Bad Books Too

I told you it was coming, and it is here at last. This is the second and last installment in the Bad Books series. In a previous post, I said I’d talk about five terrible books I read last year, but the truth is that only two of those five are really abysmal. The other three were just disappointing, but kind of entertaining. The books I’m going to talk about today have no excuse for existing, though.

The first one is Sandstorm (which I'm trying really hard not to rename Shitstorm), by James Rollins. This is the only book I’ve read from the author, and given I still have nightmares about how boring it was, I am pretty sure it’ll be the last one as well. The story sounded interesting, mixing action, archaeology, high-tech gadgets, spies, hotties, and a continent-to-continent quest to find… I don’t remember. And honestly, after a hundred pages, neither would you. A novel that had all the elements to be fast-paced, intriguing, and compelling, turned out to be a half-hearted effort at thriller that bored me to death. I didn’t care about the characters. I didn’t care about the story. I didn’t care about the world being in danger (if that’s what it was all about, since I honestly don’t remember), or anything else. In a true Superman Returns fashion, I just couldn’t care less. I give it a ZERO out of 10.

Before I move on, let me point something out. I’ve recently found myself saying that, when I don’t like a story, it’s because it wasn’t “compelling”. On the one hand, I feel like I’m overusing the word. On the other hand, good stories, no matter their format or length, are always compelling. If you don’t care about the action, the peril, the characters, or the consequences of whatever is being told, it’s not a good story. If you find yourself thinking about all the fun stuff you could be doing instead of sticking with the story, then it’s not a good story. If the writer/director/actor/artist doesn’t make me care, they’ve failed in their attempt at entertaining me. And yeah, I mostly base my opinion on entertainment value because that’s what I look for in a story: a tale that makes me forget the world outside of that little make-believe universe. A story that sucks me in and doesn’t let me go until it’s over. And for that little magic trick to happen, you need a good combination of story, characters, and storytelling, simple as that.

Moving on. The second one is Grimm Memorials (which explains the picture accompanying this post), by R. Patrick Gates. Again, I had never read anything by him, and you can bet whatever it is you bet when you’re betting it’ll be the last one. Overall, the book was perverse, which is something I really have no problem with. This is fiction, after all, and I understand the difference between make-believe horrifying violence (and here, “horrifying” entails eating children alive and other such delicacies), and real violence. Actually, this gross-out factor was the only thing that kept me going (I learned a long time ago that not finishing a book because you don’t like it is okay), but the story was lame, and the characters were –you guessed it- not compelling at all. In fact, I was rooting for the bad guy (a witch) to eat them all and be done already. And “rooting” might be too strong a word, since I didn’t really care about her either. Also, the pace was ill-conceived; and, worst of all, the characters didn’t act in a very realistic way. It was as if the demands of the story forced them to act in a specific way so it could all “work” in the end. I give it a 1 out of 10 for the creative violence.

And that’s it. No more bad books in the near future (at least, that I’ll tell you about), and no more long posts, since my last three have been gargantuan in length. Go read something cool (like the Age of Unreason series, for instance).