Timewaster's Guide Archive

I'm not sure about Roman times.  I know when I was in Afghanistan we had a medic per platoon and we always had one when we rolled out of the gate which was between 3-10 vehicles with at least 3 per truck (often more than that).  I don't know if that helps or not.

I dont' have too much to say on this chapter.  I really like where this is going.  I'm a sucker for histories and now that we're on the cusp (I hope) of finding out about this society, I'm definitely intrigued.  You have a knack for developing interesting characters with their own, unique quirks.  I like that.  (ex. reading puzzles)  The descriptions in this chapter were much better and I could easily picture the library in my mind.  Also, judging by this "spirit" it appears that men weren't always demonized or uneducated so that's adding dimensions here that I like.

The only errors outside of minor typos are hard to pinpoint.  In writing there are several ways to write a scene or a paragraph or a sentence.  Reading this, I could see the framework was there, but it was rough in places.  I think this is due to writing experience.  I think the more you write, the more you select the best options when it comes to sentence structure and word choice.  This isn't a critique of YOU, but rather the level that you're on.  I think it's a good place to be as this is your first book.  The basics are all here and you're walking with them.  WIth practice, that walk will turn into a run.  I guess this is my way of saying don't stop writing, you're getting there, and if not this book, soon your books will be on a higher level.

Alright, recent reads.

Read the 3rd Joe Ledger novel by Jonathan Maberry.  Maberry's writing has definitely improved.  There were no real hiccups to be found.  This novel was by far the most entertaining, I think.  There was admittedly less characterization but the plot was so intriguing that it really didn't bother me.  Besides, you don't read Jonathan Maberry for character development (though he does slowly move them forward).  If you want a class on suspense, then he is your man.  He does this by flashing back and forth between the good guys and the bad guys and by the third novel he's got it down pat. 

My only complaint (and if you've read the book feel free to comment) was that halfway through the book there is a single mention of the name one of the anonymous bad guys.  I thought it must be a mistake because there was a single mention of the name and then nothing after.  If it wasn't a mistake then it was a really cheap way of letting the cat out of the bag.  If it was a mistake then I hope it gets fixed.  About the only other thing that is off is how the main character is dealing with all of the trauma he's witnessed in the past year.  I haven't done a headcount, but I'd venture to say that Joe Ledger has killed close to fifty people and seen at least three times as many die.  Maberry pays lip service to what this is doing to the main POV, but most of the time it's a "can't think about this now, I'm in the fight."  That part is true, but when you are consistently put into a high stress environment, your hypothalmus (sp?) begins to light up like a christmas tree until soon it doesn't shut off.  This is one effect of PTSD.  It's your brain's way of helping you survive.  Unfortunately, a heightened fight or flight response, with the switch thrown permanently to the flight side, will have lasting effects.  And Joe Ledger rarely shows any effects.  Outside of that, great read.

Twelve by Jasper Kent was interesting.  Think War and Peace meets Anne Rice.  I didn't know he was English, but its one of those curious things that within the first chapter I tend to recognize if the author is American or English.  It was confirmed at the end of the book.  I felt that reading this book was like watching the development of a writer.  The beginning is sparse in description, a lot of talking heads, etc.  By the midpoint when the vampires begin to really materialize (not giving anything away, the hints are heavy from the beginning) the description is much better.  In some ways, this really did feel like the main character was taken right from War and Peace.  A part of the army, but not really beholden to them with a mistress.  Not neccessarily a bad thing, but I felt there was a lot of overlap between the two.  It was nice to see vampires that weren't sparkling in the sun.  Instead, if they were in the sun, they were burning.  I don't mind vampires that aren't inherently evil, but the last few creations I've read have not been that good.  Kent spares no one in this novel and beloved characters drop left and right.  The ending was a long, twisted ride which was fun.  I like thinking I know what's going on and then finding out I"m wrong.  Kent only withholds a few items so it doesn't feel forced.  The only complaint about the ending is that the main character waffles back and forth over certain parts that drag on for pages and pages.  That got old and slowed the pacing down.  Outside of that, solid read.

