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evelyn_bArchived from Livejournal
I'm behind on everything, and heading out to visit my family this afternoon, but a couple of notes:
1) Spinsters in Jeopardy provides yet more evidence why you should never marry a detective, even a nice professional one who promises to leave murder at the office. Murder cannot be left at the office. You'll be living your life, not hurting anyone, when suddenly fate or the author will swoop down and contrive to get your small child kidnapped for maximum drama in the middle of one of her occasional Reefer Madness Orgy Cult plots while you are just trying to enjoy a peaceful vacation. The drama will not even be successful.
1a) It's not my favorite plot, but this iteration of the Reefer Madness Orgy Cult is a lot better written than the (twenty years earlier) Death in Ecstasy. The final infiltration of the cult is beautifully silly and really funny. Unlike Death in Ecstasy, it's set in a foreign land that is not New Zealand, so cringe-inducing local color blossoms abundantly at several points.
2) Cormoran Strike gives me life. I'm still not done with The Cuckoo's Calling, but I already recommend it to anyone who likes competent investigators who are also great characters. The mystery is excellently paced and the balance between investigations and Strike's trainwrecky personal life is perfect. So is the awkward but highly productive relationship between Strike and his accidental temp/co-detective Robin, who turns out to be a natural at the mystery-solving game (and at getting Strike to eat kebabs when he's had too much to drink).
2a) That said, I'd love it if JKR could tone down the phonetically spelled dialect a bit? She's perfectly able to create/evoke strong character voices without it, and it can get very distracting at some points. Particularly when the character is already dipping heavily from the caricature bowl, like Lula Landry's birth mother. I don't even hate phonetic dialect as much as some people, but . . . we really will get the point without this fog of apostrophes. You can trust us, Rowling!
(I also can't understand why JKR or her publishers have chosen to use "handwriting font" to represent handwritten notes. That's pettier than the dialect complaint, but still baffling. You don't need a special font to represent handwriting! Any more than you need a special font for typing or a drunkenness font or a Cockney font or a painfully-still-trying-to-hide-your-prosthesis-from-your-de-facto-partner font. What purpose does it serve?)
There's more, but it will have to wait.
I'm behind on everything, and heading out to visit my family this afternoon, but a couple of notes:
1) Spinsters in Jeopardy provides yet more evidence why you should never marry a detective, even a nice professional one who promises to leave murder at the office. Murder cannot be left at the office. You'll be living your life, not hurting anyone, when suddenly fate or the author will swoop down and contrive to get your small child kidnapped for maximum drama in the middle of one of her occasional Reefer Madness Orgy Cult plots while you are just trying to enjoy a peaceful vacation. The drama will not even be successful.
1a) It's not my favorite plot, but this iteration of the Reefer Madness Orgy Cult is a lot better written than the (twenty years earlier) Death in Ecstasy. The final infiltration of the cult is beautifully silly and really funny. Unlike Death in Ecstasy, it's set in a foreign land that is not New Zealand, so cringe-inducing local color blossoms abundantly at several points.
2) Cormoran Strike gives me life. I'm still not done with The Cuckoo's Calling, but I already recommend it to anyone who likes competent investigators who are also great characters. The mystery is excellently paced and the balance between investigations and Strike's trainwrecky personal life is perfect. So is the awkward but highly productive relationship between Strike and his accidental temp/co-detective Robin, who turns out to be a natural at the mystery-solving game (and at getting Strike to eat kebabs when he's had too much to drink).
2a) That said, I'd love it if JKR could tone down the phonetically spelled dialect a bit? She's perfectly able to create/evoke strong character voices without it, and it can get very distracting at some points. Particularly when the character is already dipping heavily from the caricature bowl, like Lula Landry's birth mother. I don't even hate phonetic dialect as much as some people, but . . . we really will get the point without this fog of apostrophes. You can trust us, Rowling!
(I also can't understand why JKR or her publishers have chosen to use "handwriting font" to represent handwritten notes. That's pettier than the dialect complaint, but still baffling. You don't need a special font to represent handwriting! Any more than you need a special font for typing or a drunkenness font or a Cockney font or a painfully-still-trying-to-hide-your-prosthesis-from-your-de-facto-partner font. What purpose does it serve?)
There's more, but it will have to wait.
