https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?59758-Monamy The largest classic literature discussion forum on the Internet. Read Write Teach Share. en Sat, 06 Jun 2026 06:07:36 GMT vBulletin 10 https://www.online-literature.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg https://www.online-literature.com/forums/blog.php?59758-Monamy https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12492-Irritated-by-some-cough-good-cough-writers Tue, 17 Jul 2012 09:46:31 GMT I can't stand it anymore.


Finished 4 stories by different authors in a row and they were all bad, I'm so disturbed right now.


Finished "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan

It was great, the writer does have a forte in mental thoughts, he allows you to think from a different angle quite nicely... until you reach 3/4 of the book and realize that nothing will be solved and the entire book was just one big massive load of rubbish. Plot Repetition killed the feeling of the book and left me with a big hole of disappointment. Duncan could have done it better... guess he was bored.

The protagonist is pictured from the start of the novel as a person who have lived 200 years, changed his names more than he can count, has several positions and rich, seen a lot of life to the point of bordom and is simply waiting for Fate to drive him wherever it sees fit. Yet, you find him so stupid at times, very easy to trick, acts like he lacks emotions but keep them inside him (for God knows why!) and suddenly all that changes back to the stereotypical hero once a 'girl' enters the scene.

It's like a bad dark romance story with werewolves, you really can't go wrong about that.


Finished Susanna Clarke's "Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell"

To be honest, this wasn't a bad read at all. 800 pages of great world of magic and its history in England. The struggle with the French, the feel to it, The Raven King, Faeries, the language and vocab used, the characters. It was all so appealing. But again, repetition occurs on many levels here, there are many characters that seem not needed (at all) or just a pile of extra reading that doesn't serve the story quite well.

The thing that really drove me nuts is the footnotes. Sometimes footnotes swap roles with actual story. you find a page that has only 2 to 3 lines, and the rest of the page is a big fat footnote!? Oh, and there's no room to finish that stupid note in one page, so you find half the next page is a continuation. Sure, history is needed to understand a couple of things here and there, but much of it was not necessary and could end up discouraging the reader from 'reading' any further footnotes that may be important.

Jumping to characters, most of them seem alike. The only thing the differs them from one another is their attitude, but they almost have the same voice, the same words, only different attitude (at least, for me.)


Finished "Never Look Away" by Linwood Barclay

God, the story takes your breath away early starting from page 50. I honestly found it very difficult to leave the book once I reached that page.

My only protest on this story is the ending. It didn't work well with all the suspense it created. Still, I'd recommend this story just for the heck of it. I can accept the ending as a shock for the reader (though I already expected as much after reaching halfway.)


Now, the FOURTH book is actually from an author I personally like. When people around me tease me for being a slave to Stephen King's books, I can't say I blame them... Misery and The Shining were two of my favorites by his pen.

But "Blaze" was one bizzare book.

I expected much of King's work to be this dark and strange, but Blaze goes beyond words. It's like another copy of "The Last Werewolf" but has a background story to it, an attempt to squeeze some 'reason' behind the whole deal.

Ugh, I'm tired.

Reading those in a row made me so mad, and I don't want my fifth book to be of the same gloomy lot. Any suggestions of good authors and some of their 'good' books? Like "Murder on the QE2" by Jessica Fletcher (man, I feel like I want to read that book again.)




On a different topic, is it just me or...
:alien:
Does this alien seem to keep saying a silent "eemmooooo" to you? ]]> Monamy https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?12492-Irritated-by-some-cough-good-cough-writers https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?8332-A-surprise-by-my-brother Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:09:42 GMT My brother, Mohammad, surprised me the other day when I caught him actually 'writing' something. Mohammad, my big bro, never had passion for writing and was also throwing all those comments at me whenever he sees me sitting in one place writing my stuff.

It was annoying for awhile, but I got used to his sarcastic lines... until recently he got curious as to what really makes me write fiction and short stories all the time. He started reading my stuff, little by little, he even took the time to discuss with me some of the things he found interesting in my work.

And just suddenly, I find something by his pen in Facebook. A style that is rarely used in stories because it's as hard as the first person narrative style: it's a story where the reader is the main character in it. I myself never imagined myself writing something like that, yet he managed to make it rather intersting and hooking.

I thought at first to put it in my thread but it's not something that I wrote. So I'll just keep it here in this blog, and I'll keep bugging him to keep writing or else I might end up adopting his work and try something out.

__________

Chapter One - Desolate

You are driving your car. Again.

What do you mean by ‘again’? Of course you’re driving your car again. It’s been your car for years.Then what doyou mean by ‘again’? Do you mean again on the same road? Or doyou mean again under the same hot weather? Why did you feel that you had to add the word ‘again’?


You are driving your dusty Nissan on this hot August afternoon, and soon you ignore the question, not wanting to give it much thought; especially when you have so many other mind-boggling matters to think about.

