03 May 2006
Cold Granite
Just bought "Cold Granite" today for a belated birthday treat. Finished reading it already and all I can do is curse Barnes and Noble for not having "Dying Light" yet.*
Seriously, though...I highly enjoyed CG. Has a lot of slang but not so much you get overwhelmed. Logan is rather likable in a "he's a real human being" sort of way. The kind of realness I struggle to give to my own characters, frankly. And you really do get the sense of what Aberdeen is like. (I've been to Scotland twice although the last time was in the late '80s.) Nice descriptions, neatly sprinkled throughout the story so that by the time you get to the end you have a pretty good mental picture. Rather as if you'd taken a eyes-on tour of the city instead of glomming your eyes on the whole thing all at once via Google Earth. (The Google Earth bit would be more apropos if a description of the city had been handed over to the reader in one large infodumpish gulp. Which I hate, btw.)
All in all, well done Stuart.
*Of course, "Dying Light" isn't available here in the States until August 8th, but that's neither here nor there.
Seriously, though...I highly enjoyed CG. Has a lot of slang but not so much you get overwhelmed. Logan is rather likable in a "he's a real human being" sort of way. The kind of realness I struggle to give to my own characters, frankly. And you really do get the sense of what Aberdeen is like. (I've been to Scotland twice although the last time was in the late '80s.) Nice descriptions, neatly sprinkled throughout the story so that by the time you get to the end you have a pretty good mental picture. Rather as if you'd taken a eyes-on tour of the city instead of glomming your eyes on the whole thing all at once via Google Earth. (The Google Earth bit would be more apropos if a description of the city had been handed over to the reader in one large infodumpish gulp. Which I hate, btw.)
All in all, well done Stuart.
*Of course, "Dying Light" isn't available here in the States until August 8th, but that's neither here nor there.
# posted by Steven @ 7:52 PM 
