I have been reading New Scientist magazines from the library, and re-reading some Patricia Wentworths, and trying a few library books. R. Chetwynd-Hayes (World of the Impossible) completely failed my style test. He is full of people retorting and admitting and enquiring and pleading and snapping instead of just saying. Even when it is obvious who is speaking he has to tell you. This gets very wearing in just a few pages.
The stereotypical characters are English and the time supposedly the 1960's, for the brief time they are in Britain, but their speech and class relationships seem pre-World War II or earlier. One character is given a briefing paper on all the characters (including himself) and where they are going, and all seven pages are plonked into the text at that point. This is lazy writing.
After a while I started flicking pages at random, looking for cliches; I never had to read more than half a page to find one. How did this bloke get the British Fantasy Award? Even if it wasn't for this book, which I didn't finish.
World of the Impossible first published 1998
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment