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19 Jan 2007 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouTwo more books for the stack, and this time, e-books (a new, and late-night thing, I admit). Why? I don't know, I was on the page, I figured, hey, let's see how this technology works. So I ordered two from LooseID's urban fantasy section that looked interesting, tried to squint to ignore the horrendous cover on one of them (it's just a frickin' cover), and figured that for about $4 or $5, I didn't really need to read an excerpt or the first chapter or see a variety of reviews, because, hey, $5. Big deal. Both books are M/M, so skip if that's not your thing.
Castoffs, Angela Fiddler.
I think that should be Cast-offs, or Cast Offs, but the cover put it in all caps as one word. Eh, whatever. It's yet another vampire story, but Fiddler has some magical touches that lend the story a bit more individuality, and some of her passages/characterizations are a bit unexpected but in a good way.
The protag, Janus, is a lieutenant and skilled at making wards. When the story opens, he's had a few drinks, and there's one point where I liked Fiddler's take on the usual: the idea that alcohol fills a stomach, makes it feel full, but in the same illusory way that chewing gum makes you feel like you're eating something. So Janus heads out to find his favorite snack, a young street kid named Jackie, and I was rather disappointed to not see more of Jackie, really. He sells his blood freely to Janus, and in turn, Janus is temporarily infected with whatever magic runs in Jackie's veins -- not drugs, but magic. And returning it back, Janus leaves wards on Jackie's skin so other creatures of the city and night don't bother the half-addled, magical Jackie but let him slip on by. Without too much fanfare or overladen description, Fiddler characterized Janus quite nicely in the first two pages.
What did throw me, however, is that Fiddler does this peculiar dance around the sexual elements of the story. It's almost like someone told her to meet a quota: this many blowjobs, this much sex, this much whatever. Yet...with some of the sex scenes, it's like only every sixth sentence, and I mean literally every sixth sentence, and you have to slow down, struggle to figure out how they got from there to there, and are they doing what you think they're doing because there was no warning, but it sounds like they might be. Honestly, I think Fiddler would probably be far more comfortable either just fading to black, or perhaps she wants to write this but needs someone to kick her in the head and force her to go deeper. Err, so to speak.
Because the story is filled with sex scenes, but I'd never thought about taking it to its absolute extreme, where even apparent enemies (or certainly not close friends, even) exchange sexual attention -- and I mean exchange because with one character exception, hrm, I think, it's pretty much what one does to one, gets done back -- and even in the most casual and public of ways (as public as you can get when it's always night, that is).
At first that was a bit, hrm, not off-putting, so much as something unexpected. My reaction: uhm, they didn't seem that close, and they don't even seem to like each other all that much, and would you really want someone -- especially someone with fangs -- putting their mouth anywhere near your dick if they didn't like you much? But, like sharing blood constantly between each other, the various characters treat sex as just another part of the power exchange. But what I realized, as I read on (and a second protag is introduced that connects with Janus on several levels) is that the apparently casual, noncommital, lukewarm impression is due mostly to the author's distance.
That is, if it were a statement on the author's part that Janus is going through the motions (to some degree) in treating sex as just one more exchange, then as his relationship with Lyall grows from annoyed investigating/curious elder vampire to something more, I would have expected the sex between them to take on notes and hints, a level of intimacy, missing from the other scenes -- but that didn't happen.
The plot line itself is nicely complex, and neatly comes around again, and I have no real complaints at all about characterization or setting or conflict or backstory -- especially given that this is a $5 e-book and so I'm not going to eyeball it with the "omg a NY editor let that get past?" -- plust the grammar and spelling are clean, only maybe three or four errors in 116 pages, and that's not bad. It was just this odd distance that left me, at times, a little baffled as to how exactly Janus felt about stuff, as though I were getting to see him in action, but I wanted how he felt in action, more than just the most superficial.
I'm not sure that makes sense; it's an objective thing, I admit. Someone else might read and find it quite smoking. And if you like vampires, want a solid story that's well-told and more than just boy-meets-boy, with some good conflict and sharp exchanges, then I do recommend it for that. Let me know if you purchase/read, because I'd be curious to hear if I'm the only one with this reaction, or if it'd do any good to suggest Fiddler go study up on how it can be done, like Haldeman-Time's ability to express lust, drive, and intimacy in a sex scene. Yeah, I'd suggest Haldeman-Time as a good teacher for that.
