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Mar. 16th, 2008 07:03 pmSo I finished reading another book, Touch the Dark, another girl-meets-supernatural-world first person discovering her power thing. There was a dodgy few pages in the middle when it seemed like the 'I' of the book was turning out to be 17, which nearly got me dropping the thing right there. But no, she was just being confusing. Which is a fairly major flaw of the book. It's like the author decided she was going to have a world with vampires, weres, witches, mages, ghosts, seers and god knows what else and that they absolutely must be introduced all in the first book by them all taking turns trying to kill and/or shag the main character. The through line of the plot is rather swamped under the as-you-know-bob. Just trying to describe them all tells them into a nightmare of show-not-tell. I'm sure the author thinks she's showing, but really, no. Plus by the end of the book despite quite a lot of running around the character hasn't precisely solved a mystery - she's been told the answer by the bad guys. Excuse me for finding that vastly unsatisfactory. The guy who wants into your pants has never lied to you before? And you knew him for a whole year when you were 11? Not a brilliant character reference right there. So it's a bit of a mess.
Except the actual plot is discovering she has shiny new powers because she's just been crowned queen of the supernatural world. Which, you know, actually, I kind of aren't finding fun.
I've had enough of 'Chosen One' stories, I've had enough of stories that are about the mystical properties of losing ones virginity, I was rather fooled by a bit of body swapping and a line about 'women I love' into thinking there might be something queer here but noooo, every single other woman in the whole story is dead or never talks, except for the head vampire, who is pretty much a snake and never talks for herself just does business/exposition. Some of the dead ones talk. There's one annoying girl ghost and... the magic upgrade fairy? Okay, the previous queen of everything who turns up to laugh at the 'I' of the story for believing what she was told (yes! like I said! ... now it's the end of the book and they aren't fixing it? you mean to tell me we got all that worldbuilding exposition, got told it was dodgy, and didn't get told true stuff? Remind me again why I want to read the second book? oh, yeah, so it can be just as confusing and pointless.) And then tell her that she's now queen of everything whether she likes it or not. Here, have the title and the shiny powers. And no control. To get that, it is implied, she'll have to... start having sex?!?!?
*facepalm*
So, you know, despite my fondness for stories about powerful women having men grovel and obey their every whim and all that, this story has a whole lot of problem. She's a woman who only exists in relation to men, her power is without control, and the worldbuilding feels like she threw a worldbook at the page without, you know, sense.
I liked stories where someone starts off Not Chosen and then studies and learns things and gets smarter and better at their job. Why are there so few of those? Does aristocracy really eat people's brains that badly? There's so many of these 'born with power, tada!' sort of Chosen One stories and the vast majority of them suck. Not Buffy, though the whole point of that one ended up being Chose More People, kind of like empowerment by way of the queen saying women should vote or something. But mostly? What's so very wrong about having the power up be learned, not just appearing? Is daft.
... sadly, I will probably read the next book. Partly to complain about it, partly because there was lots of quite interesting vampire sex in this one and, you know, can't go far wrong. Well, can actually. Especially since it went to the 'not your usual vampire' *headdesk* and decided they don't actually need to bite. They just sort of absorb by touch. And then being turned into a vampire is a whole bite related thing. Because, you see, if they were always biting and the being a vampire is a bite thing then of course you'd get vampire multiplication out of control so :eyeroll:
Anyway. Now I'm bored and tired and wishing there was more Torchwood to read. Figures.
Except the actual plot is discovering she has shiny new powers because she's just been crowned queen of the supernatural world. Which, you know, actually, I kind of aren't finding fun.
I've had enough of 'Chosen One' stories, I've had enough of stories that are about the mystical properties of losing ones virginity, I was rather fooled by a bit of body swapping and a line about 'women I love' into thinking there might be something queer here but noooo, every single other woman in the whole story is dead or never talks, except for the head vampire, who is pretty much a snake and never talks for herself just does business/exposition. Some of the dead ones talk. There's one annoying girl ghost and... the magic upgrade fairy? Okay, the previous queen of everything who turns up to laugh at the 'I' of the story for believing what she was told (yes! like I said! ... now it's the end of the book and they aren't fixing it? you mean to tell me we got all that worldbuilding exposition, got told it was dodgy, and didn't get told true stuff? Remind me again why I want to read the second book? oh, yeah, so it can be just as confusing and pointless.) And then tell her that she's now queen of everything whether she likes it or not. Here, have the title and the shiny powers. And no control. To get that, it is implied, she'll have to... start having sex?!?!?
*facepalm*
So, you know, despite my fondness for stories about powerful women having men grovel and obey their every whim and all that, this story has a whole lot of problem. She's a woman who only exists in relation to men, her power is without control, and the worldbuilding feels like she threw a worldbook at the page without, you know, sense.
I liked stories where someone starts off Not Chosen and then studies and learns things and gets smarter and better at their job. Why are there so few of those? Does aristocracy really eat people's brains that badly? There's so many of these 'born with power, tada!' sort of Chosen One stories and the vast majority of them suck. Not Buffy, though the whole point of that one ended up being Chose More People, kind of like empowerment by way of the queen saying women should vote or something. But mostly? What's so very wrong about having the power up be learned, not just appearing? Is daft.
... sadly, I will probably read the next book. Partly to complain about it, partly because there was lots of quite interesting vampire sex in this one and, you know, can't go far wrong. Well, can actually. Especially since it went to the 'not your usual vampire' *headdesk* and decided they don't actually need to bite. They just sort of absorb by touch. And then being turned into a vampire is a whole bite related thing. Because, you see, if they were always biting and the being a vampire is a bite thing then of course you'd get vampire multiplication out of control so :eyeroll:
Anyway. Now I'm bored and tired and wishing there was more Torchwood to read. Figures.