I have seen plenty of onions bleed white.
You might know the name Andrew Hunter Murray if you’re into British comedy - he’s a stand-up comedian, works for QI, and part of the No Such Thing as a Fish podcast. What you might not expect is that he wrote a post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller - certainly it surprised me, so I decided I should check it out.
The Last Day is about what happens after the Earth’s rotation is slowed (by a random astronomical event) such that it becomes tidally locked to the sun. One side hot, one side cold, small habitable region in the middle. I enjoyed it, though I’ll warn you there’s a lot of suspension of disbelief involved. Here’s my review with more detail. If you want hard sci-fi, this is probably not for you. However, if you don’t mind letting go of the unlikelihood of the premise, it’s a well-written and entertaining novel that moves along nicely with an interesting protagonist.
Also, I don’t know if this was intentional on Murray’s part or not, but I thought the reactions of nations and populations around the world seemed pretty much what I’d expect to see as climate change forces shifts in habitable regions. There’s no direct link made in the book between the tidal locking and anthropogenic climate change, but it’s not much of a stretch to view the former as a faster and more extreme version of the latter. A lot faster and more focused in the book, of course, but the broad strokes seem pretty reasonable for how things could play out if climate change spirals out of control.
Yeah, I mean a completely transparent liquid isn’t coming out for sure, but from his description I’m picturing she is squeezing some Elmer’s glue out of the thing. I would say it is usually closer to clear liquid than it is to pure white. And if that one thing was the worst thing about the book, but it is far from that.
Onions do bleed white when you squeeze them against a cutting board, and I’ve certainly flipped diced meat in a pan when I’m not stir frying. Knife handles can certainly get greasy from use. Perhaps cook before criticizing? Such odd nit-picks.
I mean, I don’t mind that you didn’t like it, but all of what you posted feels like nitpicking to me and none of that colored my experience of the book personally, so I don’t have much to say about it. I can just directly refute that particular nitpick.
I’m impressed by the level of detail that you’re looking at! I never noticed most of that, just kinda glossed over the details in pursuit of the larger story. I think I’m with @malkav11 on this one, the smaller inconsistencies (that I didn’t even notice) didn’t detract at all for me. But hey, no judgement for those who do find that stuff to be a problem.
OK, so let’s disregard my problems with the cooking as apparently it is good stuff. Anything on the other points?
I just thought the cooking one was kind of funny. You know, they ate all the food, although they didn’t. She sat down to wait for it to be done, but she didn’t.
She threw it in with simmering vegetables, I could see stirring it I guess, flipping seems not right?
Of course they can, I just would not turn the knife over in my hands (whatever that means) and would probably put it down immediately if the handle was slick and oily as that would probably get my hand cut (and maybe she did).
I guess that is what I meant by it being disjointed. I would be reading and then some things just didn’t make sense, or seemed way to easy/contrived so it kind of kicked me out of the larger story. It has some neat ideas I think, but the execution was way off for me. I think for all the glowing reviews I was expecting to be blown away.
I get if people are turned off by an authors “voice” or whatever, but everything in your example reads just fine. It just feels like trying to reach for a concrete excuse for a stylistic dislike.
Moving past the cooking, which is all fine (yes you have to scoop and drain sometimes, I’ve gripped a knife by the flat of the blade to inspect the handle, etc)… ravaged scraps is more descriptive than quantitative (but implies that there IS stuff left), Mulaghesh is eating - just not as ravenously as Pitry, and the implication is that Shara cooked so much that even “scraps” is a lot - at least in Mulaghesh’s opinion.
I dunno - guess there is no pleasing everyone, but breathlessly slamming an author for perfectly fine cooking descriptions says more about your criticism than the book. Guess I was expecting more.
For Becky Chambers fans, the latest Imaginary Worlds podcast interviews her. Talks a bit about Wayfarers, of course, and then what she’s working on next.
There were also worldbuilding complaints, to be fair. I just don’t personally expect all my fantasy worlds to be worked out meticulously according to how things actually developed in the real world but with the implications of the fantastic changes. I think it’s cool when authors do that, I just don’t expect it, because it’s a lot of work, often isn’t important to what they’re doing, and requires specialized knowledge.
True - though I’ll note that some of the larger world-building inconsistencies are addressed in future books as he expands on the actual fates of the Gods, how much magic can really survive them, how exactly a berserker achieves super-powers, etc.
Bruv, you’re coming across really weirdly aggro here.