Here Be Dragons, T. A. Chase.
213 pages total and I quit at 45 or so, and I doubt I'll finish. (Too bad you can't get a refund on really sucky ebooks.) Here's the gist: Kael is a herpetologist who accepts a position in Ireland to get as far away as possible from an abusive exlover. He ends up working at a lab on... something, I don't know, and his boss is a gorgeous gay man. Alright. Let's see if I can count the things that irked me enough to make me not even bother to keep reading when it's not like it's any skin off my teeth, y'know?
Open paragraphs, Kael's woken by his boss, buzzing him to come downstairs -- apparently, a deep-sea investigation team has picked up a strange lizard, and Kael's the only one with any training in critters remotely lizard-like. (At least he notes in teh story that it's not his speciality, but hey.) So his first words to his boss, the one we're told -- at least twice in the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH that he has a major crush on? -- is this:
I mean, right there, the opening promise is: slightly randy, frustrated, grumpy, scientist harboring secret crush on boss, and I was all like, wooo, I love secret!crush stories, I can't help it, it's a thang. But nooooo.
Yes, I'm willing to forgive the "didn't tie bootlaces and fell last few steps right into boss" because that's slapstick comedy staple: a bit of comedy, too, okay, this could be fun. Except as Kael gets in Hugh's car, I'm getting told for the eighth time that Kael's all woogly and hard over being near Hugh, smelling Hugh, touching Hugh, and I'm like, dude, you have a PhD at least, you're not seventeen, get the hell over it already. Focus. Sheesh. Then, during the conversation in the car, we get this line:
We're only on page three by now, mind you, and we get to this bit of dialogue before the two pull up at the docks. This is also known as the next stage in "How to Make Your Character Make Me Want to Slap Him":
Not the least of which is because I really, truly loathe stories where any character starts out not only with pity but by revealing Some Major Trauma right smack up there in the front. Come on, if your boss were to ask you why you'd left, you wouldn't think, "what do I say to a friend?" You'd think, "this is a boss-employee relationship, go for neutral," and say perhaps that you'd decided it was time for a major change. If pressed, maybe you'd say a relationship had ended badly and you needed a change of scenery.
Even if this is a friend-with-potential, the last thing most people want to do is slather their abused-history all over anything new; it smacks of neurotic neediness and people are aware of that. (And so are, I might add, readers. Duh.) And, too, people are often cagey about admitting they'd been abused for fear that the listener/new-friend might agree with the abuser and decide the speaker deserved it.
No one wants to be seen as weak; weak is not attractive, which is why secrets like this are so damaging. And if it'd been a few years since the relationship, and Kael weren't so frickin' obsessed with beating himself up internally, I might've been able to write it off, if the conversation had ended (or Kael had ended it) at it being the time to leave, and disregarded any further questions and not then spent a paragraph or two obsessing all over again but just forgetting about it. When you're healed (or well on your way), there's less need to go on about it.
Really, I expected cageyness. If Kael were grumpy and misanthropic, he might shut the conversation down, fast and hard, and leave Hugh either going, okay, don't touch that, or (hopefully) instead thinking, hrm, I wonder what happened? ...and then there's intrigue. Instead, Kael just spills it all, and in the process acts the way few mature professionals act -- at least, I should clarify, no mature professionals whom I want to know, hang out with, or be stuck with reading about for the next 210 pages.
So over the next twenty or so pages, we get more of Kael's self-castigation and repetitions of things his ex said (I think he's been out of the relationship for a year, something like that.) plus a few more oh-so-conveniently trips, tangles, and oh-so-conveniently landings on his boss nearly every time. This would've been perfectly acceptable slapstick, if the comedy had been played up. But instead, Kael's absolute obsession -- paragraphs of omg I touched him and he'd never see me because I suck, suck, suck and omg check out that chest and I just hope he never lets me go swooning -- each followed by more but he'd never see me because I'm a horrible person and blah blah waaaaaah.
