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Cover Dishonesty
Sep. 26th, 2004 11:15 pmSo one of the ways I've been dealing with overwhelming levels of work-stress, family-stress, social-stress, and wedding-stress is book binging. I have bough more books in the past month than in the entire year before, give or take, and I'm nearly on a first name basis with the desk staff of my local library. I'm becoming less and less discriminating, too - F&SF, mystery, children's literature, essays, cookbooks, just about any sort of printed word will give me the escape I need.
Last week I was browsing the local F&SF bookstore, and I found something that looked marvelously creepy and intriguing. I'm a serious sucker for science fiction where the science of choice is biology, and even moreso for medical fiction. This was a series of short stories, bridging the line between SF and horror, about a disease called Sensory Deprivation Syndrome. Decent authors, an intriguing core concept, a writeup of the disease as a CDC Bulletin that sent cold fingers down my spine, both for the idea and the accuracy and detail of the writing. So of course I sighed a little sigh of the financially limited, put down the Charles DeLint novel I was planning on buying, congratulated myself for being open enough to try something new, and bought it.
The cover looks great. The description was great. The stories.... well, they're not all lousy. Just most of them.
It's ridiculous. Almost half of the stories break the rules that are set up in the introduction - there are clear statements of how things do and do not work, and the authors apparently ignore them blithely. The cutting edge of horror couldn't pierce butter without a hearty push that is beyond the capacity of my imagination; most of the ideas just leave me vaguely bored or wishing that the author had been willing to actually take the concept somewhere instead of merely presenting it. And completely aside from this, the editing is woefully absent. I've come across more typos, doubled words, and punctuation errors than I can remember seeing in my entire life as a reader.
And yet I keep pushing on, hoping that the next story will make it worthwhile. I think, after I muddle through this, I owe myself a good, comfy wallow in some truly luscious wordcrafting....
Last week I was browsing the local F&SF bookstore, and I found something that looked marvelously creepy and intriguing. I'm a serious sucker for science fiction where the science of choice is biology, and even moreso for medical fiction. This was a series of short stories, bridging the line between SF and horror, about a disease called Sensory Deprivation Syndrome. Decent authors, an intriguing core concept, a writeup of the disease as a CDC Bulletin that sent cold fingers down my spine, both for the idea and the accuracy and detail of the writing. So of course I sighed a little sigh of the financially limited, put down the Charles DeLint novel I was planning on buying, congratulated myself for being open enough to try something new, and bought it.
The cover looks great. The description was great. The stories.... well, they're not all lousy. Just most of them.
It's ridiculous. Almost half of the stories break the rules that are set up in the introduction - there are clear statements of how things do and do not work, and the authors apparently ignore them blithely. The cutting edge of horror couldn't pierce butter without a hearty push that is beyond the capacity of my imagination; most of the ideas just leave me vaguely bored or wishing that the author had been willing to actually take the concept somewhere instead of merely presenting it. And completely aside from this, the editing is woefully absent. I've come across more typos, doubled words, and punctuation errors than I can remember seeing in my entire life as a reader.
And yet I keep pushing on, hoping that the next story will make it worthwhile. I think, after I muddle through this, I owe myself a good, comfy wallow in some truly luscious wordcrafting....
