The Historian

[maderr]

Finished. Overall, liked it. Definitely a slow book, I guess it can't be helped. Only the end really irked me, and it's mostly for personal reasonas, not necessarily genuine flaws with the story.

First off, I just don't get why we had to end things mostly sad. I mean after all they fucking went through, after all the pages I slogged through, I don't think it's too much to ask that we get a bit more of a happy ending. Beyond that, nothing was really and truly resolved was it? It all kind of end on a 'haha, bitches' note which just grates. I totally am behind not really letting a story end, that's fine. No story can end, unless you kill all parties involved. But come on. I hate this crap that nothing is allowed to be happy.

I mean I know I favor sparkles and light. But you know, it's not that I can't see the unhappier stuff in my stories. It might surprise a few to know I'm well aware of how many of my characters eventually die, and some of the bad shit that might befall them. I know full and well life isn't sparkles and light. That's why I prefer to just leave my readers, my chars, myself with a happy end. There's no reason to bog everyone down with the depressing details.

I really did like the book. The details were amazing, it was an interesting way to do Dracula, and I wish my brief stint as an historian had been half so exciting. I would love to travel like that, be that smart, so the book was fun for that reason.

Still. I want to close it feeling satisfied, eager to find out what else the author has or will be writing. Instead I was left feeling vaguely disappointed and I'll probably never read it again.

Up next is another random acquisition, from an author Amazon keeps throwing at me: The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte.

Now to must the energy to write or edit. So. Fucking. Tired. And tomorrow and Friday are going to suck so goddamn much I feel a headache just thining about it.

Comments

[hayama-sb.livejournal.com]

For some reason, this reminded me that I've got a trilogy that I've been meaning to loan you. It's the "Rose of the Prophet" trilogy by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman. It's got a God's war, Dijin, & the main characters are followers of Akhran the Wanderer, God of the desert.

I just need to remember about it & drive down there & drop them off to you. (& get my Mercedes Lackey books back you still have)

[sixpence1323.livejournal.com]

I prefer happy endings as well. So many authors tend to think that stories are more realistic if they are sad or depressing. Life isn't an unhappy ending. That's my mentality. You always have a chance to make it better...
until you spontaneously combust or get hit by a car.

I hate stories with sad endings. I mean, if it's sad during, okay, but a sad ending - come on! I went through that crap for nothing? Bleh.

That's why nearly all my characters - the only except is one - have happy endings.

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that sounds like my responses to the book. I liked it (I have no issue with slogging through long things, I really like to read for long periods of time) until the end, whereupon I just went "wah, not fair". I hate things not ending (probably because I'm aware that life doesn't work that way, so I want my distractions to do so), and I was not pleased. Ah well.

[formerlydf.livejournal.com]

Are you talking about the epilogue? Because that was a terrible, cursed thing... It was this book that convinced me that epilogues are evil and should never be utilised unless they can be done properly. Even JK's recent usage was, alas, not as skilled as I would have hoped it to be, and made me very unhappy.

~DF