Have Books, Life is Good

In an effort to make my blog a wee bit more cohesive and not scattered all over the place (tho that is still going to happen regardless of plans), I will post a pic of a book when I finish it with a commentary on it. Not a review because I am not gifted analytically, despised that part of my college English classes - compare/contrast/infer/analyze/pick the reading apart so that you will never ever want to read it again. So I will just "comment" on what I read.

I just finished this book last night, part of my Barnes&Noble haul from last weekend.

I very much enjoy reading H.P. Lovecraft and the older publishings of other authors exploring the Cthulhu Mythos. There is just something about them, they are stories that have a wealth of detail, most of them contain journal writings from other characters (which I love), they dwell/take time on plot/characters/history/happenings. They are not fast gulp 'em-down reads which is one of my soap boxes: while there are authors today that clearly enjoy writing and spend time on their books/short stories, there are too many that don't seem to do so - it's like they slap-dashed something together, used big print to make the book fat, there are no details, it's hurried and fast and lacks depth, and it's like reading an outline (you know, those things we were taught in upper elem and middle school to use for your papers).

Now don't get me wrong, Ray Bradbury was an artist when it came to economy of words but his stories are in no way/shape/form of an outline and his word choices/how he put them together, well you can just tell he spent time putting the words in the absolute gem-perfect way to get what he was trying to convey across to the reader. When he describes a glass of milk, damnit I can see, smell, and taste it. Not many authors nowadays can do this.

So where am I going with this and what does it have to do with the book I'm supposed to be commenting on? Everything. While I enjoyed entering the world of Cthulhu again and glad I got the book to add to my collection, it was not up to the standards the older stories/authors have set. The book contains new (meaning current decade) short stories about Cthulhu and his host actually making it "thru" and what happens when they do.

Which I found interesting as most of what I've read is all about prevention, how to stop Cthulhu getting "thru".

Which is why I bought the book despite the rather large print for a paperback. Seeing the print told me I was not going to be treated to a wealth of details as of olden days, but I wanted to see where the stories would go. And it was interesting to see what a new crop of writers did with H.P. Lovecraft's mythic theme. They did catch my attention and I enjoyed reading them.

But while the stories themselves were not bad, they were missing something - the closest I can come is they were missing a "flavor" and a "flow" to a certain extent.

Regarding flavor: I always compare my love of reading with eating. To me, books have flavors and the best of them is like a full-on meal or appetizer or dessert that is so frickin' good you just can't stop eating it and savoring the tastes. (And books don't have calories.) The older books/stories have that "mind flavor" that gets the brain tastebuds going and you just want the story to never end because the writing "tastes" so good.

Regarding flow: when a book sucks you into the story so hard that you are "there"- you can feel/taste/hear/see the story, where it's at, what's going on, and the characters are people. It's no longer about words on a page, you have no awareness that you are reading a book, and you are "there", now that's flow. Nothing more crappy than reading, starting to get sucked in and all of a sudden you are shocked back out of the story because some author did something to make you aware you were reading - a typo, a poor choice of words, a character did something that didn't fit the flow, the dialogue was stilted, whatever.

Another thing, some of the stories had unanswered questions/loose ends or seemed "unfinished" at the end. I find it rather frustrating to not have a hint of the answers/directions of the loose ends if the author chooses not to "tie things up". I don't insist on having everything spelled or explained out, but I do like some idea of where things could possibly go instead of some ending that causes me to read the story again several times (which I actually don't mind as I am a re-reader) but makes me question my reading abilities because I still can't get any ideas on what is going on or going to happen.

Overall for me: it's a good "beach read" - enjoyable, caught my attention but not to the point where it would make me stay up all night reading it. And I like adding it to my collection.