(no subject)

[beccaelizabeth]

Today I am reading 'Naked Empire' by Terry Goodkind
very slowly
for it is very, very, very bad.
This may well explain why I stopped buying the series and can't really remember what happened in the previous book.

The author needs 'show not tell' engraved repeatedly on sensitive portions of their anatomy until the message sinks in. "Putting it in little quote marks doesn't make it showing."

So far I'm about 300 pages in and maybe 5 incidents have happened, for a generous interpretation of incident. The rest of the time everyone sits around and discusses it.

Partly that is because this is a long way into a series and every time a character or situation is revisited for the first time in this book he stops to explain at length who and what they are. Personally I say if someone is picking up the, what, 7th? book in a series, they probably know that by now. Unless like me they've forgotten due to sheer boredom. But a short prologue with a summary of the last few books would have made infinitely better reading.

but the other part of the problem is its devolving into a series of philisophical lectures. He keeps on setting up straw man societies and using his marysues - I'm sorry, his main characters of infinite powerups - to knock them down. Newsflash - populating the world with stupid people doesn't make your pets look smarter!

And then there's the lectures themselves. Multi page epics on life the universe and everything. I'm all 'for gods sake just write some essays!' If you want a story to illustrate philosophical principles, *illustrate* them, don't have characters sit around expounding them. I mean it isn't even like we get the pretty. The author probably thinks all the characters are pretty. He puts enough of them in skintight leather. But we, the readers, aren't seeing pictures, just *incredibly boring* words. Get on with the story!

Also there's the problem that often happens in a book where the main character is a detective. Theres the balance between showing the reader enough for them to figure it out and making the detective look smart. The 'seeker after truth' is all about figuring things out. But in order for him to look extra smart the reader can't figure it out first. So he figures a thing, finds the evidence to support it, then explains it to the reader his adoring servants. This gets *very boring*. The few clues that we do get are overwhelmed with the not-caring, because we know we'll have to sit through a three page lecture about each of them and then, once they do make a pattern, a much longer and more detailed lecture about that. Take a risk! Let the audience figure it out first!

I really don't like this book.
I'm seriously considering not finishing it.
Actually if I didn't finish the last one that would explain the big lack of memory of later plot points.

I haven't even got started on the pervasive bad kind of sadistic elements and deeply creepy loving description of torture and death. I mean the books are getting so heavy on the sit-and-talk it stands out very vividly when entire chapters are spent describing impaling people on big wooden stakes in rather sexual terms. And really, gross. Ick. Bad.

I'm ranty, I have a headache, I'm sulky, and this book is *not helping*.

But the other three books that arrived are I think out of sequence. Like the sequels have arrived before the middles, because I ordered from different places. Might be only the one author thats true of though, shall have to check.

Anyways. Not only would I not recommend this book, I'd loudly warn people off. Big waste of time.