From: rob@zorro.cecer.army.mil (Rob Knauerhase)
Subject: Re: _Nightshade_: there is simply no excuse for this...
Organization: US Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Labs
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 06:53:00 GMT

In <rccarm00.721609199@mik.uky.edu> rccarm00@nx19.mik.uky.edu (ron c carman) writes:
>Possible *SPOILERS* ahead for Laurell K. Hamilton's _Nightshade_:

Harumph.  The book was spoiled enough without our adding anything to it.
What monumental crap.  I just finished the novel last night, and was very
sorry I wasted the time on it.  Save your cash.

>

>     Let's start with the biggest problem: the plot,
>or lack thereof.  I can't count on two hands the number
>of times we've had two warring factions ask for peace
>talks, with members of each faction "that would rather
>finish the devastating conflict".

Not to mention that the sides has nothing to distinguish them from any
other pair of enemies.

>left with absolutely no explanation of how the Orianians
>and the Milgians became allied in the first place.. gaping
>plot-hole here.

The above reeks of "My goodness, it isn't quite long enough."  The whole
bit with the Milgians was horribly contrived, consisting of poor science,
poor characters, and unbelievable circumstance.

>This plot is a big 0.

Amen.

>Instead of characters which are
>cardboard cutouts, we get people who are outlandishly
>over-the-top.  Worf, instead of just being highly protective
>of the captain, barely misses being insubordinate.
>Riker and Worf act more like Picard's nurse-maids than
>his subordinates and senior staff.  And if you thought
>Troi was used badly in the TV series, be glad Ms. Hamilton
>has stuck to writing books; at least they're not canon. ;-)
>It seems that every other sentence is simply a flood of
>"What-Troi-senses"; it ends up being a gimmick to let the
>author get away with doing no real work on character-
>ization.

My impression, while reading, was that someone at Pocket had the idea
(or perhaps Ms. Hamilton, although I am lothe to ascribe her original
thought) "Hey, we need a Worf book, and a Troi book.  Everyone else has
had a book, why not them."  Hamilton managed to write one to kill both
birds with one stone.

    Troi was amazingly amazingly amazingly overly done in this book.  Now,
I'm not a big Troi fan to begin with, but this was way too much.

>          1) Editing.  Do we really have to read sentences such as:
>                   "They were orbiting the planet, Oriana."
>             No comma belongs in that sentence.  I wouldn't even 
>             mention such a minor point, except that there are
>             literally dozens of instances of the same type of
>             mistake.  

I noticed the same thing.  The book was riddled with them...  Pocket has
never been too strong on grammar, but this book was by far the worst.

>                In one sentence one might read "You were
>             suppose to be..." and in the very next, the phrase
>             would go "You were supposed to be...".  The 2nd
>             form is the correct one, but both are endlessly
>             interchanged throughout the book.

While Ms. Hamilton is probably at fault for not knowing the difference
(though how could one claim to be an author and be that ignorant), we
also have to fault Pocket books.  Considering that many of the errors were
homonyms, Pocket seems to feel that running a book through a spell-checker
is "editing."

>I'd better stop now, before I really start to rave...

No, go ahead and rave.  It might save someone $5.50...

Rob
--
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rob@amber.cecer.army.mil                knauer@cs.uiuc.edu
Office of Grass Integration             Gigabit Study Group
Construction Engineering Research Labs  Department of Computer Science
US Army Corps of Engineers (USA-CERL)   U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
 "Eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow, ye will be taxed."  America, I
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