Pulling Up Stakes by Peter David
Dec. 9th, 2013 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroVince is a vampire hunter from an ancient order of vampire hunters. Vince is also a vampire. Oh, and it turns out that he’s engaged, because of a deal his late father made years earlier. This isn’t going to end happily for anyone.
Note that there are two volumes of this, but they’re just the two halves of the same book. The two together add up to a single story. I think they each cost a dollar as ebooks, so it’s not really a big deal.
I think, perhaps, if you have to dedicate substantial exposition time to how your setup is different from other popular works (“This is how it’s different from Buffy, this is how it’s different from True Blood, this is how it’s different from Twilight…”) then maybe the concept is a little overplayed.
There has never been a clearer indication that even a good writer like David needs an editor, copyeditor and proofreader. This book reads like a hastily-edited first draft, with repetitive phrasing, confusing sequences and blatant typos (one character’s name is wrong in a critical scene where he appears someplace he’s not supposed to be!) that could have easily been fixed if the time had been taken to do so.
Which is not to say the book doesn’t have some cute and clever bits, but it’s rough—especially the second volume—and by the end those issues had taken me out of the story.
Overall: It’s not a bad book, but it’s nothing special and it’s far from David’s best work. I’m not going to bother hunting up any sequels he writes.
Note that there are two volumes of this, but they’re just the two halves of the same book. The two together add up to a single story. I think they each cost a dollar as ebooks, so it’s not really a big deal.
I think, perhaps, if you have to dedicate substantial exposition time to how your setup is different from other popular works (“This is how it’s different from Buffy, this is how it’s different from True Blood, this is how it’s different from Twilight…”) then maybe the concept is a little overplayed.
There has never been a clearer indication that even a good writer like David needs an editor, copyeditor and proofreader. This book reads like a hastily-edited first draft, with repetitive phrasing, confusing sequences and blatant typos (one character’s name is wrong in a critical scene where he appears someplace he’s not supposed to be!) that could have easily been fixed if the time had been taken to do so.
Which is not to say the book doesn’t have some cute and clever bits, but it’s rough—especially the second volume—and by the end those issues had taken me out of the story.
Overall: It’s not a bad book, but it’s nothing special and it’s far from David’s best work. I’m not going to bother hunting up any sequels he writes.
