Death Comes to Pemberly
Jul. 16th, 2012 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skull_bearerGoing on the example of this book, I think I'd be better off sticking to fanfiction, if this is an example of pastiches. I wanted to get out a big red pen and start annotating 'stop summarising the original' 'stop stealing lines form the original' 'for god's sake do something about the characterisation' and 'this plot makes no sense'.
This book is an utter mess. It starts with a chapter that's basically a retread of everything that happened in Pride and Prejudice, without much added. It slavishly follows all the conventions of the original despite the fact that regency romance and murder mysteries are screamingly different. The author seemed so terrified of deviating from the original that the characters are not added to to any meaningful degree (except Wickham, for some reason, but I have no idea what the author was going for with him so it comes across as more confused than anything). This is particularly obvious when the author tried to write from Mr Darcy's POV, making him one of the most unlikeable and boring characters imaginable.
Oh, and those of us who were hoping to see Elizabeth put her brains to good use and join her husband in solving the murder mystery? LOL no, they just stand around like lemons and the plot is solved by a complete deus ex machina, that when I first read it thought there had to be a twist because this was bullshit. Elizabeth is portrayed as such a shy and retiring lady I wonder what the hell version on P&P the author had been reading, because WTF?
And yeah, the plot is a mess, plot points come and go randomly, I think they're meant to be red herrings but as they're not resolved they're just loose ends. There's a guy who's set up as the person we're meant to suspect but that's basically dropped, he's forgotten and it's only much later we find out he's innocent. And entire subplot involving Darcy's sister's marriage is started, built up and completely unresolved by the end, and the main characters spend the last chapter talking about the event of P&P, you know, the stuff that got resolved before this book even started.
This book comes across as nothing but a first draft. There's stuff there but it desperately needs a rewrite to bring all the threads together. The characters need to be more active, the plot needs to be more interesting (the worst part of that is that about halfway through the plot seems much interesting than it actually is, leading to a letdown when it's just a pile of contrived shite that comes out of the left field) and thre author desperately needs to come out of Austen's shadow and try something new.
Avoid. There's way better fanfic that doesn't cost anything.
This book is an utter mess. It starts with a chapter that's basically a retread of everything that happened in Pride and Prejudice, without much added. It slavishly follows all the conventions of the original despite the fact that regency romance and murder mysteries are screamingly different. The author seemed so terrified of deviating from the original that the characters are not added to to any meaningful degree (except Wickham, for some reason, but I have no idea what the author was going for with him so it comes across as more confused than anything). This is particularly obvious when the author tried to write from Mr Darcy's POV, making him one of the most unlikeable and boring characters imaginable.
Oh, and those of us who were hoping to see Elizabeth put her brains to good use and join her husband in solving the murder mystery? LOL no, they just stand around like lemons and the plot is solved by a complete deus ex machina, that when I first read it thought there had to be a twist because this was bullshit. Elizabeth is portrayed as such a shy and retiring lady I wonder what the hell version on P&P the author had been reading, because WTF?
And yeah, the plot is a mess, plot points come and go randomly, I think they're meant to be red herrings but as they're not resolved they're just loose ends. There's a guy who's set up as the person we're meant to suspect but that's basically dropped, he's forgotten and it's only much later we find out he's innocent. And entire subplot involving Darcy's sister's marriage is started, built up and completely unresolved by the end, and the main characters spend the last chapter talking about the event of P&P, you know, the stuff that got resolved before this book even started.
This book comes across as nothing but a first draft. There's stuff there but it desperately needs a rewrite to bring all the threads together. The characters need to be more active, the plot needs to be more interesting (the worst part of that is that about halfway through the plot seems much interesting than it actually is, leading to a letdown when it's just a pile of contrived shite that comes out of the left field) and thre author desperately needs to come out of Austen's shadow and try something new.
Avoid. There's way better fanfic that doesn't cost anything.