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"Fire Watch" is possibly my favorite short story of all time, but I thought Doomsday Book didn't need any but the first and last chapters in the future, and Passage was a kick-ass novella smothered in a novel's worth of padding. Given that...
1. I am about 200 pages into Blackout. It's not that nothing has happened, per se, but it feels like nothing has happened. If anyone's read this, does the story ever get going, and if so, when?
2. I am absolutely boggled that this was intended as one book but grew into two. Of the 200 pages I've read so far, if I was doing revisions, I would have cut it down to 50 at most. It's possible that some of this is crucially important set-up, but honestly I think there isn't more than 50 pages worth of that. Unless book two (and the rest of book one) is the tightest thing on earth, there was no need for this story to take up two books.
3. It is not necessary to spend pages and pages and PAGES on characters running around looking for each other to establish that life is full of missed opportunities and confusion. One or two devastating missed connections would work just as well.
4. Seriously, a university historical costume shop would only have two black skirts, total? SERIOUSLY? My high school costume shop probably had at least twenty.
I get that this is supposed to be funny, but it's the kind of joke that breaks suspension of disbelief.
1. I am about 200 pages into Blackout. It's not that nothing has happened, per se, but it feels like nothing has happened. If anyone's read this, does the story ever get going, and if so, when?
2. I am absolutely boggled that this was intended as one book but grew into two. Of the 200 pages I've read so far, if I was doing revisions, I would have cut it down to 50 at most. It's possible that some of this is crucially important set-up, but honestly I think there isn't more than 50 pages worth of that. Unless book two (and the rest of book one) is the tightest thing on earth, there was no need for this story to take up two books.
3. It is not necessary to spend pages and pages and PAGES on characters running around looking for each other to establish that life is full of missed opportunities and confusion. One or two devastating missed connections would work just as well.
4. Seriously, a university historical costume shop would only have two black skirts, total? SERIOUSLY? My high school costume shop probably had at least twenty.
I get that this is supposed to be funny, but it's the kind of joke that breaks suspension of disbelief.