Latest Update and Book Review
Aug. 26th, 2008 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skull_bearerI need to stop worrying about my parents so much, they have their lives and as much as I want to I can't help them, all I'm doing is being dragged down with them. I need to stop thinking that the world would fall apart without me because there's nothing I could do about it anyway. My fears of leaving my mother alone are the main reason i haven't moved away yet, I can see that. And guess what? My mother sorted it out anyway, and would have whether I liked it or not. I need to live my own life.
Right. Now I need to bring myself to believe all this.
Where I got the idea I'm self-centered, I'll never know.
In other news, I've just finished reading 'The Man with the Iron Heart' by Harry Turtledove, an alternate history book with a great premise- What if Reinhardt Heydrich had survived the assasination attempt and led a terrorist resistrance against the occupying allied armies. Like all of Turtledove's books, the premise is great, the execution is realistic, there's a nice use of mitigating factors that keep it at once true-to-life and interesting, and it's painfully clear that he's really not a very good writer.
Right. Now I need to bring myself to believe all this.
Where I got the idea I'm self-centered, I'll never know.
In other news, I've just finished reading 'The Man with the Iron Heart' by Harry Turtledove, an alternate history book with a great premise- What if Reinhardt Heydrich had survived the assasination attempt and led a terrorist resistrance against the occupying allied armies. Like all of Turtledove's books, the premise is great, the execution is realistic, there's a nice use of mitigating factors that keep it at once true-to-life and interesting, and it's painfully clear that he's really not a very good writer.
This book's problem is with the characters and the gut-feeling of the reader. The characters are all such utter bastards that after a while and quite without meaning to, I found myself rooting for the nazi resistance. Maybe it's because I always root for the underdog, but I think it's also to do with Heydrich being the only halfway decent character in the story. Even the Holocaust survivor is a complete arsehole and the woman protestor is a bitch and if reviewers are putting 'Heydrich' and 'halfway decent' in the same sentence, you know your book's in trouble.
Also there's a problem with the story's moral, Turtledove does do the setting justice, it's mean and horrible and depressing and the Russians are out raping everything in a skirt. In fact, he does it too much justice. What we really needed were some flashbacks of nazi atrocities because just knowing they happened doesn't quite set them up against watching the allies screw the pooch eight ways from Sunday, and by the tim the Russians started sending off Germans in Death Trains to Gulags in retribution for terrorist strikes I officially went 'Fuck this' and went to sit with Mengele and co and joined them in shouting abuse at everyone.
In the end, it was a good book, atmospheric and it dragged you along at full tilt and left me exhausted by the time I turned the last page. But when I did, and the Americans left and the nazis were left in control of west Germany, I still had the strength to give them a weak cheer. No offense to Mr Turtledove, I don't think he's a neonazi and I'm sure this wasn't the effect he wanted to give, but he really needs to work on his charactersiation.
Also there's a problem with the story's moral, Turtledove does do the setting justice, it's mean and horrible and depressing and the Russians are out raping everything in a skirt. In fact, he does it too much justice. What we really needed were some flashbacks of nazi atrocities because just knowing they happened doesn't quite set them up against watching the allies screw the pooch eight ways from Sunday, and by the tim the Russians started sending off Germans in Death Trains to Gulags in retribution for terrorist strikes I officially went 'Fuck this' and went to sit with Mengele and co and joined them in shouting abuse at everyone.
In the end, it was a good book, atmospheric and it dragged you along at full tilt and left me exhausted by the time I turned the last page. But when I did, and the Americans left and the nazis were left in control of west Germany, I still had the strength to give them a weak cheer. No offense to Mr Turtledove, I don't think he's a neonazi and I'm sure this wasn't the effect he wanted to give, but he really needs to work on his charactersiation.