Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Book one of this binge

Since I'm taking the month off from writing, I'm free to do all the reading I want. And in a massive coincidence, my shipment of books from Amazon just arrived yesterday.

I'm reading Dead to Me by Anton Strout first. It's an urban fantasy about a psychometric paranormal investigator in Manhattan. I got it because of the psychometry angle. Good hook, and I've always been interested in psychometry. Unfortunately, the book is short on psychometry readings except for boring stuff; instead, it seems to follow lock-step in the Dresden Files mold. That's fine if you happen to like the Dresden Files books. I read the first three and found them competent but not terribly interesting, and was actively put off by the clumsy characterization and transparent plotting. Same with Dead to Me, although I am enjoying it enough to keep reading it. It's just not my thing, I guess.

Next up will probably be Dog Days by John Levitt, but I may not be up to another urban fantasy so soon after this one. We'll see.

4 comments:

Anton Strout said...

These things happen. I still love you tho...

K.C. Shaw said...

Oh damn! I was afraid you were someone who might read this! I'm thinking we both post on Absolute Write.

If it makes you feel less wounded (and furious), I'm enjoying the second half of the book a lot more than the first half. Maybe it just took me a while to get into it and stop tarring it with the same brush as Jim Butcher's novels. And I KNOW my brother is going to eat this book up; I'm seeing him tomorrow, so I'll give him my copy (I plan to finish reading it tonight) and I guarantee he'll be a fan for life.

Hey, I'd give anything to swap places with you and have a shiny new book out with Ace. Even if you said snarky things about it. :)

Anton Strout said...

It's all good. For a first novel, I'd probably cut about thirty pages from the front end, looking back. Absolutely could use some tightening. But I'm learning...

Funny, I didn't read or befriend Jim Butcher til after I had finished book one, and now I joke with him where things we are doing overlap... but I do love his sense of humor he puts in his work.

That, and I'd kill for his hair....

K.C. Shaw said...

There was one place in your book that about slayed me. I literally dropped the book, I was laughing so hard. It's the bit in the antique market where a woman tries to sell Connor something for his girlfriend; Connor's response to Simon's embarrassment was such a little throwaway line, but so damn funny!