Look Back (2024)
[#94 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]
Thursday, 5 December 2024
Fiction
NPCs by Drew Hayes
Chapters 15–20
I'm 80% through this now, and I think I have to admit: it isn't very good. The inciting concept is neat, but has barely been a factor for most of the novel — this could be any story of novice adventurers in a high fantasy / RPG world; the fact they used to be NPCs is immaterial. That said, this has begun to change in the last couple of chapters, so maybe the final act can pull something out of the bag.
Similarly, while it's clearly meant to be a parody (not an outright Naked Gun-style piss-take, but certainly looking at RPGs with a raised eyebrow and degree of amused cynicism), I've found it mostly lacking in humour. That's not just a taste issue — I'm not saying I don't think it's funny, I'm saying it's not even trying to be as often as it perhaps should. The prose is largely adequate, but also clunky; unnecessarily verbose, with an abundance of wholly redundant words, phrases, and even whole sentences; relatedly, it's often irritatingly repetitive in minor ways (in a careless fashion, not a stylistic one). It's self-published, and that doesn't surprise me. Indeed, I was surprised when I saw there are two credited editors. And if the quality of the writing didn't give it away, the amateurish typesetting would. It feels like that shouldn't be a criticism, and I guess if you were reading a high-quality work it would be easier to let slide, but it's surprisingly aggravating.
I'll stick with it to the end, because it's not outright terrible and I've come this far so want resolution from the plot — though I hope the fact there are multiple sequels doesn't mean I'm denied that, because I don't intend to read more.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 5th: The Adventure of the Assaulted Cabbie
Chapters 15–20
I'm 80% through this now, and I think I have to admit: it isn't very good. The inciting concept is neat, but has barely been a factor for most of the novel — this could be any story of novice adventurers in a high fantasy / RPG world; the fact they used to be NPCs is immaterial. That said, this has begun to change in the last couple of chapters, so maybe the final act can pull something out of the bag.
Similarly, while it's clearly meant to be a parody (not an outright Naked Gun-style piss-take, but certainly looking at RPGs with a raised eyebrow and degree of amused cynicism), I've found it mostly lacking in humour. That's not just a taste issue — I'm not saying I don't think it's funny, I'm saying it's not even trying to be as often as it perhaps should. The prose is largely adequate, but also clunky; unnecessarily verbose, with an abundance of wholly redundant words, phrases, and even whole sentences; relatedly, it's often irritatingly repetitive in minor ways (in a careless fashion, not a stylistic one). It's self-published, and that doesn't surprise me. Indeed, I was surprised when I saw there are two credited editors. And if the quality of the writing didn't give it away, the amateurish typesetting would. It feels like that shouldn't be a criticism, and I guess if you were reading a high-quality work it would be easier to let slide, but it's surprisingly aggravating.
I'll stick with it to the end, because it's not outright terrible and I've come this far so want resolution from the plot — though I hope the fact there are multiple sequels doesn't mean I'm denied that, because I don't intend to read more.
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 5th: The Adventure of the Assaulted Cabbie
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