2004-07-15 23:27![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
digitaldiscipline
digitaldisciplineChasing the Dime, by Michael Connelly, is that book. A slapdash tomorrow techno-"thriller," where you can see all the struts and spackle he used to create the idea, and none of the good writing, well-turned phrases, or interesting characters to make you want to read it. When my mother was anxious to fob her copy off on me to check out, I should have been suspicious (my parents are voracious Grisham, Cussler, and Grafton readers).
Even the hot blonde with the aftermarket rack couldn't keep me turning the pages. Call her hooters ex machina.
Every boneheaded cliche, every lame personality quirk, every hackneyed archetype, even the ridiculous shoot-em-up denouement (without any wrap up afterwards). . . it's like an object lesson in how to make a well-selling popular novel that not only has no soul, but studiously avoids even getting within hailing distance of meeting one, all while being gangly and rough around the edges.
It's books like this that are why I'm not a novelist, because I wouldn't want to write something this grotesquely, earnestly awful. I'm sure the idea was good, but the execution was abysmal. A mystery where the readers come to the wrong conclusion by outsmarting the characters is bad enough; when it happens because they outsmart the author, perhaps he should look into a career in pizza delivery management.
As an unrelated aside, I fucking rule. I totally blew the software trainer out of the water with some spontaneous, extemporaneous market-speak in response to a summary question, and left him gawping and saying, "Is that in our marketing literature or something?" No, dude, that's all me, and I was frigging brain-fried and exhausted when I laid that on you.
Hail to the King, baby.
Even the hot blonde with the aftermarket rack couldn't keep me turning the pages. Call her hooters ex machina.
Every boneheaded cliche, every lame personality quirk, every hackneyed archetype, even the ridiculous shoot-em-up denouement (without any wrap up afterwards). . . it's like an object lesson in how to make a well-selling popular novel that not only has no soul, but studiously avoids even getting within hailing distance of meeting one, all while being gangly and rough around the edges.
It's books like this that are why I'm not a novelist, because I wouldn't want to write something this grotesquely, earnestly awful. I'm sure the idea was good, but the execution was abysmal. A mystery where the readers come to the wrong conclusion by outsmarting the characters is bad enough; when it happens because they outsmart the author, perhaps he should look into a career in pizza delivery management.
As an unrelated aside, I fucking rule. I totally blew the software trainer out of the water with some spontaneous, extemporaneous market-speak in response to a summary question, and left him gawping and saying, "Is that in our marketing literature or something?" No, dude, that's all me, and I was frigging brain-fried and exhausted when I laid that on you.
Hail to the King, baby.
