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

[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?