Book Babble

[redbrunja]

Has anyone on my flist read Civilwarland In Bad Decline? It was miserable. I hated most the the characters. The majority lacked any semblence of a spine and even if that was part of the point I hated it. It was classic miserable dystopia future. Now I want to go back to my dorm and watch something uplifting, like Criminal Minds and child molestation.

On the subject of books, I also finished Ink Exchange and I'm not sure what I think. First, the 'you will never read another book for pleasure again' portion of the quarter hit, so I ended up pausing in my reading of this book right at the climax, which really through off my stride with it.

I liked the main character more than Aisling and I loved the 'you have no power over my and I'm going to college' ending. But I really didn't like that Niall ended up as the King of the Dark Court, and that Marr is avoiding having ANY fairy court be evil. It's the exact opposite of my problem with Tithe and doesn't seem narratively workable.

Also, I don't the repetition of both heroes of the first two books ending up of Kings of their own Courts.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

What did you think of Tithe?

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I hated it.

I didn't see any different between the Courts (they were both bad) and I didn't really like any of the characters.

The book did not deserve the epically awesome cover it got.

[hungrytiger11.livejournal.com]

Marr is avoiding having ANY fairy court be evil.

While in general, I rather dislike where authors have some group be the designated "evil" (when humans are complex and corruptible enough on our own, we don't need pure "evil"), in this case it did work. There was a (somewhat) logical reason for them to be bad since they feed off of deep, frenzied emotions. So, I kinda see why then the unearned now-we're-not-evil would be annoying.....


Plus, how are they all going to eat or whatever now?

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I feel the same way. But conflict is vital to any book, and the fact that the faerie courts are now grouping together... just doesn't work for me. Especially when the Dark Court has a good reason to cause bloodshed and violence. I would have liked to have that stay the same with a nonetheless good ruler. Because as you said, how are they going to eat now?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I don't think she's making them not evil so much as not good or evil. They're more in line with the mythic fae than much of what we get.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

That's true, but I get frustrated because I feel like she's setting up a situation where all the fey are complex but mainly good, and I don't know how she's going to have effective conflict if she keeps shying away from letting any of the fey be a proper antagonist like Beira was in the first novel.