In comedy, Hugh would've been the klutzy one, cheerfully falling almost flat on his face and Kael catching him and then thinking, omg, I got to touch him while Hugh brushes himself off, thanks Kael with a big grin and carries on, apparently one-hundred-percent unaware of Kael's reactions or thoughts. That's what makes it funny: the unawareness, but with Kael, it's all self-obsession, woe is me, I suck, wah.
Oh, bitch please.
And then we get to the boat and the second (or third? who's counting?) of the Reasons To Spork Author. (I'm skipping a few others, but let's just say there were a few more complaints between, so don't think any part didn't make me grit my teeth.)
While you see this in high school television shows -- the absolute cattiness -- it still reflects, to some degree, an ongoing dynamic: that is, a history, which makes any slice more pointed, and for a reason. But a complete stranger? A stranger who's a boat captain and delivering a strange dragon-creature to two scientists to take it off his hands? Come on. It's not a character, it's a frickin'... something, I don't know, it's a set-up by the author to make the reader go, "oh, poor Kael, even complete strangers diss him!" Poor baby, won't anyone love him?
I'd much rather have seen the Captain sidle up, watch Kael working and then oh-so-casually ask, "I'm heading down to the pub. Want to go get a few drinks, hang out?" And Kael be completely clueless about it. Then instead of one more pity-party, there'd be the sense of "hurry up, Hugh, before someone else figures Kael out and snags him!" or something. Not that I give much of a damn about anyone snagging Kael at this point -- and we're only on page 14 -- unless they're snagging him to slap some sense into his neurotic, faux-klutzy, sex-obsessed, self-castigating, unprofessional, pitiful head.
Segue to scene of Hugh admitting to his brother that he really likes Kael (like we didn't see that coming), and then they head from pub to Kael's to see if Brother can stay with Kael while in process of divorce. And then, and then, OMG, they arrive, and Hugh breathes on Kael. Unh-hunh. Right. A hint of beer or whatever, and next it's a flashback to the ex being all stereotypically abusive, and then jump back to the present and what do we have?
KAEL SWOONED.
Yes! He rocked back, eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell into the arms of the man he loved, who's of course all upset and apologetic that he caused traumatic flashbacks to occur in Kael and he'll never drink again poor baby blah blah blah and Kael's all like, that's okay, I won't make you not drink and I can handle it, it's all right, these don't happen that often (and meanwhile I'm thinking, I don't know any abuse-survivor who SWOONS -- panics, maybe, backs the hell up with hands raised, braces for impact, gets tense, gets headache, looks for escapes, but swoons? puhleeeese), and meanwhile Brother is just like, oh, la la la my little brother likes some fucked-in-the-head snake boy with neurotic tendencies, la la la.
Right-o. I really don't know why I kept reading. Masochism, I suppose.
(I am having too much fun with this. It could be something more, I think, if someone were to honestly tell the author, look, you do not need to work so hard to make us love a character, and in fact, we do not often love characters because they're helpless, weak, and must be protected, but because they're flawed and imperfect but they still come out swinging. We -- at least I -- would far more love a character who's got a bit of a chip on his shoulder, a little grumpy because no way is he gonna get hurt like that again, he's going to be really careful, keep his distance, and we might not know what hurt him, but we can see Hugh weaseling his way into Kael's defenses... it's strength and weakness that make someone attractive. It's Patton who said, "courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it." We want to read courageous characters, and that doesn't mean they're not fearful; in corrollary, we want characters with heart and sensitivity, but if you think that means the protag must cry at everything then you've swallowed the Newage (rhymes with sewage) Sensitive Male crap just a little too well.)
And then, with this assumption that Kael doesn't have much but a cat, not even a car, we randomly find out he has a horse and goes riding every weekend. I'm like, hunh? Where'd that come from? Couldn't we have had a little more warning than just, oh, and I have a horse. Right. Because that's what people always buy before, say, a CAR. Or if they do, they'd at least, y'know, think about that horse more than just saying it for the first time on page 28.
Anyway, so there's the bit where the two end up kissing in Hugh's office, and I'm like: boss? employee? fraternization, hello? With only a few bits here and there with no rushed feeling of what-the-hell is this dragon thing, but whatever. And point number whatever of "no, you are totally shitting me," where Kael breaks off the kiss to warn Hugh that Hugh's PA is coming down teh hall. Naturally afterwards Hugh (in a not-so-subtle attempt by author to tweak you, hello, yes, author, I see you doing that), is thinking: how did he know?
