"The Left Hand of God"

I picked up "The Left Hand of God" in a half price sale in WH Smiths. It seemed like my kind of book. And thus, a good idea at the time.

Sadly, now I'm not so certain this was the case.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for books that don't follow convention. I'm all for stories that have surprising twists. What I am not for is books that seem to change their tone 15 pages from the end and end completely differently to how they have been set up.

The book was good. I'm not knocking that. It has a dark, brooding tone. Its portrayal of a violent, religion-fuelled fantastical and fanatical alternate history was gripping, and the fact that I read the whole lot in one sitting shows that Hoffman can tell a good yarn.

But there's just something so very wrong with it in places that I actually feel more frustrated than entertained at turning that last page. There are so many things foreshadowed but never explored later on; there are numerous changes in tone in the middle of the book completely at odds with the grim start; important revelations arrive with no actual foreshadowing at all; the final battle is described with a clinical detachment that deadens any sense of emotional investiture in the wellbeing of the individuals involved; and the final betrayal ruffled my feathers considering two thirds of the book is spent cememting a relationship only to have a parenthetical exposition in the last three pages explain why it just wouldn't work.

Anyone who has read any of my previous blogs knows I'm a sucker for a happy ending and relationships that work out - isn't that why we read fantasy? to escape from the harsh, soul-crushing reality that real life usually thrusts our way? - but it is less well known that I actually have admiration for writers that break conventions, throw away our expectations. I fully expected some big revelation towards the end of the novel. Unfortunately, the revelation that I got was one that hadn't been hinted at elsewhere, and there was too much sense, looking back with the book fresh in my mind, that the story had been pieced together from multiple plots, rather that one coherent whole right from the start.

The ending ends with hints that there is a sequel to follow: and I suppose if Hoffman is to follow convention, a trilogy is a likely outcome. It is highly likely that I will pick up a sequel, simply to find out if any of the seeds laid in this plot but not allowed to blossom within its pages are actually of importancw, or merely red herrings designed to throw the reader off which is, in my eyes, poor writing.

While thinking of something more to say on the matter, I googled the book and found this review which I am inclined to agree with.

So yeah, not a bad book by any stretch. I have read far worse. I'm just glad I didn't pay full price for it.

"In Which Jon Tries To Rectify His Atrocious Slacking..." Part #2

Writing

For a start, there’s that ‘writing’ thing that I, as a writer, do. My first trilogy is now planned out: the first novel is pretty much finished, the second is well underway, and I wrote a couple of scenes for the third one the other day as they were banging about in my brain and distracting me from important stuff, so that is going well. Novel 1, “Chains of Memory” (working title) will be complete by the end of January, so I can then get it printed and sent off to a shortlist (really very short actually) of agencies in the hope one can get me signed up for a three-book detail with a major publishing house like Orbit. I’m expecting “Chains of Time”, the second novel, to take me up until the end of summer, possibly the end of the year (depending on things in the next section) to write, and then “Chains of War” will round out the trilogy within the next eighteen months or so.

Obviously this is writing time. People actually seeing them on the shelves may take many months, even years to pan out, depending on how lucky I am with publishers. Kids fiction is the big thing at the moment, and this is definitely not written for kids in the same way that Harry Potter or Twilight is. Regardless of how long they may take to see the light of day, I am very much enjoying writing them, even despite the sleepless nights having several complicated plots and subplots tangled round in your brain can cause.

Games

The STEAM sale over Christmas was a disaster for me. I was doing so SO well with paring down my Games-To-Play list to something manageable, and then all of these good games were made cheap and I couldn’t resist. D’oh!

I recently finished the excellent “Darksiders” which I really enjoyed for its mix of God of War fighting and Zelda-esque dungeon exploration and collecting (as well as its visually distinct art style and storyline), and finally — a good two years after everyone I know finished it — I completed the main storyline of “Mass Effect”. Just in time, in fact, for the end of January when “Mass Effect 2” is released. “Darksiders” took me about 35 hours to complete 100%. “Mass Effect” took me maybe 12-15 hours, but that was with skipping 80% of the sidequests. As much as I like sidequests in games, I really just wanted to see how the main story played out in “Mass Effect”, and I definitely wasn’t disappointed.

Also on my list of games that I already own and need to complete are:

• Modern Warfare 2 (Which I bought hoping I’d like it more than the first one. Wrong.)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (In the STEAM sale, so no rush to play/complete this one. Looks interesting though.)
• Jade Empire (Also £3 in the STEAM sale. Not got time for this at the moment.)
• Dragon Age: Origins (More on this below)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum (Finished in storymode. Want to 100% this though.)
• Dead Space (Great ideas, but atrocious PC port. Sad. Might get the PS3 version cheap.)
• Trine (Awesome ‘hop in and play’ puzzle game when I have little time.)
• Uncharted (I got this to work my way up to Uncharted 2. Sadly I suck at it.)
• Zelda: Spirit Tracks (almost done with this now.)
  

