Monday, August 09, 2004
All smoke and no sizzle
Just finished reading Brimstone, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's latest mystery starring FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast. What a disappointment. At their best, Preston and Child's Pendergast novels (starting with "The Relic," including "The Cabinet of Curiosities") evoke a kind of X Files creepiness, mixing the mundane with a hint of the unknown in a very realistic manner, which of course is the best way to create chills: set something very strange in a very real world.
This one started out well, but as it went on, there were too many cliches, including at least numbers 4, 6, variations of 7 and 16, 13, 36, 40, and 64 from The Evil Overlord List. And the evil, including a promising subplot that ended awkwardly and abruptly, turned out to be depressingly earthly and almost ludicrous.
Their next book might be more interesting, as it will focus, it seems, on Pendergast. But it appears it will be based on the distressingly worn-out ultimate "evil vs. good" battle. Reminds me of the time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Giles said urgently, "It's the end of the world," and Buffy, Willow, and Xander replied, "Again?"
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This one started out well, but as it went on, there were too many cliches, including at least numbers 4, 6, variations of 7 and 16, 13, 36, 40, and 64 from The Evil Overlord List. And the evil, including a promising subplot that ended awkwardly and abruptly, turned out to be depressingly earthly and almost ludicrous.
Their next book might be more interesting, as it will focus, it seems, on Pendergast. But it appears it will be based on the distressingly worn-out ultimate "evil vs. good" battle. Reminds me of the time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Giles said urgently, "It's the end of the world," and Buffy, Willow, and Xander replied, "Again?"
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# posted by karen : 12:08 PM
