26 ratings (4.15 avg)
13 reviews

Ian Anders

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Ian is Currently Reading

Ian Anders is currently reading

Middlegame (Alchemical Journeys, #1)

by Seanan McGuire (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in July 2019

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Ian Anders said: " DNF (around 2/3rd through). I really wanted to like this book, given all the positive reviews on here, but I never got into it. There are three major issues with this book that, sadly, a little editing and rewriting could have accomplished:
1. The Rog DNF (around 2/3rd through). I really wanted to like this book, given all the positive reviews on here, but I never got into it. There are three major issues with this book that, sadly, a little editing and rewriting could have accomplished:
1. The Roger character was dull and uninteresting, because he experiences little developmental conflict unlike Dodger. Growing up as a hetero-male, I barely identified with Roger, who seems to waltz through life without any struggle. (view spoiler)
2. The relentless repetition of information after the superb setup in the first hundred pages. This drags out conversations unnecessarily, where (in a typical case) a character's basic response is extended into a paragraph of description of feeling. This would be fine if it included information we didn't already know but all too often it's a rehash, even of scenes in prior chapters. I got the sense that Seanan was languishing in her own prose too much here --it's a pleasure early on, for description and setup, but later she repeats herself way too much.
3. The most important issue was the withholding of information about what the Impossible City and improbable road was. For a while, this is ok, until one character begins speaking in nonsensical riddles and you realize, more than halfway through, that the story is not going to wrap up any time soon. More annoyingly, perhaps, the two main characters actually have the capacity to decode the riddles, yet for all their internal monologues, they never let you in on what they know (and since you have no access to the Wizard-of-Oz-like source material save a few snippets between parts, you can't decipher it). I think a rewrite could have shifted some of the reveals up further, and removed much of the repetition in description.

2/5 stars because writing is good, but the pacing / plot reveals / characters were not. ...more "

Aug 01, 2019 02:02PM · see review

Ian’s Quotes

“People say children from broken homes have it hard, but the children of charmed marriages have their own particular challenges.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

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“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

tags: life, nature, philosophy

2717 likes

“I spent a lot of time before I actually wrote my first book going, "How do you write a book?" The answer is, you just write.”
― Gillian Flynn

tags: on-writing, writing, writing-books

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