You look at the air conditioning dial and wonder why it’s not set to its maximum while the temperature outside is nearing 40c degrees. You reach for the dial to increase its volume and you get disturbed by the feeling of sweat-wet T-shirt sleeve on your stretching arm. I'd kill for a cold shower.

As soon as you turn the air conditioner dial, the air flowing from the ventilators suddenly stop. "Stupid Car!" you say angrily. But then you remember how dependable your car was the past years. "Come on, baby, don't do this to me. Not now..."

POW!

"Sweet God!?" You shriek. And then you hear a funny vibrating sound coming from the front left side of the car, so you switch on your hazard lights and pull over stopping the car.

You open the car's door, but forget how hot the car's exterior body and end up burning your hand when you close the door. "Owww!" you suck your fingers trying to comfort them with moist from your dry mouth.

You had a fairly strong feeling and enough experience to what has happened, but you keep pushing the thought away as much as you can. You hope that if you don't think about it very much it will somehow undo itself. No luck there, because you’re now gazing upon a flat tire.

Great! I can't imagine anything worse than this happening to me today...

Frustration gets the best of you, as you kick the flat tire in a blinding burst of anger, which you instantly regret. Feeling the ache in your sore feet fueled to your anger higher.

You pop your trunk cursing whomever and whatever comes to your mind. Then just as you’re raising the trunk's door you remember something and a surge of panic overwhelms you.

Oh no! Please don't tell me that I...
You almost freak out as you discover that your spare is also flat.

Arriving to the conclusion that you will need someone’s help, you look both ways alternately in hope of spotting any passing cars. Fifteen minutes later, you give up looking and release a frustration sigh, and then decide to wait inside the car to avoid getting your skin blistered by sun rays.

Back inside the car, you lower down the windows, so you won’t get suffocated by the hot air intensifying inside. You wince in pain as a trickle of sweat finds its way into your right eye, so you reach for your handkerchief and wipe the pouring sweat off your face and neck. By the time you put down your hankie, the persistent beads of sweat are already forming back.

The severe loss of moist is working your body double-time to maintain the optimum internal temperature. You think that must be why you feel this overwhelming exhaustion. The dehydration finally get the best of you, so you tiredly toss your hankie away, close your eyes, and rest your head back against the headrest.

Damn it. I really had to get leather seats, didn’t I?

You struggle to swallow as you mouth is crisp-dry by now, and it’s even harder to breath air which you feel literally burns your lungs’ tissue.

You have seen it before on TV; if you think of something hard enough and you can convince your body that it’s actually happening. You start thinking of Ice-cream almost immediately, and then iced water. You try imagining yourself in a cold room with a huge fan blowing air towards your face.

“Bull****…” you whimper in frustration.

You’ve laughed at the stupid idea when you’ve seen it on TV. Back then you had doubts that this crap was nothing but psychological mumbo-jumbo, but now you are damn sure it is.

Do I hear a police siren?

You open your eyes and look into the distance, but see nothing. You tiredly sit straight and lean forward. You squint looking through the side mirror, and see a cloud of dust which soon shapes an approaching car.

"Finally." you say in relief and jump out of your car. You wait for the police car to come in range to start signaling. As the police car approaches you start waving your arms for it to stop, but to your amazement the driver doesn’t seem to give you much attention, and the speed at which he's driving doesn’t appear to be decreasing in order for him to stop by the time he reaches your car. You move to the side of the road just to be safe; trying not to think of what these clues might suggest. You grow puzzled by the decreasing distance between you and the police car, and why all the arms waving don't seem to get the driver's interest.

Your jaw drops and you stagger as the police car drives by you and continues its journey away, without even slowing down one bit. You stare in shock for a couple of seconds, as you realize what just happened.

"What the hell…" you mumble in bewilderment before the rage boils in your blood causing you to scream off your lungs "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!"

You bend into your car's open window resting on your elbows in frustration. I'm going to die here.

Shaking off the thought you look at how much sweat you left behind on the seat. And you recall an article you read somewhere. Human body can tolerate loosing 5-8 liter of liquid before it enters a critical state of dehydration. You wonder how far you are right now from that critical state.

You reach for the radio, thinking maybe you'll hear about what the police car driver thought was more urgent than stopping to aid you. Nothing of such was on the emergency news channel. That's not very surprising. So you switch to the car's CD player and crank the volume to High. You listen to Madonna's song: Frozen, and almost smile in irony.

Suddenly a wasp passes right in front of your eyes. Oh God, no! Not a wasp! Stay away! you flinch and quickly draw back away from the car, covering your head with your arms as you were alergic to their stings.


The last thing you recall was a large Mercedes emblem and an earsplitting horn.
Then you see nothing but pitch black. ]]> Monamy https://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?8332-A-surprise-by-my-brother