Quote:
Originally Posted by jhowell
I remember thinking that a lot of attitudes of that character fit much better with someone the author's age, not the character's.
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If even that. Honestly, I was...gobsmacked, thinking, anybody that's lived for 2K years has obviously had other relationships, which he talks about through the series.
WARNING, spoilers here, do not read if you're reading his stuff:
Spoiler:
He even has great-great-whatever-grandkids, for crying out loud, in Africa. Nobody that age is going to react to her little...s**tf*t that way. They're just not. ("Oh, I'll go hide myself on this remote island, with only my [talking] dog for company, so he doesn't get to see his pups, either, and wait for her to get her head out of her a**." Because everything I did was wrong--teaching her to be a Druid, turning on her powers and abilities, and then making this one lousy judgment call, trying to save her life. OMG, I totally suck!") I would expect better judgment than that from a 40-y.o., or hell, a 35-y.o., never mind some guy on chatting terms with Jesus.
Just...I felt it utterly tanked. I started to think that Hearne hated his MC and was deriding him at every turn. I wonder if Hearn happened to get an activist girlfriend or boyfriend at the time, who influenced his writing like that???
Quasi spoilers about the Laurell K. Hamilton long-lamented Anita K. Blake Series, which also started out amazing and then...just cratered in, fairly early on:
Spoiler:
(Sorta like Laurell K. Hamilton in reverse--it's obvious from her writing that when she divorced her first husband, all her good plotting ideas got up and left. All the murder mysteries that had made the series a success, for the firrst 4-5 books, disappeared. Her pollice work, disappeared. It became softporn bordering on not-so-soft, with her character, who had been a kick-ass Vampire Slayer, turning into an inflatable f*** doll for the supernatural community.
Sure, people bought those things in the millions and I'm sure she laughed all the way to the bank, but it was screamingly obvious who the real brains in the family were, in terms of plots and mysteries. Nothing, after he left, was really any good. I gave up about another...IDK, 4 books in?--but I had held out hope for a while there.)
Oh, well. I haven't bought the last two Dresdens, either. I mean, an author that blithely leaves me hanging for what, five years? Not sure he deserves my hard-earned and I'm tempted, if I do descend to buying them, to getting them in paperback used, for the obvious reasons. Maybe a noticeable lack of royalties might make a dent in Butcher's noggin.
Hitch