I've been reading the Gone Series by Michael Grant.  Think Lord of Flies meets Stephen King (The Dome/The Stand/The Myst).  Grant isn't as good a writer as King, but he's not bad.  This series is tough for me.  It's interesting, but maybe it's hard for me to remember what I was like at 14.  Everyone over the age of 14 has mysteriously vanished.  The issue I have is that 14 year olds that are good kids seem more intelligent than the bad ones, but somehow the bad kids are infinitely more capable.  Each book seems to show that everything that could go wrong does.  Instead of there being an even shake between good types of people and bad, it's predominantly bad.  I also don't like that his solution to continiuing the series seems to be the good guys letting the bad guys go rather than imprison or kill them.  Mind you, this is after the bad guys kill babies and other kids.  Then the main POV agonizes over every person that has died, but seems oblivious to how many of those deaths could have been prevented.  It's the classic all that evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing.  I don't like reading books where evil seems to be consistently winning up until the end.  It just seems a little fake that suddenly at the end the good guys wake from their stupor, act, and win the day, only to let them go and begin the cycle all over again.  Still, Grant's writing isn't bad and it has kept me buying the books, but if I hadn't accidentally bought the latest novel first, I probably would have stopped on book two.

Finally, read Superfreakonomics, the sequel to Freakonomics.  I'm not going to go into detail about it as it's basically the same premise as the first book which I reviewed.  There are just different topics like prostitution, global warming, and a bunch of others.  Very good read which I highly reccomend.  Especially if you're interested in economics.

@Bookstore Guy  Thanks for the suggestions!  I'll check out Jasper Kent next week for sure (and some of the others if I have time).  As an aside, do you go to a lot of the cons?  I went to World Fantasy per Peter's suggestion/help and made some good connections (met Dan Wells there also), but I haven't been to any of the others yet.  Part of it is that I'm on the East Coast and both WorldCon and World Fantasy are West this year.

@ Boutch

How are the rest of Sara Douglass's novels?  I started reading the Serpent Bride and had to stop after the first few chapters.  I thought the writing was terrible.  One of the few books I put down.  Until that point I never really believed in the first 50 pages rule.  I was upset because on a whim I'd bought the first three books.  Was this possibly an exception for her or has she improved since then?

@ OP, if you're looking for some good sci fi YA James Dashner's Mazerunner series and Suzanne Cooper's The Hunger Games Trilogy are both very good, fast reads.  I recently read them (you can find my reviews in the books section).

Finished off the Hunger Games Trilogy yesterday.  I didn't really intend to, but after the second I had to know how everything turned out.

The second book is called Catching Fire.  I found this book very interesting because the Writing Excuses Podcasters just had a Romance themed podcast.  There is definitely a love triangle thing throughout the the trilogy.  It's well handled and manages to see saw back and forth enough that the main character (female) could go either way and the reader would be hard pressed to be upset with her.  By the end of the book the pendulum has shifted and the writing is on the wall (we hope).  The second book was more of the same as far as content.  The protagonists find themselves back in the arena.  I read this on the intro that the Kindle has and was slightly turned off.  I mean, really?  We just read an entire book devoted to the Hunger Games and now book 2 is more of the same?   I was wrong.  The author does such a fantastic job of handling the plot that I quickly got over any misgivings I had.  This book definitely has a 1984ish feel to it.  Fast paced, I was to the end before I realized it. 

As a word of warning to those who are thinking of reading the series, the second book ends on a major cliffhanger.  So I'd reccomend having the third ready so you're not waiting for awhile.  If you're anything like me, that will dirve you nuts.

The third book was a change from the first two.  No more Hunger Games (sort of).  Going into this book, and even a third of the way in, I found myself growing concerned.  You see, YA novels in general don't have a problem with violence or death in their books.  They do seem to have a problem with accurately describing the violence.  And up until this point, I felt this was following the same patterns.  I think we do ourselves a disservice whenever we have violence without the consequences.  I don't think that accurately depicting violence will make us desensitized.  If anything, the past few generations have seen the least violence in history.  We used to have to butcher our own livestock, fight to preserve our right to the little parcel of land we had, etc. and that was violence from an early age until death.  Anyway, my point is that I don't like it when an author describes shooting someone or someone getting killed violently and it's just oh they were shot or oh they were stabbed.  That cheapens it.  If the author can't bring themselves to be realistic with the physical effects then they at least should delve into the mental.  And this brings me back to the final book, Mockingjay.  Partway through the book the novel takes a darker turn.  We begin to see the psychological effects of violence and war.  The author does a good job of showing multiple views on war, humanity, and empathy.  As I neared the end I started to realize that this book might not have a happy ending.  Collins does an excellent job of building tension and giving the reader every reason to believe that this is not a fairytale.

Ultimately, it's not a fairytale, but it's a damn good read.  There are a lot of good messages interwoven throughout the story.  This is the type of novel I enjoy.  The kind that after you put it down, lingers on, making the reader think.  Collins's message is idealistic and great in theory.  I think the true answer lies in how her protagonist solves her problems.  It's not through wit or banter or manipulation.  It's through violence, because even if it is the last resort, sometimes it is neccessary.  Stephen King says that violence is hardwired into our systems.  After six years in the infantry, I'm inclined to agree with him.  I'm not sure that Collins would.  This series treads familiar paths, but it's message bears repeating.  I'd say this a good read for anyone over the age of 13 up to an adult.  There's no sex and very little language.  Obviously, there's violence, but nothing too explicit.

