GAH.

[feuervogel]

Gah.

I just finished reading a book to review for a magazine. It's cyberpunk, which isn't my usual subgenre. The last cyberpunk I read was Snow Crash, I think, though it's possible I read whichever William Gibson it was (I don't remember if I read Idoru, Neuromancer, or both) after that, but neither of them is particularly recent.

So when the book starts out on the first page using jargon and whatnot, I had NO idea what they were talking about (and the EPITHETS! Just use his/her freaking NAME, not "the blond pilot" or whatever) and felt like I was missing half the conversation. I have no idea if these are terms used generally in the current cyberpunk scene and I just don't know them, or if this book is entwined in an existing world of the writer's so people already know them, or if it's just something the writer made up for this book.

Leaving aside that the book wasn't generally my cup of tea, there were serious flaws in it. Like, 3/4 of the way through, there's something that looks like it's a remnant of a previous draft (actually, two somethings) that didn't get cut out or properly revised. The romance feels pastede on. The politics feel pastede on. It's about the singularity, I guess? And the evils of capitalism (which I generally approve of)?

I have to figure out how to write a review of this book without just waving my arms around and going "GAH!" a lot. Also without being scathing, because it wasn't as bad as Darkship Thieves (which was HORRIBLE OH GOD FUCK THAT BOOK), and the underlying idea was pretty cool, but the execution was lacking. I was frustrated SO much reading this book. I got a Kindle version, and my notes are "wasn't this copyedited???" and "WTF?" and also "come on, you can't use the singular Latin word for house to mean both house AND houses... it doesn't work that way!"

Comments

[sabeth]

Is the Latin word "domus"? Because I'm pretty sure that's the same in singular and plural (u declension), so that would kind of work.

[feuervogel]

Yes, it is. I admit I only had one year of Latin a really long time ago and don't remember very much. But if she's pluralizing words following the origin language's rules, she needed to pluralize "hazmat anzug" not as "hazmat anzugs."

No, I have no idea why she decided to use anzug rather than suit, except to throw in some multi-kulti stuff. (The MCs are black (barely mentioned offhand, because he has dreds) and Japanese-ish (assumed from her name and description of honey-colored skin).)

This book just *really* annoyed me.

[sabeth]

Asghaha oh man, I HATE when people use decorative German. Or decorative any-language-I-speak, really. It's so distracting even when used correctly ... which it rarely is. (Although my particular pet peeve is characters who are clearly advanced ESL speakers using everyday German words to ... signify their foreignness? be cute? "Darling, could you pass the salt, bitte?" NO ONE DOES THAT. (Unless we're in an alternate reality where "bitte" has become a commonly used loan word, of course.))

I don't know how involved your magazine review has to be, but I think you have a good outline here to build from. "Good idea, bad execution" seems like a fair starting point. :)

[feuervogel]

Decorative languages I don't speak is annoying, too... I'm reviewing another book, an anthology, and there's a story in it that's got my name written all over it (it's set in Weimar-era Berlin), but flipping through, there's a lot of "mein Schatz" and whatnot. (Why not just have them say "darling," since the story and the rest of the dialogue is in English? dhjaghjhjjw) So I'm either going to love it or hate it.

I only have about 500 words for the review, which will keep me from getting into too much depth. I also don't want to spoil it for anyone who may decide to read it.

[kirin]

"Darling, could you pass the salt, bitte?" NO ONE DOES THAT.

Haha, except we actually do that at home sometimes. Then again, I'm not actually *fluent* in the non-English languages, so it's a different situation than the one you're describing. (Heck, I annoy feuervogel by throwing in random Japanese when I'm learning German and can't think of a word...)

[feuervogel]

And I respond, "Dat ist doch kein Deutsch." (Though maybe i should use "dit" instead, since that's the Berlin dialect, as opposed to the central/Hessisch one.)

Though normally it's more like "give me my coat." *hands coat* "Danke." (which gets an automatic "bitte" from me.)

[sabeth]

See, that way around it makes sense though, since German is a second language for you and English is your first. I might totally use, idk, kiitos when thanking my Finnish friend because it's one of the few Finnish words I actually know.

The actual equivalent for you, I think, would be "Gib mir den Mantel, please." which just doesn't make sense to me. (If you're capable of phrasing the difficult part of the sentence, why would you fall back on your native language for the easy one?)

[sabeth]

No, but the speaker being fluent is the crucial bit! I don't take issue with non-native speakers substituting words they don't know with words from their native language -- I've heard people do that. I've probably done that. But greetings and words like please and thank you are among the first things people learn in foreign languages. They're not the words people are likely to substitute, especially when those people are clearly proficient speakers of the second language.

What you guys do is the reverse, I think, and actually kind of supports what I'm saying -- you're using the foreign words whose usage is the easiest to grasp. See my reply to C below above.

[kirin]

Yeah, you're totally right, it's the opposite way around, which makes much more sense.

On the other hand, this discussion also illuminates one reason why authors are tempted to do it even when the character wouldn't: they're the words the *reader* is most likely to be able to understand.

[sabeth]

That's true! I always figured it was just because the author wasn't all that proficient in the foreign language, but of course there's the audience to think of as well. I still think it's bad form, but I hadn't considered that aspect.

[kiwirazzi.livejournal.com]

Aaaahhhhh, cyberpunk!! Admittedly, when I read the first couple of pages of Neuromancer for uni once, I threw the book aside and thought WTF?! But when I dedicated myself to the whole Matrix universe - which is cyberpunk at its finest - I gave it a second try and loved it. I read the whole trilogy, as well as a couple of short stories (like Johnny Mnemonic, Burning Chrome), and still have some unread books (among them Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson). It was also part of my MA thesis.

As far as I know, the whole cyberpunk movement was only a very short-lived sub-genre in sci-fi literature, it only lasted a couple of years (I think no more than 15 years starting in the early to mid-eighties till the end of the 1990s), I'd have to check back on that, though.

[feuervogel]

Cyberpunk's still being written, though it's focusing more on the singularity (which is the uploading of memories and personalities and the self to the internet, basically) now. The book I'm reviewing is either just published or about to be published.

If you're never read Neal Stephenson, be forewarned that he doesn't know how to write an ending. His books just ... stop.

This book I'm reviewing is just ... confusing. The writer throws terminology around like everyone's supposed to know what a MAM embrace or a fly gamer is. I didn't at the start, and I still didn't by the end. That's bad writing.

[corpsefairy.livejournal.com]

What book was it?

[feuervogel]

Circle Tide by Rebecca Rowe. It's just come out, and the editor of Bull Spec asked me if I wanted to review it. I said cyberpunk isn't my thing, but if no one else wanted to, I would.

[a-nightengale.livejournal.com]

Yes on Stephenson not knowing how to write an ending. Very frustrating.

[corpsefairy.livejournal.com]

I think he's slowly improving. Anathem had an ending. Not a brilliant ending, but it had one.

[corpsefairy.livejournal.com]

Never heard of it.

Better cyberpunk: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow. I haven't been impressed with his other stuff, but this was fun and interesting.

[feuervogel]

It's not actually her first novel, and she's apparently got decent reviews. http://www.rebeccarowe.com/ Yeah, I don't get it.