| Guilty pleasures vs. books that would be if I didn't I hate them too much |
[Jun. 12th, 2010|03:05 pm] |
I really need a snappier title.
My guilty pleasure author is Simon R. Green. He has an urban fantasy series (10 books right now), a secondary world fantasy series (10 books if you count the ones that are all connected), a science fiction series (10 books), the Secret Histories series (4 books so far, which does the "hidden all-powerful but highly dysfunctional family protecting the world from evil" shtick while parodying James Bond), and a couple books that don't fit in anywhere else (like the novelization of the movie Robin Hood that he was tapped to write). Ideas come a mile a minute. Infodumps are everywhere. People randomly fall in love, and there is at least one heroic sacrifice per book. The style doesn't vary depending on genre; it's half gore, half one-liners, layered with mawkish sentimentality and psychotic killers. Trying to take Simon R' Green's writing seriously, for me, is like trying to take the claims of potato chips to be a health food seriously. And I get the impression that he knows this, and is having a hell of a lot of fun. I read him when my brain wants a vacation because I know they're silly, and to get a good feeling for what he's like, look at the second cut with spoilers for the latest Secret Histories novel.
But a lot of other "fun" books, I've read, particularly urban fantasy, try to be dark and brooding- it doesn't help that a lot of them are getting some of their DNA from noir mystery, except that there's no sign the authors have ever read Chandler- and in doing so, they become worse than silly: they become laughable.
Spoilers for Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series and Seanan McGuire's October Daye series.
( If I could reach you, I would shake you )
( Spoilers for the latest Simon R. Green Secret Histories novel ) |
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