I've been trying to read more YA scifi/fantasy because the current novel I'm working on is present day YA sci fi.  To that end I read James Dashner's Mazerunner and Scorch Trials this week.

The Mazerunner is a good, fast paced read.  The basic premise is that a teenage boy wakes up with no memory in a Maze that surrounds a compound in which another fifty or sixty boys have been living for two years.  The rules are harsh, death ever present, but this boy is different.  Others remember him and he's beginning to feel like he's been there before.

The book's a little too plot driven for my taste.  There's not a whole lot of character development.  The descriptions are adequate, but with such an exotic locale, I could have used a little more to help anchor me in.  There's definitely a certain Lord of the Flies feel, but without the obvious symbolism.  The writing is tight, sparse for the most part and I like that.  It definitely helps the book move along.  The entire time I felt like we were moving at break neck speeds.  For all of that, the book does a good job of developing the setting so that by the end I felt like I had a good grasp of the situation.  The character's didn't have personal development, but they did connect with each other so that the budding friendships were believable.  Yes, these teens were more adequate than I would expect from teenagers, but Dashner does pay lip service to them being selected for above average intelligence.  The ending was satisfying and the epilogue definitely set up the sequel.

My only real complaint is that instead of actual swear words Dashner has the characters use words they've made up during their stay in the Maze.  The spelling in some cases is so similar to modern swearing that it's really obvious.  It's a pet peeve of mine.  I think it's morally questionable to have cursing in your books that replaces our words with something similar.  I just think it's hypocritical.  If you mean **** then say ****.  I can see using words from the society at large to show what they consider profane.  This is especially true of fantasy or non earth worlds.  However, the Mazerunner is recognizably Earth.  By the end of the novel the words stopped pulling me out of the story.  Like I said, pet peeve.

The Scorch Trials was another good, fastpaced read.  I loved how Dashner began to reveal some of the reasoning behind the Maze and now these Trials.  It's made clear that this is a post-apocolyptic society.  The character development that was missing from the Mazerunner is gone from the Scorch Trials.  Characters begin to develop in some pretty interesting directions.  What's better, is that it's more than just the main character.  The description's better as well.  Perhaps this is because now we're in a setting that is more relateable to the reader.  The ending was good in that Dashner kept leaping from potential ending to potential ending, leaving the reader guessing right up until the very end.  Unlike the first book, this one does end on a cliffhanger.

I really only have one complaint again on this book.  It's not the language (Dashner does have the people the teens run into act confused by their cursing, but to me that's just more annoying).  The book essentially takes place over a mad dash to cover 100 miles through inhospitable terrain to a Safe Haven within two weeks.  The book is so fast paced though that by the end when one of the characters says they have one day left I actually put the book down for a moment.  I thought about it and it just didn't feel anywhere close to two weeks.  Also, the main obstacle they face is a City in the middle of their journey that is filled with infected, Zombie-like people.  These teens are in good shape after running the Maze so it just wasn't believable that they would take that long to travel there.  The first night they have to cover thirty miles.  They travel from sundown to sunup.  Even if they moved at 3mph they would make it there in time, but in the book it takes them almost three days. 

Outside of a few continuity errors, this book was a step above the Mazerunner and has me looking forward to the next novel.

I'd reccomend this series to anyone looking for a good afternoon read.  There's no swearing, no sex, and while there is killing and death, there isn't a lot of graphic violence.

@Juan. 

Technically, that's correct.  I think that it depends on what is occurring around the sentence.

PAST IMPERFECT: He was thinking about giving up.
PAST PERFECT:  He had thought about giving up.
PAST PLUPERFECT: He had been thinking about giving up.

For example, if the action is immediate, the character is in the middle of putting a puzzle together and having difficulty and the writer chooses past imperfect...to me that is passive.  It's not immediate and it doesn't read well.  The same for the other two forms. 

Now, if for example the writing surrounding the sentence is exposition.  The character kept coming back to this puzzle, but he didn't know why even bothered anymore.  The truth was, it was impossible.  At least, impossible for him.  No, he was thinking about giving up.  That's not passive. 

In most cases I believe it's all about context.  In general, the fewer words you can use to convey the same message the better.  Also, depending on the type of story and the action going on, shorter, concise sentences can really bring out the writing.  The last thing we writers want to do is put any stumbling block out for the readers.  Especially for aspiring authors, as sometimes all it takes is one sentence to make the agent/editor put the book down.

Just my two cents.