Mother had it right

[underlucius]

When I received "Wraeththu" I was at her house (i have my books delivered there, as they are always when the postie arrives) and she flipped through it and was taking the piss out of the writing.  I got all defensive and was bristling as if she didn't understand poetic writing

Comments

[gunderpants]

Ohhh that excerpt was so appallingly bad, and your description was so remarkably awful, that it almost makes me want to read this book.

[underlucius]

Spess (below) says it gets better, but I opened a page at random in book 2 and got this piece of horror. (I was querying about the mpreg...)

There is more weeping and gnashing These perfect beings are very insecure. Italics are from the book. Bolds are mine.

"Swift...don't hate me...please, not now." I began to speak, but he rolled around and shouted. "I need you! I need you! Swift!" big girlie.

Even as I went to him, I was thinking, Surely you're strong enough to resist this? yes - that really is a capital letter after a comma

His face was hot and wet between my hands; he was weeping. they are ALWAYS crying!

"You are witness to a miracle," he said, and laid his head in my lap. I put my hand on his arm where it lay across his stomach. Erm. Why is this a miracle? Isn't it pretty well known that they've got girl bits. That's rather the point of the Changing.

"What is it?"  I asked It's his arm, but that's not important right now.  anyone reminded of Airplane? and "i asked" is redundant. Very.

"Life, I think," he said.

[gunderpants]

Ooooooooooomg I have got to find this literary gem!

[tiferet]

I really like those books but I read them with the same part of my brain I use to read bodice-rippers with. *shrug* YMMV.

[ldybastet]

Wow... that is bad! *stares at excerpt* It doesn't even make much sense. Perhaps the author went for incoherency, but it just looks chopped.

Thank you for the warning about these books. I'll step away from the violet eyes and the risk for mpreg very quickly! *shudder*

[underlucius]

It does when you start to interpret the metaphors, and it's just ... *shudderingly bad* It's not as if she could have thought she'd never get away with more explicit sex scenes as many people were doing more - hell, Renault was more explicit in the fifties and sixties! and yes. points up the thread. there IS Mpreg.

ick.

[catsintheattic]

The sex scene was bad. What a horrible choice of metaphors.

Good fanfic spoiled me for the rest of my life. :-)

[underlucius]

really really horrible. especially the prostate bit. (or what I imagine to be the prostate bit...)

[catsintheattic]

The part about the second heart?

I think it's an agreed on "fact" that men have their brains stored away in their little toes. That's why stepping on their toes can help the male thinking process. ;-)

But I never heard of a second heart somewhere in the depths of the rectum. And it's itching. Maybe they simply misinterpreted a haemorrhoid. *shudders*

And all the weeping is simply meant to show how DEEPLY EMOTIONAL they are - I bet. :-)

The whole thing is so full of euphemisms that it made me want to read some well-written porn. There is always an excuse... *grins*

[underlucius]

as I said earlier to you. NO more buying of books before I get a sample!

[gehayi]

The excerpt made me burst out laughing.

There's no way on earth that I can take something like that seriously; as catsintheattic said, good fanfic has spoiled me. I look at that and think, "Good God, this is like the worst of FFnet, or Fandomination."

Obviously, the reviewers who praised this as so wondrously original are not familiar with bad fanfic, which is a shame. I think their reviews would have been far more accurate if they had known just how common--indeed, how hackneyed and stereotypically cliched--the tropes of this story are.