Next scene, Kael is all worried that now Hugh will find out his dark secret of being able to read minds!
*blinks*
*backs up*
*rereads*
Riiiiiiiight. Okay. I'll just ignore that paragraph. Keep reading. You never know. It might get better.
Then it's a few more self-castigating no-one-loves-me crap (per page, mind you) and then it's off to the pub (hello, panic attack? swooning? whatever), with Brother and Hugh's PA and Hugh and Kael. Drinking, noisiness, people talking. Kael goes to the bathroom, and some big guy stops to talk to him. Hugh's all "ug, me go protect helpless zeta-male."
So Kael comes back to the table and apparently this is supposed to have been a Big Thing for him (so why'd we see it from Hugh's POV?) and he's all Proud of himself, or something, and he kisses Hugh. Passionately. In front of Hugh's other employee. In a bar. In Ireland. But it's the same pattern as the other annoying points:
Really, there's a value to planning things out. Post-shadowing, boys and girls, does not work, nor does a reader like the experience of seeing the author go, "oh, I just wrote something I wanted to write but now I can't figure out how to explain it, I'll just throw this in here after the fact, that's good enough."
In sum, no. The grammar and spelling are okay, could've used some work but not egregious, but the rest? Please. Spare me. I don't think there's enough bleach in this house to scrub out my eyeballs or my brain after that last one.
Hunh. Maybe I should ask for that $4 back, after all.
Castoffs, Angela Fiddler.
I think that should be Cast-offs, or Cast Offs, but the cover put it in all caps as one word. Eh, whatever. It's yet another vampire story, but Fiddler has some magical touches that lend the story a bit more individuality, and some of her passages/characterizations are a bit unexpected but in a good way.
The protag, Janus, is a lieutenant and skilled at making wards. When the story opens, he's had a few drinks, and there's one point where I liked Fiddler's take on the usual: the idea that alcohol fills a stomach, makes it feel full, but in the same illusory way that chewing gum makes you feel like you're eating something. So Janus heads out to find his favorite snack, a young street kid named Jackie, and I was rather disappointed to not see more of Jackie, really. He sells his blood freely to Janus, and in turn, Janus is temporarily infected with whatever magic runs in Jackie's veins -- not drugs, but magic. And returning it back, Janus leaves wards on Jackie's skin so other creatures of the city and night don't bother the half-addled, magical Jackie but let him slip on by. Without too much fanfare or overladen description, Fiddler characterized Janus quite nicely in the first two pages.
What did throw me, however, is that Fiddler does this peculiar dance around the sexual elements of the story. It's almost like someone told her to meet a quota: this many blowjobs, this much sex, this much whatever. Yet...with some of the sex scenes, it's like only every sixth sentence, and I mean literally every sixth sentence, and you have to slow down, struggle to figure out how they got from there to there, and are they doing what you think they're doing because there was no warning, but it sounds like they might be. Honestly, I think Fiddler would probably be far more comfortable either just fading to black, or perhaps she wants to write this but needs someone to kick her in the head and force her to go deeper. Err, so to speak.
Because the story is filled with sex scenes, but I'd never thought about taking it to its absolute extreme, where even apparent enemies (or certainly not close friends, even) exchange sexual attention -- and I mean exchange because with one character exception, hrm, I think, it's pretty much what one does to one, gets done back -- and even in the most casual and public of ways (as public as you can get when it's always night, that is).
At first that was a bit, hrm, not off-putting, so much as something unexpected. My reaction: uhm, they didn't seem that close, and they don't even seem to like each other all that much, and would you really want someone -- especially someone with fangs -- putting their mouth anywhere near your dick if they didn't like you much? But, like sharing blood constantly between each other, the various characters treat sex as just another part of the power exchange. But what I realized, as I read on (and a second protag is introduced that connects with Janus on several levels) is that the apparently casual, noncommital, lukewarm impression is due mostly to the author's distance.
