Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Instead of bad-ass vampire books ...

... We have baaaaaaad vampire books.

What is it about vampire fiction that terrible sloppy writing seems to get a free pass? I am currently reading Jane Jordan's Blood and Ashes and I want to slap her publishers silly. Don't they employ proof-readers anymore? Spell-check is no substitute.

Repeatedly through the first half of the book there's 'jealously' used as a noun. Slap! Take that 'l' out. Don't you know how much ink that errant 'l' is costing you? Think of the savings if you won't think of the poor much-abused language.

Also, someone please hand that author a thesaurus, there are other words than 'everlasting/eternal love' and 'disturb' and 'irritate'. It disturbs me that anyone could allow disturbing and disturbance in the same sentence*.

And what made me stop reading in a huff last night, "the seed I had planted in Kitan's mind [...] had beared fruit". Blue-pencils! Borne! Borne! Borne! Benny & Bjorn!

I have a vision of a pair of grizzly bears with blue-pencilled baskets of berries. With gingham frou-frous.

As for the heroine of the novel, well, you know Twilight's Bella? Well, this un is possibly more passive, inert and subservient to men(male vampires). I am hoping against hope that she redeems herself in my eyes and does something other than be dominated and raped (although the r word never crosses her mind, nor apparently the author's).

I am tempted to take this book back to the library, or possibly drive a crucifix through its very pages, but I feel obliged to find out whether she does actually do anything or whether it all just continues to happen to her.

I shall let you know.


edited to add (19/10):

She did do something! Spoilers (highlight to read):

She set him on fire and escaped! Yay.

But she felt guilty about the harm she did to him in order to escape. Booo. Poor widdle psychopath.

Maybe she was suffering Stockholm Syndrome.



* You see what I did there, huh?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Try Silentheart by Roberta Hoffer. It, too, has a few editing issues but the over all plot is clear, clean-cut, and not filled with profanity or sexual overtones. She uses her deceased relatives as her characters and has left you hanging for book two of the vampire trilogy. This book gives an honest view of what the author is trying to convey; a fiction book can be written without smut or imporper language and still be entertaining. After setting the stage for vampire lovers, book two is nearly ready to hit the publisher. This time, hopefully, with editors who will do the author justice.
The Author

Mephitis said...

Hello, thanks for stopping by :).

I'm not looking for books that purposely avoid 'smut' or profanity - not that I'm looking for books that are full of it either, haha - it's not one of the things I think about when choosing a book. "Improper" language isn't something that bothers me, it can be very much in keeping with the tale.

If you got that impression because I use 'blue-pencil' in my blog, I should explain I use it as a salute to my grandma and as a running joke for myself, begun as a tongue-in-cheek response to the homeopathy-lover who criticised my tone in a post once.

What I want is well-written and plotted books that absorb me. When following a female protagonist, I want her to have some drive and inner life not revolving solely around her man (or men).

I don't think a book featuring abduction & repeated rape in a non-graphic way actually contains any less abduction & rape(!). It troubles me about this particular book that the rape is never named for what it is. I feel the book glossed over it and well, that makes it more obscene to me than any amount of profanity would have.