This isn't exactly a rant...

The Fury of Athamas (by John Flaxman)

Or maybe it is.

I bought a book yesterday by a relatively well-known author - not a bestseller, but still, I recognized her name. And no, I'm not going to tell you who it is.

I'm about a hundred pages in and the book really, really pisses me off. She's a good writer - and I've read a few of her books and enjoyed them, though, I admit it, not loved them. But I've followed her because I first read a novella that I truly enjoyed and I've been waiting (I guess) for the books to live up to the novella.

But this book? It just doesn't work for me. It feels as if the technical things she's trying to do with it are  a bit beyond her reach and so the story - which I think could be great - gets lost in the problems with the writing. It's the first of a trilogy, and I understand that it's important to get the set-up in the book, but the set-up doesn't work at all and so I'm doing something I very rarely do, I'm putting the book aside just barely begun and this is the last book I'll buy by this writer.

I'm disappointed, not just in the writer but in her editor, who should have caught some of these problems and ironed them out.

And I'm sad, because I loved that novella and still re-read it.

And I'm angry that she's never lived up to the promise of that novella.

Kate