Excellent questions, Dave.

Meself, if the author makes me care about his/her characters, I'll stick to learn more.

"Hornblower would never forget the look on Bush's anxious, honest face as his First Lieutenant declared at the court-martial that no Captain could have handled HMS SUTHERLAND more skillfully than did Hornblower at the Battle of Rosas Bay..."

What did Hornblower do?

Alone, the sails of help just appearing over the horizon, SUTHERLAND beat 3 bigger ships into wrecks before surrendering.

Gang, if you like Jack, you'll like Horatio Hornblower.

Trust Little Blues on this.

I love details, but they need to be relevant to the characters or story in some manner. Dean Koontz (for example) has a tendency to describe shrubbery. Not relevant. Diana Gabaldon devoted entire pages in one of her books to describing the consistency of baby poop. That was the last book of hers I read.

I agree but consider this the author's style; which details to include or omit, how much time to spend describing the shrubbery...I guess I'm just not into lyrical prose. Give me FPW's fifth grade level writing every time.

Lots of pictures. Pop outs are a bonus!:biggrin1:

Lots of pictures. Pop outs are a bonus!:biggrin1:

Simple pleasures for simple minds, aye?

Simple pleasures for simple minds, aye?

I've never claimed to be complicated!

That is my biggest bugaboo; I can not stand it when the description of something or someone gets in the way of the story. I have reading ADD for sure.

Me too. I think this is why I can't get into the more newer Stephen King books. Too descriptive.

Me too. I think this is why I can't get into the more newer Stephen King books. Too descriptive.

I haven't read a Stephen King book in ages. I always felt he did pretty good on his descriptions. Has he become that bad?

He did an event at my old store. A truly nice guy. "Mr. King..." "My name is Steve."


Took time to speak with every fan, sign every book, answer every question.

Kinda like Paul, but Ah thank Paul's a more gifted fictioneer.

Other than an interesting plot, I have to actually understand what the author is writing about and be able to picture it. It's why I loathe Thomas Pynchon, Umberto Eco and other pretentious wankers.

I also cannot stand when interesting story ideas are killed by a needlessly elliptical writing style (ie. William Gibson). Even great story tellers can stuff this up. I'm thinking of book 1 of The Dark Tower. Or Cormac Macarthy's Blood Meridian, which I gave up on half way, despite having loved The Road and No Country For Old Men.

Keep it to the point. This is why F Paul Wilson works. There is no waffle.

I don't have to like the characters, I just have to find the tale interesting

Me too. I think this is why I can't get into the more newer Stephen King books. Too descriptive.

This is the thing about King that drives me nuts. When he's on form, there is noone better. Salem's Lot is still an utter masterpiece. Concise, with an extraordinary atmosphere of dread. Firestarter still creeps me out. I finally read Carrie which is marvellous.

Then he writes things where 80% of the novel is endless, tedious backstory about what characters A, B & C used to do in school, countless insipid blatherings about baseball, the entire life story of the postman who delivers a package and is never seen in the novel again. I think Cujo had maybe 20 pages of story. I couldn't even finish bloody Dreamcatcher because I had enough of 250 goddamned pages of prologue.