Anyway, yes, I find your worldbuilding complaints largely silly. Aside from the obvious “magic, duh” answers to things like the skin tone non-issue, you seem to be locked onto technologies being developed in a different order than what happened in 19th century Earth. Since City of Stairs doesn’t actually take place on 19th century Earth, and it’s not like we’re talking telegraphs-and-fusion-power here, the criticisms there don’t really land for me, no.
I think I was really hoping I missed some parts of the story or misunderstood and someone could point out to me what that was, but I guess it’s just (hand waves) magic.
You find my complaints largely silly. I find the book largely silly. Agree to disagree on this one.
I liked your criticisms, although I haven’t read that particular book. Shades of Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses, which I think is what you were going for.
Within minutes all of Shara’s artful displays are reduced to ravaged scraps.
And this is bad. Artful displays? It’s clearly a stew.
To be fair to the other folks, it is probably pretty easy to find fault with the writing if you strongly dislike the plot or the characters. I had this issue with Justin Cronin’s execrable City of Mirrors. But really, get a load of this shit.
The first problem: I didn’t own a tuxedo.
I had worn one once in my life, a powder-blue rental with velvet navy accents, paired with a ruffled shirt that only a pirate could have loved and a clip-on bow tie fat as a fist. Perfect for the island-themed senior prom at Mercy Regional High School (“A Night in Paradise!”) but not the rarefied chambers of the Spee Club.
…
I made friends with the department secretary, a black woman in her fifties who basically ran the place; she confided to me that nobody in the department had actually expected me to come. I was, in her words, “a prize thoroughbred they had bought for pennies on the dollar.” To describe my fellow graduate students as antisocial would be the understatement of the century; no lawn parties here. Their minds were utterly unfettered by thoughts of fun. They also despised me for the naked favoritism shown me by my professors.
This is ostensibly a story about a vampiric apocalypse, mind you. Fuck you, Cronin.
It’s a curry, and she does make a few other dishes as well. So, I guess he can have a pass on that one. Here is the actual section, I mean, it seems like they eat it all, but then they are still eating later and there is food they didn’t eat. Kudos to the mc for cooking this amazing meal while dropping tons of exposition on everyone too.
I will not read the book you mentioned, just that section you posted made my head hurt.
This is the way.
I guess I don’t hate on prose that much. There are very few really good writers of prose that I read: Chabon, Beukes, Mieville, Marlon James. And there just aren’t that many really bad ones either, though Deborah Harkness and Dennis E Taylor come to mind. Most writers–to me–write serviceable prose that neither enhances or detracts from their story. Bennet certainly fits in this category. My criticisms generally are of narrative, characterization, structure, etc. Bennet is definitely guilty of reaching into the powers-as-the-plot-requires pot a little too often, but otherwise writes interesting, exciting, and enjoyable stories with well-drawn characters.
But on Cronin, I agree. Fuck that guy. I don’t abandon books that often (though I’m getting better at this as I get older), but The Twelve was something I happily put down and tried to forget I’d ever seen.
I guess my main issue is I went into the book expecting to be blown away by how great it was. It was nothing memorable. If someone relatively new to fantasy came to me asking for a series to read it would be near the bottom of my list of recommendations.
I abandoned City of Stairs after about 150 pages, fwiw. :P
I read Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire, and it is pretty dang good.
I read mainly sci-fi, so this was a departure for me. It’s sort of a modern fantasy book, but the fantasy trappings are alchemical. A boy and girl are separated at birth and have the fundamental characteristics of math and language. They’re supposed to grow up and become embodiments of the core tenets of the universe, and then be used by some Mastermind asshole alchemist, but their connection develops and connects them telepathically across the country, and the story is about them coming into themselves to thwart the asshole. It’s about the relationship between two people under some very strange circumstances, and there’s a lot of lovely little moments as they connect and split apart. I particularly enjoyed the early days when they were young and learning how to share a head with someone else, and also not feeling so alone in the world. Overall some pretty good writing, a really good example of fantasy writing that is about characters while also feeling a little elevated, occasionally almost poetic.
I rolled my eyes at some early chapters that really felt like the villains were standing around and twirling their mustaches. It feels like that high fantasy style that’s pretty annoying, with the villians being super expository as they talk about their plans to rule the world. There’s also lots of murder and little betrayals throughout these sections, so they read as fairly melodramatic. I’m also not sure the ending was very good, but I enjoyed getting there.
Everything else is good. (Apparently the author also writes under Mira Grant, who wrote a bunch of popular zombie novels I see at every library I’ve been to in the last 10 years)