That is, if it were a statement on the author's part that Janus is going through the motions (to some degree) in treating sex as just one more exchange, then as his relationship with Lyall grows from annoyed investigating/curious elder vampire to something more, I would have expected the sex between them to take on notes and hints, a level of intimacy, missing from the other scenes -- but that didn't happen.
The plot line itself is nicely complex, and neatly comes around again, and I have no real complaints at all about characterization or setting or conflict or backstory -- especially given that this is a $5 e-book and so I'm not going to eyeball it with the "omg a NY editor let that get past?" -- plust the grammar and spelling are clean, only maybe three or four errors in 116 pages, and that's not bad. It was just this odd distance that left me, at times, a little baffled as to how exactly Janus felt about stuff, as though I were getting to see him in action, but I wanted how he felt in action, more than just the most superficial.
I'm not sure that makes sense; it's an objective thing, I admit. Someone else might read and find it quite smoking. And if you like vampires, want a solid story that's well-told and more than just boy-meets-boy, with some good conflict and sharp exchanges, then I do recommend it for that. Let me know if you purchase/read, because I'd be curious to hear if I'm the only one with this reaction, or if it'd do any good to suggest Fiddler go study up on how it can be done, like Haldeman-Time's ability to express lust, drive, and intimacy in a sex scene. Yeah, I'd suggest Haldeman-Time as a good teacher for that.
Here Be Dragons, T. A. Chase.
213 pages total and I quit at 45 or so, and I doubt I'll finish. (Too bad you can't get a refund on really sucky ebooks.) Here's the gist: Kael is a herpetologist who accepts a position in Ireland to get as far away as possible from an abusive exlover. He ends up working at a lab on... something, I don't know, and his boss is a gorgeous gay man. Alright. Let's see if I can count the things that irked me enough to make me not even bother to keep reading when it's not like it's any skin off my teeth, y'know?
Open paragraphs, Kael's woken by his boss, buzzing him to come downstairs -- apparently, a deep-sea investigation team has picked up a strange lizard, and Kael's the only one with any training in critters remotely lizard-like. (At least he notes in teh story that it's not his speciality, but hey.) So his first words to his boss, the one we're told -- at least twice in the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH that he has a major crush on? -- is this:
Pushing the talk button, he growled, “Piss off. It’s too fucking early in the morning.”Reader impression: this is a slightly grumpy, absent-minded, klutzy scientist who has a good relationship with his boss (even if crushing), enough to snark when he's woken up early on a Saturday morning. Get two more pages in, and that grumpy absent-minded scientist is replaced by a pod person of such spinelessness that if this were a M/F book and the woman expressed even a tenth of these thoughts, I'd be writing the author and spitting nails from the annoyance.
“Hammerson, get dressed and down here in five minutes or I’ll come up and drag your ass out of bed,” Hugh Price, Kael’s boss, ordered.
“Dr. Price, what the fuck are you doing here?”
I mean, right there, the opening promise is: slightly randy, frustrated, grumpy, scientist harboring secret crush on boss, and I was all like, wooo, I love secret!crush stories, I can't help it, it's a thang. But nooooo.
Yes, I'm willing to forgive the "didn't tie bootlaces and fell last few steps right into boss" because that's slapstick comedy staple: a bit of comedy, too, okay, this could be fun. Except as Kael gets in Hugh's car, I'm getting told for the eighth time that Kael's all woogly and hard over being near Hugh, smelling Hugh, touching Hugh, and I'm like, dude, you have a PhD at least, you're not seventeen, get the hell over it already. Focus. Sheesh. Then, during the conversation in the car, we get this line:
Their shared laughter warmed Kael. It was the first time he’d spent any time alone with Hugh where his own natural shyness hadn’t taken over.I think the author needs to work on the differences between "grumpy, misanthropic, but self-confident and comfortable enough to cuss at his boss" (the first impression) and "shy and retiring and klutzy from being self-conscious" and "frickin' sex-obsessed" and then the author tells me this is the first time they've spent time alone together? It just doesn't all jive; not in this case. It's too rapid, and I've barely met the character.
