“Tears of the Giraffe,” by Alexander McCall Smith

FM's rating:

1.      Premise 8

2.      Prose 7

3.      Plot 8

4.      Characters 7

5.      Overall 7

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

Despite the low overall rating, this book – like all of Alexander McCall Smith’s books – is a pleasure to read.  He does not intend to dazzle his readers, or to touch any overly emotional chords with them.  But sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, he quietly holds our attention with thoughtful scenarios and plot devices.  In this series – one of his many – the prose takes on a subtle, almost allegorical form, evoking the “English as a second language” phrasing of an African local; absent the more intricate or sophisticated phrasing of an original English speaker.  This is all the more fascinating when compared to novels in all of his other series, where he shows himself to be as eloquent as any author from the UK.  The characters are also revealed in less depth, in accordance with the prose.  The relatively lower ratings in these two categories are more a comment on depth than they are on quality.  Intentional as it is, there is an accompanying lack of emotional punch that goes with the territory.  “Setting” gets at least a “9” here, if we include it, as the story evokes the feeling of being in Africa very nicely.  “Consistency” gets a “9” also.  Perhaps “Ability To Hold the Reader’s Attention” should be given a “9” or even a “10”.  Smith’s gifts as a writer defy deep analysis for the most part; perhaps defying the effectiveness of our rating system, as well.  This will certainly not prevent me from continuing to read his works on a regular basis!

Here’s the October line-up!  (Happy Halloween!)

 

“Needful Things” by Stephen King [10/3]

“The Laughing Corpse” by Laurell K. Hamilton [10/10]

“The Hellbound Heart,” by Clive Barker [10/17]

“Violin,” by Ann Rice [10/24]

“Necroscope,” by Brian Lumley [10/31]

(As always, if there are any books you’d like to recommend for the next month, please do so!)

 

“Burning Brightly,” by Mercedes Lackey

FM's rating:

1.      Premise 8

2.      Prose 7

3.      Plot 6

4.      Characters 8

5.      Overall 7

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

A pretty good story but, like so many authors, Lackey seems intent on giving us a lot of story for our money.  Back in Charles Dickens’ day, that made sense; there weren’t a million other options to choose from that people could have read instead.  Is our reading experience richer and deeper for cramming 100 pages of story into 300 pages, using filler to make us care more about the characters and events?  Maybe for some people it is. And maybe it really works to some degree in this book. Is it to be assumed that a person who takes the time to read a work of fiction is simply frittering away some hours anyway, so why not kill even more time by making a story needlessly long?  That tells us more about the writer’s attitude toward reading fiction than it does the reader’s.  Each episode in the plot should further the plot.  Creating empathy with the characters is fairly easy to accomplish through dialog and character reactions to the events of the story.  Filler is not appreciated or necessary.  Having said that … In between the filler passages of this novel lay plot points that are extremely well crafted, with real emotional impact.  The mental connection between the Heralds and their animal Companions is a real highlight here.  One feels you can almost tell the difference between the sections that were written first and the filler sections that were added later which are not as well-crafted or even well-phrased.  I don’t know when I’ve have read a novel in which the difference was as easily detectable.  I think this is one of the pitfalls of mapping out the plot line ahead of time in too great a detail.  [This applies to planning structure and form in instrumental music as well, in my opinion; at which I have more than a little experience.]  By the end of the story, where the events that have been led up to finally occur, we can mostly forgive the lengthiness.  The climax is fairly well presented even if the scenes occurring afterward are rather maudlin and trite.  Yes, it’s clear that I am not the target demographic here, that this book is written mostly for the teens and early twenties crowd.  But I have read many books written for that readership that are truly outstanding.  This one is a valiant attempt, but falls just short in too many ways.

Here’s the October line-up!  (Happy Halloween!)

 

“Needful Things” by Stephen King [10/3]

“The Laughing Corpse” by Laurell K. Hamilton [10/10]

“The Hellbound Heart,” by Clive Barker [10/17]

“Violin,” by Ann Rice [10/24]

“Necroscope,” by Brian Lumley [10/31]

(As always, if there are any books you’d like to recommend for the next month, please do so!)

“The Haunted Mesa,” by Louis L’Amour

FM's rating:

1.      Premise 8

2.      Prose 8

3.      Plot 7

4.      Characters 9

5.      Overall 8

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

I have intended to read L’Amour’s books - my paternal grandfather’s favorite books - for many, many years, putting it off due to a prejudice against Westerns.  (Where did that prejudice come from?  Like most prejudices with which we afflict ourselves, I have no idea; though I sort of suspect it’s related to my aversion to country music!)  This book got good reviews but, avoiding spoilers out of habit, I didn’t look at the subject matter – oops.  It’s not a Western!  But it is a pretty cool Suspense/Mystery/Detective/Sci-Fi/Fantasy blend that is right in line with what I usually like to read.  The writing is solid; I kind of expected that, although the protagonist seems to need to rehash events and conclusions in his head a bit too extensively, and we are obliged to suffer through it with him.  There’s a lot of filler going over the same old questions – whetting our appetites for the conclusion?  If so, it’s done pretty clumsily.  You get the feeling that the author went back over the manuscript after finishing it and added text here and there in order to make sure his usual Western-novel readers were “gittin all these here new-fangled idears.”  Actually, my instinct suggests that this was done at the request of a heavy-handed editor.  Whatever the reason, it sure slows down an otherwise well-constructed story.  Who knew that L’ Amour had written such an H. G. Wells type book??  I guess his loyal readers knew; that’s who. It completely turns on its head my previous impression of this very interesting author.

“The End of the Wasp Season,” by Denise Mina

FM's rating:

1.      Premise 7

2.      Prose 8

3.      Plot 8

4.      Characters 9

5.      Overall 8

Comments (optional - but try to keep it under 3000 words!)

This is a good, solid effort by an author whose debut novel, “Garnethill” was very strong.  Mina has two main series going and this book is the second one of the series that began with “Still Midnight.”  This series is a little more reflective, not quite as dark or intense as the other.  Probably too “slow” for most tastes, I had no problem staying with it on the strength of the characters and the socio-dynamics involved.  The case is solved almost by accident, as many good mysteries are, but with emphasis placed on our hero’s intuition and determination.  We know “whodunit” from the very beginning, so the fun is in watching how the investigators crack the case and how thin the threads are that eventually lead to the resolution.  Rather cerebral writing, not for everybody, but worth the effort to an analytical mind.