Far Dark Fields (Braunbeck, 2009)

I will say that i love Gary A. Braunbeck's prose. Its very emotional and well thought out; the imagery is great. This was a joy to read. But..Is it just me or did at the beginning of the book the main character start out on a quest? and then half-way in, he just goes on a tangent that he never comes back from and leaves the story hanging in the nearer end of that story-tangent?

It doesn't really affect the enjoyability of the novel, it just left me confused as the significance of the first part of the story

Now, i might sound a bit now like my stickler movie friends that argue about plot holes and the plausibility of situations and where a character "would have never done that." In those situations i tend to take a more "Braunbeck" look at the movie. In movies, I focus on the dialogue, situations, and imagery. As long as the plot holes aren't glaring then I'll over-look them.

So its still a good novel, but if you're a stickler like i mentioned then you this novel is not for you.

The 13h (Everson, 2009 ) & The Bighead (Lee, 2000)

I found there to be a lot in common as far as structure goes in these two books. The protagonist is both visiting an Aunt in a small town. Both have these two hillbilly side characters that are meaner than shit on fire..and there are so many similarities i could go on for a bit and maybe will, but ill probably forget about this and end up posting something else.

AnyWhosville,


I give The Big Head 4/5 for enjoyment (but damn i hate reading Edward lee's colloquialist-written passages by the rednecks, i would rather have them written in intelligible English and have the dialogue just be the broken up part. It makes reading it a chore that gets old(and I'm from the deep south i know what a redneck sounds like) so that's why it gets knocked down a point)

I give The 13th 3/5 because of it being slightly derivative (i.e above) but yet enjoyable, i have not read a novel where there is protagonist that is leaning in a direction to take a certain companion but then doubles back and takes the initial one that was actually more wrong for him. interesting and quite sad in the end. I cared for the characters, but still alot of the novel, having come from reading The Bighead just wasn't that exciting. Blame Edward Lee who i believe this novel is an homage to.