We're only on page three by now, mind you, and we get to this bit of dialogue before the two pull up at the docks. This is also known as the next stage in "How to Make Your Character Make Me Want to Slap Him":
“Hammerson, I never asked you, but how does a herpetologist end up working in a country without snakes?”Yes, Kael, you are a sad excuse for a man because your author is twisting you from an intriguing grumpy klutzy absent-minded scientist who could have been hiding a major crush on an extroverted, easy-going friendly-but-not-friendly-enough boss, and instead now we've got Mister I Suck And Not In A Good Way.
Unnerved a little by Hugh’s question, Kael shrugged. He didn’t think his boss would want to know anything personal about him. “I got involved with the wrong person and it was best for me to leave.”
“You didn’t sleep with your boss, did you?” Hugh’s grin told him he was joking.
“No, that doesn’t happen to geeks like me.” No matter how badly I wan it to, his mind provided the rest.
“So what happened?”
“My ex-boyfriend got possessive and abusive.” He felt pathetic admitting to the fact that his ex-partner beat him, but there wasn’t any point in lying. “I got to the place where I knew if I stayed, I’d die. As simple as that. I took a job as far away as I could.”
He came to Ireland to heal a broken soul and found a man he could lose his heart to. He was such a sad excuse for a man.
Not the least of which is because I really, truly loathe stories where any character starts out not only with pity but by revealing Some Major Trauma right smack up there in the front. Come on, if your boss were to ask you why you'd left, you wouldn't think, "what do I say to a friend?" You'd think, "this is a boss-employee relationship, go for neutral," and say perhaps that you'd decided it was time for a major change. If pressed, maybe you'd say a relationship had ended badly and you needed a change of scenery.
Even if this is a friend-with-potential, the last thing most people want to do is slather their abused-history all over anything new; it smacks of neurotic neediness and people are aware of that. (And so are, I might add, readers. Duh.) And, too, people are often cagey about admitting they'd been abused for fear that the listener/new-friend might agree with the abuser and decide the speaker deserved it.
No one wants to be seen as weak; weak is not attractive, which is why secrets like this are so damaging. And if it'd been a few years since the relationship, and Kael weren't so frickin' obsessed with beating himself up internally, I might've been able to write it off, if the conversation had ended (or Kael had ended it) at it being the time to leave, and disregarded any further questions and not then spent a paragraph or two obsessing all over again but just forgetting about it. When you're healed (or well on your way), there's less need to go on about it.
Really, I expected cageyness. If Kael were grumpy and misanthropic, he might shut the conversation down, fast and hard, and leave Hugh either going, okay, don't touch that, or (hopefully) instead thinking, hrm, I wonder what happened? ...and then there's intrigue. Instead, Kael just spills it all, and in the process acts the way few mature professionals act -- at least, I should clarify, no mature professionals whom I want to know, hang out with, or be stuck with reading about for the next 210 pages.
So over the next twenty or so pages, we get more of Kael's self-castigation and repetitions of things his ex said (I think he's been out of the relationship for a year, something like that.) plus a few more oh-so-conveniently trips, tangles, and oh-so-conveniently landings on his boss nearly every time. This would've been perfectly acceptable slapstick, if the comedy had been played up. But instead, Kael's absolute obsession -- paragraphs of omg I touched him and he'd never see me because I suck, suck, suck and omg check out that chest and I just hope he never lets me go swooning -- each followed by more but he'd never see me because I'm a horrible person and blah blah waaaaaah.
In comedy, Hugh would've been the klutzy one, cheerfully falling almost flat on his face and Kael catching him and then thinking, omg, I got to touch him while Hugh brushes himself off, thanks Kael with a big grin and carries on, apparently one-hundred-percent unaware of Kael's reactions or thoughts. That's what makes it funny: the unawareness, but with Kael, it's all self-obsession, woe is me, I suck, wah.
Oh, bitch please.
And then we get to the boat and the second (or third? who's counting?) of the Reasons To Spork Author. (I'm skipping a few others, but let's just say there were a few more complaints between, so don't think any part didn't make me grit my teeth.)
“Excuse me. I’m not usually so forward, but are you and Dr. Price dating?” The captain came to stand next to him. Shock caused his mouth to flop open like a fish.Uhm. It burrnnnssss, us, the stupid, it doessss.
“No,” he stammered.