That’s quite a few games, some of which I’m barely into. Dragon Age is the prime example. I was really psyched for this when it was announced, and I got the deluxe edition with all the bonus content. Thing is, Spence has been playing it, and after 40+ hours he’s only 45% of the way through the game. Now admittedly he DOES have a thing for sidequests (It’s unhealthy, UNHEALTHY I SAY!) but still... So that number looming over my head and, and I hate to admit this, the unsexy female character models have kind of put me off getting into this one. It’s really a shame, but in some ways I’d forgotten the reasons I never actually completed Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn — it’s just too effing long for a completionist like me to play in a reasonable amount of time.

And, as well as this, there are OTHER GAMES on the horizon. Oh, and Bayonetta, which is so screwed up crazy I just have to get it after already renting it for a week, just so I can see how the ‘plot’ pans out.

These include:

• Mass Effect 2 (The continuing adventures of Cassiel Shephard... more alien sex?!) Jan 29th.
• Dante’s Inferno (Sure it’s basically God of War, but I like GoW. It’s why I have a ps3). Feb 5th.
• Bioshock 2 (As I loved the first one. Not desperate to play this at release though.) Feb 9th.
• Final Fantasy XIII (Oh my god, my life, it will disappear...) March 9th.
• God of War 3 (It’s like God of War but...oh, wait...) March 19th.
  

Now you’ll notice something about a couple of those games: namely “ME2” and “FFXIII” — they’re both likely to be fucking long! (See my point above in the Books bit about why I might not finish reading them all by the end of March.) I’ve been looking forwards to “FFXIII” for over two years now, so I’ll definitely be getting it on the day of release and then locking myself away for a week or two to make some headway into the game before emerging to do some actual work. I wasn’t hugely excited for “ME2”, but having now just realised what all the fuss was about with the first one (yeah, I’m a tad slow) it is now high on my list of things to look forwards to.

Art

And finally, I’ve renewed last year’s Resolution to ensure I paint at least one piece of art per month. January’s is actually already done, but I haven’t updated my gallery with it yet. I’m considering changing the gallery format slightly for 2010. We’ll see.

Release the Kraken!

There are also some films I want to watch this year. That’s my excuse for getting a release the kraken reference into this blog anyways.

Next time I’ll possibly talk about tits and fucking, since Spence wants me to. Also, this may help people forget just how geeky this blog has been.

BAI! =^.^=

"In Which Jon Tries To Rectify His Atrocious Slacking..." Part #1

It has come to my attention that I have been utterly rubbish at updating my blog. There are several reasons for this, chief amongst them being that I am lazy. Really, really lazy.

And, also, not a huge amount has gone on since October 17th, when I last blogged.

Well okay, stuff has happened, but it was all school/work-related, and let’s be honest, it would be pretty unprofessional of me to blog too much about working in a school. Child-protection and all that jazz.

So instead I shall start 2010’s blogging by going through things that are important to me: namely books, music, games and art.

Reading

Back when I was doing my Masters in Creative Writing, I often commented that I didn’t read anywhere near enough. Looking at my bedside table now, I have a pile of books that will go some way to rectifying this for 2010.

I’ve got through a couple of the shorter works already, but currently the list of Books To Read stands at:

• Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Read, in anticipation of the upcoming film release.)
• Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters (Read, because I like sequels.)
• Percy Jackson and the Titan’s Curse (Because I got a boxed set of the first 3. Bite me.)
• The Stone of Tears (Sequel to Wizard’s First Rule, which I enjoyed greatly.)
• Blood of the Fold (Third in the Sword of Truth series.)
• The Left Hand of God (Which was half price and looked interesting.)
• Extraordinary Engines (A steampunk anthology.)
• The Difference Engine (One of the defining steampunk novels.)
• Assassin’s Creed: Renaissance (Book of the game. Sometimes these are good.)
• Wormwood (Second hand, 20p buy. Fantasy alternate history.)
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Because I’m not a fan of the original.)
• The Ghost King (Which I got before Christmas but haven’t touched yet.)
  

And those are the ones just on my table or at hand. I’m 2/3 of the way through “The Titan’s Curse”, which I am enjoying greatly. Yeah I know that the Percy Jackson books are really for young adults rather than almost-29 year olds, but I’ve always been a Greek mythology buff, and I have a thing about urban fantasy fiction (since, y’know, I write it!) even if it is supposedly for ‘kids’. I’m a big fucking kid and proud of it, alreet?

I actually started “The Stone of Tears” before Christmas but, like pretty much all of Terry Goodkind’s books it seems, it’s about 900 pages long, and I need to invest some serious time in it, which — because I like to read books in one or two sittings — I don’t currently have. I’ll get there. Already it is shaping up to be an interesting follow-up to “Wizard’s First Rule”.

These should last me a good while: probably till the end of February and into March if I decide to read the two Goodkind books back to back as I suspect I might. Saying that, however, there are OTHER THINGS that may ensure this stack of books last even longer.

And those are... In the next part!

In the words of CLAPTRAP, "Ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"