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A review by cupiscent
Moon's Artifice by Tom Lloyd
Did not finish book.
Noping out at page 28, due to style issues with which I cannot be having. I am quite liking the extremely feudal-Japanese setting (though it is laying on a bit thick), but the author's style is profligate with details, often to no apparent purpose whether narrative or rhythmic. There was a female character introduced that I liked the look of in general terms, but her introduction was half a dozen pages of nothing-happening and woffle.
Mostly, though, it's those style issues that are making me put the book down before I throw it down. The page that made me flip my lid includes:
- an info-dump about yet another element of the world (there had been a few of these already). It was about an order of warrior-mages who were "obliterated centuries ago", though a few sentences later the narrator noted that "Normal folk getting caught up in the machinations [of this bunch] rarely fared well". Does that happen often, when they were obliterated centuries ago?
- the sentence: "Like the rest of the city, everything Narin knew of the Astaren came through rumour and myth." Which I had to read twice because the first time my brain was trying to ascribe that everything to the like the rest of the city. You know, like grammar works.
- random moment of head-hopping
- and again, the sentence: "His curled greying eyebrows twitched as he thought, absent-mindedly twisting the bone fetish around his neck through his fingers." Those are some alarmingly interventionist eyebrows, dude, you should get that under control.
At this point, because I was ranting out loud about it, my weary husband (trying to read his own book) said, "Why are you reading this, then?"
Good point, Mr Dee. Good point.
(Am I overly pedantic about points of grammar? On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, these were genuinely impeding the flow of my reading, because every time I encountered a sentence that messed around like that, I had to read it twice because the first time through, my brain attached the grammatically-right though authorially-wrong object to the subordinate clause. Anything that impedes the reader's effortless flow through your story is wrong bad naughty. Grammar is there to help the reader get your meaning without even remembering there are rules about this. Grammar is the churning swan legs beneath the gliding elegance of your prose. Love it. Learn it. Fucking use it.)
Mostly, though, it's those style issues that are making me put the book down before I throw it down. The page that made me flip my lid includes:
- an info-dump about yet another element of the world (there had been a few of these already). It was about an order of warrior-mages who were "obliterated centuries ago", though a few sentences later the narrator noted that "Normal folk getting caught up in the machinations [of this bunch] rarely fared well". Does that happen often, when they were obliterated centuries ago?
- the sentence: "Like the rest of the city, everything Narin knew of the Astaren came through rumour and myth." Which I had to read twice because the first time my brain was trying to ascribe that everything to the like the rest of the city. You know, like grammar works.
- random moment of head-hopping
- and again, the sentence: "His curled greying eyebrows twitched as he thought, absent-mindedly twisting the bone fetish around his neck through his fingers." Those are some alarmingly interventionist eyebrows, dude, you should get that under control.
At this point, because I was ranting out loud about it, my weary husband (trying to read his own book) said, "Why are you reading this, then?"
Good point, Mr Dee. Good point.
(Am I overly pedantic about points of grammar? On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, these were genuinely impeding the flow of my reading, because every time I encountered a sentence that messed around like that, I had to read it twice because the first time through, my brain attached the grammatically-right though authorially-wrong object to the subordinate clause. Anything that impedes the reader's effortless flow through your story is wrong bad naughty. Grammar is there to help the reader get your meaning without even remembering there are rules about this. Grammar is the churning swan legs beneath the gliding elegance of your prose. Love it. Learn it. Fucking use it.)