“I didn’t think so. No offense, but Dr. Price is a good-looking man and I couldn’t really see him dating you.” The other man’s voice was condescending and his words were exactly what Kael was used to hearing.
“No offense taken.” Even though a little sliver of hurt darted into his heart.
“I’ll be in port for a few days. I think I’ll ask the doctor to have dinner with me. I’d love to get my hands on that ass.” The captain leered and Kael fought his gag reflex.
While you see this in high school television shows -- the absolute cattiness -- it still reflects, to some degree, an ongoing dynamic: that is, a history, which makes any slice more pointed, and for a reason. But a complete stranger? A stranger who's a boat captain and delivering a strange dragon-creature to two scientists to take it off his hands? Come on. It's not a character, it's a frickin'... something, I don't know, it's a set-up by the author to make the reader go, "oh, poor Kael, even complete strangers diss him!" Poor baby, won't anyone love him?
I'd much rather have seen the Captain sidle up, watch Kael working and then oh-so-casually ask, "I'm heading down to the pub. Want to go get a few drinks, hang out?" And Kael be completely clueless about it. Then instead of one more pity-party, there'd be the sense of "hurry up, Hugh, before someone else figures Kael out and snags him!" or something. Not that I give much of a damn about anyone snagging Kael at this point -- and we're only on page 14 -- unless they're snagging him to slap some sense into his neurotic, faux-klutzy, sex-obsessed, self-castigating, unprofessional, pitiful head.
Segue to scene of Hugh admitting to his brother that he really likes Kael (like we didn't see that coming), and then they head from pub to Kael's to see if Brother can stay with Kael while in process of divorce. And then, and then, OMG, they arrive, and Hugh breathes on Kael. Unh-hunh. Right. A hint of beer or whatever, and next it's a flashback to the ex being all stereotypically abusive, and then jump back to the present and what do we have?
KAEL SWOONED.
Yes! He rocked back, eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell into the arms of the man he loved, who's of course all upset and apologetic that he caused traumatic flashbacks to occur in Kael and he'll never drink again poor baby blah blah blah and Kael's all like, that's okay, I won't make you not drink and I can handle it, it's all right, these don't happen that often (and meanwhile I'm thinking, I don't know any abuse-survivor who SWOONS -- panics, maybe, backs the hell up with hands raised, braces for impact, gets tense, gets headache, looks for escapes, but swoons? puhleeeese), and meanwhile Brother is just like, oh, la la la my little brother likes some fucked-in-the-head snake boy with neurotic tendencies, la la la.
Right-o. I really don't know why I kept reading. Masochism, I suppose.
(I am having too much fun with this. It could be something more, I think, if someone were to honestly tell the author, look, you do not need to work so hard to make us love a character, and in fact, we do not often love characters because they're helpless, weak, and must be protected, but because they're flawed and imperfect but they still come out swinging. We -- at least I -- would far more love a character who's got a bit of a chip on his shoulder, a little grumpy because no way is he gonna get hurt like that again, he's going to be really careful, keep his distance, and we might not know what hurt him, but we can see Hugh weaseling his way into Kael's defenses... it's strength and weakness that make someone attractive. It's Patton who said, "courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it." We want to read courageous characters, and that doesn't mean they're not fearful; in corrollary, we want characters with heart and sensitivity, but if you think that means the protag must cry at everything then you've swallowed the Newage (rhymes with sewage) Sensitive Male crap just a little too well.)
And then, with this assumption that Kael doesn't have much but a cat, not even a car, we randomly find out he has a horse and goes riding every weekend. I'm like, hunh? Where'd that come from? Couldn't we have had a little more warning than just, oh, and I have a horse. Right. Because that's what people always buy before, say, a CAR. Or if they do, they'd at least, y'know, think about that horse more than just saying it for the first time on page 28.
Anyway, so there's the bit where the two end up kissing in Hugh's office, and I'm like: boss? employee? fraternization, hello? With only a few bits here and there with no rushed feeling of what-the-hell is this dragon thing, but whatever. And point number whatever of "no, you are totally shitting me," where Kael breaks off the kiss to warn Hugh that Hugh's PA is coming down teh hall. Naturally afterwards Hugh (in a not-so-subtle attempt by author to tweak you, hello, yes, author, I see you doing that), is thinking: how did he know?
