By The Sea

[The Prof]

I like it! Very meaty writing, a bit flowery but in keeping with the gothic atmosphere.

I get the feeling someone is about to be topped...

http://www.lablit.com/article/256

[Mad Dan Eccles]

I'm afraid the prose style turned me right off and I did not get very far at all.

[tideliar]

I think it's brilliant.

"Perhaps it had always been there, grown in situ from the skewed walls and warped rafters of the creaking building. Accommodation for scullery-maids or junior postdoctoral fellows: the names may change, she thought, but the social position never varies."

And it's dead Ghormengastian at times too...which I suppose is the point seeing as it's Gothic... but, yeah, I like it.

[Beatrice]

Prose too much at first but then I sort of leaned into it and let it wash over and pretty soon it felt natural (and certainly fit in with the setting).

Interesting idea for a research institute!

[Dr Mike]

I'm with Dan. It's tough going, way too flowery and trying-too-hard. Adjectives out our ears! Which is a shame as he can obviously write well otherwise. YET...I think I'm going to plow through anyway, as the premise is inviting.

All you women out there - how is his female voice? Accurate? Seems OK to me. (Giving birth scene - difficult for a bloke to imagine. At least this bloke.)

[Octavia]

I'm convinced. She's a bit prissy, but that could just be the prose, and she seems to have a sense of humour. I like the sense of the abandoned postdoc floudering in a backwater - and terrific atmosphere as others have noted.

Dan, you gonna give up altogether or give it another chance?

[The Prof]

Oh dear, it's all a bit turgid though. Mad Dan would never let US get away with that.

Still, I'll soldier on for a few chapters I reckon - after all, the synopsis promises murder and sex!

[Dbl Helicks]

I once read that the use of excessive adjectives and descriptions is the mark of a beginner. The better you get, the more you can say with fewer words. I can't think of a published novel I've read recently that was really excessive.

Still, this is his first novel, I guess?

[tideliar]

I still think it's deliberate.

[Mad Dan Eccles]

Yeah, that's what Dan Brown said.

At no time during her ten-minute hike, her writhing course from apex to basement of this sprawling building, has she met another living person.

About a dozen dead ones, though. Oh please. You're right, the WoMD wouldn't let you get away with it.



Talking of Dan Brown, I found myself on the train on the way to work the other day, looking over someone's shoulder at the book she was reading. "What turgid prose" I thought to myself, "the Elder Pawn writes better than that".

Then my co-passenger closed the book and I saw what it was. Dear God, why do people buy that crap?

[tideliar]

For the same reason I sometimes watch Law & Order re-runs on TV. It's easily digested, entertaining and doesn't make me think too hard. Sometimes I just don't want to wade through literature.

I like Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, Bernard Cornwell, Matthew Pearl... (although I draw the line at calling them "literary fiction")

There I said it! I read airport trash!! And I love it!!

[Beatrice]

Let's hear it for trash. Though I have to admit nowadays my tolerance is creeping downwards and my definition of 'light' reading is getting more rigorous. Can't stomach Brown because I have a low tolerance for cardboard dialogue and characters and lazy writing (cliches etc.) Michael Crichton is about as trashy as I can go these days.

[Beatrice]

p.s. Hey Prof, there's your person getting topped, already in Chapter 2!

I like the echoes with Alex's nightmare of the previous Chapter. Quite clever really.

[Reg_200]

Dan Brown is unreadable. Period. Though not being a bigot about it...some of my best friends like Dan Brown!

[Beatrice]

At least By The Sea has good dialogue. I think that must be the hardest thing to get right.