Between Books

[drcpunk]

Okay, finished King Rat. agrumer was spot on. Still found myself skimming lots of descriptive passages, but, unsurprisingly, liked it better than Perdido Street Station. I'm just retro that way. I like closure and structuralism a lot.

And the perennial thought: How can I steal this for Cthluhupunk?

Hm.

Comments

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

Would I like it? Or would it freak me out as being too close to what I'm trying to do?

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's too close to what you're trying to do, but I could be wrong. Start with de Lint -- he's not really what you're trying to do, afaik. If that's correct, so far, so good.

Now, have de Lint cross with Neil Gaimain's Neverwhere, also not what you're trying to do. This burns out some of de Lint's, um... Okay, I'm calling it sweetness, but that's not what I mean. You get an edge that de Lint rarely hits. I'm not sure this is always a bad thing, but it's not in most of his stuff the way it is in Gaiman.

Next, give the whole thing a much, much darker feel, with more grit. That part approaches what you do, but only vaguely, in tone. Mieville's not dealing with faeries. His supernatural element is powerful, not utterly unrelated, but I think in a different direction from yours.

Does that help?

Would you like it? Hm. I think so. The thing is, as I say, I skim much of the decriptive passages. I liked the plot. I liked the unneatness of it, and I liked the way it was neat enough -- the way it wrapped up things to my satisfaction.

Is this of any use?

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the clarification. I'm writing an underground book right now, so I've not read Neverwhere(although I have watched the BBC mini-series).

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Okay, I can see why you might want to avoid the Mieville, although, IMO, there's not a heck of a lot to the underground part. But I could be wrong.

There's also Lisa Goldstein's Dark Cities Underground, which you probably should avoid till you're done. Not bad, but some things I think she should've done differently.

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

Question: Do you like underground books where the underground is mostly factual or mostly fictional? I have been trying to decide how much I should just make up.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. This depends on my mood, on what an author is trying to do, and on how good the writing is. I think I tend to prefer enough details to go, "Oh wow! That's real?? That's cool!", but not so many that it feels like a textbook.

I'm not sure you should go by my reaction alone here.

It depends on the story. What story are you trying to tell? Once you have that, what's at the center of it? Keep the center true -- whether it's people, place, or what -- and all else follows?

This is sorta related to the stuff that came up both at Tim Powers' GoH speech and the Urban Fantasy panel. It boils down to good fiction being good fiction.

Hm, that's not really much help, is it?

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Hm, I'm doing my best to describe books, sort of like many authors to do describe music. I tend to be a bit deaf to the variety of music.