In this entry I shall bitch about Books. And possibly Genres.

Unfortunately, in real life, there are few people to whom I can spew forth with enough venom about the books I loathe, the genres that I would prefer to spend the afternoon decapitating rotten fish and gnawing at the entrails than reading, the authors that should be taken out back and shot, execution-style. Er, in my (possibly not so very) humble opinion. My mother always agrees with me (okay, we've differed now and again, but mostly), my friends are sick of it, and it does me no good to shout invectives against contemporary fiction at strangers on the street. Also I'm at work again and I don't want to start sobbing in front of my team.

And I will preface this spit-up hairball by mentioning that there is a high probability I will condemn something one of my readers likes. I have no problem with others' opinions of books/authors/genres, as long as I don't have to pretend to like them. So I'm sorry if I insult your favorite whomever or whatever but if you're going to be sensitive about it you should really just stop reading right now. I have never been known to mince words about books.

FIRST up on my personal Shelf of Shame is Cold Mountain. This one I am particularly driven to tear apart because my freaking *mother* - the English teacher and major influencer upon my literary tastes - brought it to me while I was in the hospital (and thus confined and bored). She had even actually *read* this drivel. Cold Mountain's first edition -- first printing, fucking GALLEYS -- should have been drafted with the words "Soon to be a Major Motion Picture!" on it. Complete with the accent that failed to make it further than half the book, I felt like I was watching a crappy movie that would most likely involve Tom Hanks. Ugh. Predictable? And how. The book only had two possible outcomes, meaning that the reader is presented with, at best, a 50/50 chance of figuring out the ending by somewhere around page 47. In reality, it got lots closer to 80/20 once you got near the end. Now, three years later, I can't remember what that ending *was*, or what the other option was, but suffice it to say, for those of you suffering through this useless volume at the moment, it was the most obvious.

John Fucking Irving. A confession: between the ages of 11 and 13, I found John Irving a compelling, interesting writer. Then I wised up. He's trash for the cognoscenti. Danielle Steele for the pseudo-intelligentsia. Cider House Rules. Cute. When I read it (pre-wising-up) I liked it largely because it taught me whole bunches about the abortion procedure (and scurvy) and I can now say "dilation and curettage" with the best of 'em. Now? Face me with a page of Irving prose and it will send me into conniptions. I will go and hide behind my big sign that says "please do not send amusing yet shallow characters speaking absurdly stylized dialogue over here". Irving AND the New Yorker magazing can suck my dick. Hm. I should honestly have been more intelligent and incisive in my Irving Critique but I frankly have not been able to cope with his books since somewhere around 1995 and thus am not recollecting much other than aversion. Let's just say: Circus bear? Puh-leeeeeze.

Moving on. To a genre, even. Spare me your fantasy, spare me your science fiction. Yes, a couple of them were okay. I withstood Heinlein with a minimum of shapnel. I in fact like Borges quite a bit, or did when I last read his stories, but since he wrote around the turn of the century it was a little different. Can we kill Piers Anthony? He really deserves it. He has written over 40 unbelievably awful books, approximately fucking TEN of which I have read. This was due only to my horrid self-esteem in my early adolescense which led to me believing that something my (idiot) boyfriends read might be okay. Since then, countless volumes of each genre have been recommended to me. I nearly always will read recommendations, because I'm always looking for something new. So I have read countless volumes of this stuff. Why is it that smart people stand for this shoddy treatment by authors? I mean, okay, your standard-issue acne-ridden fourteen-year-old star-trek-watching dateless geek needs some kind of escapist retreat, usually complete with large-breasted women. But does it all have to totally SUCK?

"Xenara rode her white stallion through the moorish plains in Zeraiani Four. Her steed was tired and frothing, and she herself was starving. She dismounted at a cottage in the small village of Ferraeena, dusting off her thigh-high leather boots and brushing the feathers from her long, brown hair. The ride had been long and tiresome, and both Xenara and her mount needed food and water.

When she approached the innkeeper in Ferraeena, he told her about the fearsome [insert monster here] that was terrorizing their village. The people had been trying their hands at defeating him, not only to defend their children from the [monster] but also to gain access to the magickal Thryvkyan Mynar, the sword that had been left, embedded in the [monster's] lair a generation before."

I just made that up, right this very second. Damn, I should write this crap, I'd make so much more money. Except how much do you want to bet that Xenara is already the name of a heroine in a fantasy novel?

Oh! I just remembered one. That fucking GUY. The one who wrote all those Tales from the City books? Jesus. The biggest problem with him was that I was actually kind of drawn in by the stories but I couldn't stand to suffer through his writing so I actually had to ask my friend who had read it what happened so I could just put it down. Man, that was completely crap. Some french name or something.

Did I bitch enough to make a page? If I think of anyone else I want to lambast I'll tack it on later. In the meantime I think it's time for me to go home.

onehanded