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Wanna slap some characters around
So before Christmas I read a trio of enjoyable sf books by Karen Traviss ['City of Pearl', 'Crossing the Line', 'The World Before']. Fun reads with enjoyable characters, IMHO.
The last week I've forced myself to trudge thru the worst books I've read [tried to read] in years. They were recommended to me by another fan of vampire fiction, so I figured they couldn't be that bad. [could they?] Decent cover art, so I got 3 books = Dhampir, Thief of Lives & Sister of the Dead. [Decent titles on book 2 & 3].
But ... just ... yuck. Decently-written battle scenes - and that was it. The protagonist is a moron. Written as though the authors thought = 'gee, we watched 'Vampire Hunter D' - let's use the idea, then drain it of any intelligence, believability or sympathetic characters - and O yeah, make the main character a chick! And give her a half-elf partner.'
About the only thing the books had was angst. TONS of angst! No character with over a room temperature IQ - AND the authors couldn't even keep their story straight from volume to volume: the protagonmist has situational rapid healing, the half-elf gets a facial scar that moves down to his neck; they forget things they learned in prior books.
Nasty stuff. If you want to buy books, get the Traviss ones.
The last week I've forced myself to trudge thru the worst books I've read [tried to read] in years. They were recommended to me by another fan of vampire fiction, so I figured they couldn't be that bad. [could they?] Decent cover art, so I got 3 books = Dhampir, Thief of Lives & Sister of the Dead. [Decent titles on book 2 & 3].
But ... just ... yuck. Decently-written battle scenes - and that was it. The protagonist is a moron. Written as though the authors thought = 'gee, we watched 'Vampire Hunter D' - let's use the idea, then drain it of any intelligence, believability or sympathetic characters - and O yeah, make the main character a chick! And give her a half-elf partner.'
About the only thing the books had was angst. TONS of angst! No character with over a room temperature IQ - AND the authors couldn't even keep their story straight from volume to volume: the protagonmist has situational rapid healing, the half-elf gets a facial scar that moves down to his neck; they forget things they learned in prior books.
Nasty stuff. If you want to buy books, get the Traviss ones.