Next scene, Kael is all worried that now Hugh will find out his dark secret of being able to read minds!
*blinks*
*backs up*
*rereads*
Riiiiiiiight. Okay. I'll just ignore that paragraph. Keep reading. You never know. It might get better.
Then it's a few more self-castigating no-one-loves-me crap (per page, mind you) and then it's off to the pub (hello, panic attack? swooning? whatever), with Brother and Hugh's PA and Hugh and Kael. Drinking, noisiness, people talking. Kael goes to the bathroom, and some big guy stops to talk to him. Hugh's all "ug, me go protect helpless zeta-male."
Hugh stood up to go to Kael’s rescue. Monica stopped him.I'm thinking, what, is this guy frickin' FIVE? I'm totally missing what anyone would find attractive in him, if he's spineless, pathetic, and every little thing makes him burst into tears or whatever. And swoon, don't forget the swooning.
“Keep an eye on him. If it looks like things are going to get physical, then you can step in. He has to learn he can help himself.”
She was right. Kael needed to build self-confidence and if Hugh rushed in to save him, it would never happen. He felt a surge of pride when Kael’s brown eyes searched him out. Nodding, he let the man know he was there if he needed him. Kael nodded back and a smile blossomed on his thin face.
So Kael comes back to the table and apparently this is supposed to have been a Big Thing for him (so why'd we see it from Hugh's POV?) and he's all Proud of himself, or something, and he kisses Hugh. Passionately. In front of Hugh's other employee. In a bar. In Ireland. But it's the same pattern as the other annoying points:
He almost fell over when Kael pressed tight to him, wrapped those skinny arms around his neck and kissed him. Thank goodness, the pub catered to gays or they would’ve gotten their asses kicked.Uhm, yeah, thanks for mentioning that insignificant detail of going to possibly only one of maybe ONE gay pub in all of whatever tiny Irish port town they're in. Right.
Really, there's a value to planning things out. Post-shadowing, boys and girls, does not work, nor does a reader like the experience of seeing the author go, "oh, I just wrote something I wanted to write but now I can't figure out how to explain it, I'll just throw this in here after the fact, that's good enough."
In sum, no. The grammar and spelling are okay, could've used some work but not egregious, but the rest? Please. Spare me. I don't think there's enough bleach in this house to scrub out my eyeballs or my brain after that last one.
Hunh. Maybe I should ask for that $4 back, after all.
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no subject
Date: 19 Jan 2007 09:40 pm (UTC)Btw, want to give me your thoughts on a story partial?
no subject
Date: 19 Jan 2007 11:31 pm (UTC)Sure, if you want me to. Send away, though I may hit you back with a request for help on a short story. You're the shorts-person here, not me, and I could use all the help I can get. Ffffffttt! ;-)
no subject
Date: 20 Jan 2007 03:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 Jan 2007 04:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 Jan 2007 10:15 pm (UTC)Ow! Owwww, what just hit me- oh, a large piece of exposition nailed to a two-by-four.
Bloody hell, I've read fanfics that were better written and developped than that, and at least they were free. I think this author needs to be introduced to three things, in order: the term 'wimpy uke' (she probably doesn't know the term, but man, was it ever made for her); actual gay men (who have no more reason for swooning than regular guys, honest, ms. author); and a brick.
So, where did you find this? Was it on an off-shoot site of fanfiction.net?
no subject
Date: 19 Jan 2007 11:33 pm (UTC)Actually, what should've been warning was the fact that the reviews all said stuff like "I just want to take him home and make it all better." Next time, I'll know.
*grumpy face*
no subject
Date: 19 Jan 2007 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 Jan 2007 11:35 pm (UTC)But the editors really need to work on tightening their standards, and telling people where to get off when it comes to weepy ukes. Or maybe just put in a warning, because clearly some folks like that stuff, but if I'm not going to get an excerpt of the first chapter, I want some kind of warning, and not *after* they've charged the credit card.
no subject
Date: 19 Jan 2007 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 Jan 2007 07:43 am (UTC)I'd call Kael a girly-man but that'd be an insult to girly-men everywhere. He's like the walking template of the weepy uke.