August 25, 2006

Space jocks and good books

I finished reading Simon Haynes‘ "Hal Spacejock" today and I must say that it was a darn good read and something that I completely enjoyed reading, after a long time 🙂 What was interesting for me while reading the book was to note that I was hooked by the time I was barely a quarter of a way through the book and usually, it takes me much longer to be truly invested in a story. For instance, Terry Pratchett is my most favourite author and the last few books by PTerry took me at least till the middle of the book before I was really engaged in the story and could not put the book down.

Am I saying that Simon is better than PTerry? Not really. (Sorry Simon :p) But I’m saying that Simon’s style is very easy to read and to get into and that it is very different from that of Terry Pratchett – I enjoy books by both but I find that Simon’s is a much more easier page turner for me much more earlier on 🙂 But I’m not going to compare one author to another, that’s really not fair to either since each author has their own unique style and they bring completely different values and qualities to the table.

I know Simon. I have read his story of how he got published and I admire him for his determination, tenacity and courage 🙂 I wish I could call him friend but I don’t know him well enough and he doesn’t know me well enough. But he certainly is somebody that I wish was my friend. So, it’s a bit harder to review one of his books objectively. If it was somebody who didn’t know me and somebody who I didn’t know, I’d simply say what I thought. But when it is somebody I know, I always wonder whether I’m being too nice (or too harsh :p) simply because I know them.

So I shall not go into the nitty gritty stuff 🙂 There are things which annoy me about the story … OK, maybe "annoy" is too strong a word. It’s more like that there are some elements in the story which offends the nitpicky obsessive compulsive in me – the one who wants every t crossed (and for it to be exactly perpendicular) and every i dotted. For instance, I find the robots to be entirely too human and the humans a bit inconsistent at time. But what’s important is that while the inner-nitpicker complained bitter about these things I was still busily turning the pages. So I guess he was still doing something right 🙂

Basically, I enjoyed the story. It came together well and by the time I completed it, I wanted to get my hands on the sequel, "Hal Spacejock: Second Course" and continue reading. That’s all that an author can ask for, right? 🙂

Tags: Books, Entertainment
Posted by Fahim at 7:06 pm   Comments (3)

3 Responses to Space jocks and good books

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#1
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Fahim 25 August 2006 at 10:58 pm

I certainly don’t have the chops to critique another writer’s work as a writer 🙂 But I was saying what I thought after reading your book and the final consensus is that I loved the book and want more! I have a feeling that Laurie and I are going to be fighting over Hal 2 when it arrives and just to add to the list of personal records for Hal books – this is the fastest that I’ve completed a book in a long time … usually it takes me three months or more 🙂

As for the consistency, I did think that the longer gestation period for the first book might have had something to do with it. From what I knew of the Hal history, I knew that you’d rewritten book one quite a bit though I had no idea how extensively. I thought that some of the stuff didn’t jell quite well came together from the accumulated history and the recent rewrites. I know how much trouble I have when trying to do just a novel the first time around because I have so much history for the character in my head and I don’t know if some of the stuff has already gone in the story or not. I can only imagine what it must be like for you when you have several versions of the story and have to put it all together in a cohesive fashion 🙂

#2
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Simon 25 August 2006 at 9:38 pm

Hi Fahim,

That’s not harsh by any means – it’s always good to get feedback. There isn’t a book on the planet that will appeal to everyone, and I’m just happy you didn’t give up and sling the book across the room 😉
I’ll certainly be looking forward to your thoughts on the second one. The first was written over a long period (5 years or more), whereas book two was written in around 18 months. That should help with some of the consistency.

Cheers
Simon

#3
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Laurie 30 August 2006 at 7:30 pm

And I have my own nitpicks as well… Hal was looking out the window… Okay, not a real example, but it seems easier to me to say Hal looked out the window. Fahim and I fight about that sort of thing all the time – he argues it’s legitimate and stylistic, I argue that it would read better… But I’m anal about certain grammatical things and I get twisted… Anyway, enough. 🙂 And honestly, I’m like that with pretty much every book I read. I analyze too much. I think it’s partly due to now being a writer and trying to pick apart what works and what doesn’t and being too too conscious of it all rather than simply enjoying it like I did back when I was only a reader and not a wrter as well.

At any rate, it was a good, enjoyable read. I liked it. I would have paid actual money to get that book had you not sent it to us. 😀

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