Saturday, November 24, 2007

I won't be suckered into reading



I tried some more of Eoin Colfer's franchise, Artemis Fowl, last night and it is not for me. One thing that doesn't work is that it takes us for granted. It doesn't put us specifically somewhere with someone to tell a story, it starts joking with us first and assumes, because it's so damn hilarious that a genius gangster could be twelve, that we'll be along for the ride. It tries to sucker me in like television instead of letting me know why I should care. This twee, cheerleader-ish voice assumes I'm going to read because it's cute and clever. I'm not.

I started Garth Nix's Sabriel and was gently drawn gently into the vortex of its world - even though I felt burned by the last fantasy. There were two characters I really knew something about, by being shown as well as told and, twenty pages earlier than in Artemis Fowl, I wanted to know what would happen.

4 comments:

Jodie Robson said...

I hope you continue to like Sabriel - I think it, and its sequels, are some of the best YA fantasy ever written. But I hate the cover! The UK edition was just the name Sabriel in gold on white - very elegant.

Imani said...

Geranium, those are the "adult" editions actually, not specifically UK. The "young adult" covers are the ones illustrated.

Ted, I see that Artemis is, as I suspected, not all that great after all. The Bartimaeus trilogy is one of those oft mentioned books that actually lived up to the hype, for me at any rate.

Glad you're enjoying Sabriel.

Ted said...

Geranium - Yay, I'm really looking forward to it.

Imani - I was hoping that Artemis Foul, as it will now be affectionately known, would have a Bartimaeus-like quality, but the writing is nowhere near as good.

Anonymous said...

I love Nix's trilogy. Sabriel is the weakest of the three books, IMO, yet it's still delightful. The trilogy only gets better and better from there.