule of having to finish a book or series once I start it, I'd never have made it through the second installment. Sorry (and you thought I was harsh before?!), but I like what I like !

When I was a child I used to pull out the dictionary, pluck out any number of intelligent-sounding words and then challenge myself to write a story based on those words. For me, it was like Weeks has done pretty much the same thing with this series...he just sat down one day with his notebook of ideas (containing both his own ideas and those he's borrowed), and then commenced to throw it all in to the one story, whether it worked or not.

It could have been so much better because the core story he had to tell was solid and of worth, and it did have a number of interesting elements (Retribution; the ka’kari; Curoch; Ceur’caelestos; some of the history and tales of Jorsin, Ezra and Acaelus etc). On the whole though, I think it was very badly written and, sadly, also at the mercy of atrocious editing. As previously mentioned, there were just too many mistakes throughout all three books for me to ignore them eg “Not only did you want be loved...” (this sentence beginning is missing the ‘to’, as you will notice), and I hated that nobody bothered to correct the author’s annoying sayings such as “a couple days” rather than “a couple of days” (this particular example was repeated too often for it to be anything other than the author writing it just as he would normally have spoken it). I am not an expert in these areas but then neither am I a published author asking the public to pay for my literary talent. If I spend around $30 a book, I expect it to contain very few errors of any kind. That it is a series of books written by an author who has been writing since he was thirteen, and who has also been an English teacher, raises my expectation of the grammar and sentence structure etc to even greater heights. At the very least, I expect it to be proof-read !!

I am no prude but there was also a titanic overload of sex and sexual tension throughout, and such an overkill of words like 'f@#k', 'bang', 'tits' etc (especially in the second book), that it crippled the story rather than enhanced it. If I wanted to read as much of that as I just did, I'd be a fan of either Penthouse or Mills and Boon...which I'm not! I get that a certain amount needed to be included as the reader had to experience the desires and the depravities of the various facets of Midcyru’s society, and can even accept that citizens throughout all of Midcyru obviously use a modern dialogue to match our own, but there was an absurd excess, I thought, and often it came out at ridiculous times that suited neither the character nor the setting. By extension, a majority of the feelings and relationships were convenient for the author, rather than believable for me in any way.

All in all, I won't be reading either the sequel trilogy that’s being planned (there is only one character named 'Nameless' who I am interested in continuing a fantasy journey with!) or the newly-released Lightbringer trilogy. Any Night Angel recommendation from me would only stem from a curiosity to hear of everyone's different responses rather than “I recommend you read it because I think you will enjoy it” (though, as has been mentioned, you may well still enjoy it, depending on what you like and also your expectations).

With my rant now at an end, I do agree with the comments from Rendezvous and hope you'll all come back and make a comment once you’ve read the series...for me, the best thing about our little thePlenty group is that we can tolerate and appreciate varying opinions, no matter how strong they are !