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Violanthe
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Joined: 24 Jul 2003
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 Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb
Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:19 pm |
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Look at the following cover. Imagine that you have only the cover and the information it provides (including images, title and author name) to decide whether to buy this (or any) book.
Would you buy this book having looked only at its cover? If so, what on this cover sold you? If not, what on this cover turned you off?
If you have, in fact, bought and/or read this book, tell us how well our verdicts guided us. Did the cover lead us rightly into great fiction? Or did the cover wrongly steer us toward a bad story or away from a great one?
So, would you buy this book by its cover?
Regular posters are invited to join our "official" Buy the Cover game:
https://www.arwz.com/arwz/viewtopic.php?t=422
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Violet "Violanthe" Kane
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ARWZ.com: A Magazine of Alternative Reality Fiction
Last edited by Violanthe on Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:57 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Nik
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Joined: 07 Dec 2006
Posts: 805
Location: UK
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Not another one...
Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 4:57 pm |
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Sorry, there's enough text on the cover to put it back on the shelf.
I don't want to tackle *another* another such series...
I'm not that desperate for reading material-- Not yet. |
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Mervi
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Joined: 29 Aug 2006
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 7:02 am |
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My brother has it and says that it's better than Liveship trades so I might read it.
The cover looks interesting. If it wasn't a Hobb book I'd certainly look at the back so see what it's about. |
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Violanthe
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Peter
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Joined: 21 Apr 2006
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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 12:20 pm |
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I sure have: she overwrites. She takes 5 pages to describe what could've been effectively done in 2 pages.
Her narrative style rambles too, if that makes sense.
In saying so, I'd probably read her stuff some more as she does write interesting and well-drawn characters.
Peter |
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Mervi
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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 2:58 pm |
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| What Peter said. Liveship Traders had an interesting premise and characters, but every book in the trilogy is over a thousand pages long... I read it and it felt like she could have trimmed a lot. I really liked the Farseer trilogy when I read it years ago but now it seems that she gets payed by the word count and nothing else. |
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Murray Graham
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Posts: 134
Location: Canada
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Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 12:50 pm |
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At last some kindred souls that my opinion of this author. I too found her work interminably drawn out, to the point that I was skimming hoping for something to happen thaqt would move the plot along.
Additionally, I am told by a PhD candidate of my aquaintance that she is incredibly rigid in the interpretation of her work.
Regards,
M. Graham
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Violanthe
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Murray Graham
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Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:07 pm |
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Hobbs is the one that is rigid in her interpretation.
Regards,
M. Graham
_________________
Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage among his books.
For to you kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring,
but to him they are but toys of the moment,
to be overturned with the flick of a finger. -- Gordon R.Dickson |
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Violanthe
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Peter
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Joined: 21 Apr 2006
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Location: NSW, Australia
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 12:55 pm |
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| Not sure re: interpretation, but someone once described Hobb's writing as a campfire yarn delivered by an Oxford scholar. |
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Violanthe
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