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Sep 2014
9:41pm, 30 Sep 2014
5,757 posts
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Pestomum
Also I'm not 100% confident in that history of fiction publishing (yes I know that's not the point!)
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Sep 2014
9:42pm, 30 Sep 2014
12,709 posts
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McGoohan
I saw you hated it (a couple of pages back) Pesto. Did you have to force yourself to get through it?
I started off feeling antagonistic to it, but he sort of won me over mid way through and then it was a romp to the end.
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Sep 2014
9:48pm, 30 Sep 2014
14,963 posts
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fetcheveryone
Dio - I like that. Trying to understand the aims of the author is a positive way to approach it. Whether he carries it off or not, I think it's important to recognise the intent of the author. I'll try to apply that 
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Sep 2014
9:49pm, 30 Sep 2014
7,478 posts
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Diogenes
I don't understand your second comment, Pesto. What were you trying to say?
I found the book unsatisfying, but I loved the soul it and, thinking about whether the author had achieved what he intended, I had to agree he had and that, in doing so, he had connected with many readers who loved it. So what if there are plot holes and other books are better, it is a successful work.
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Sep 2014
10:06pm, 30 Sep 2014
5,758 posts
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Pestomum
I forced myself through it, using the kindle counter like the timer on an intervals session
I care more about what the author has *done* rather than tried to do - which is possibly why I'd never teach creative writing!
The quote suggests that publishers have been speculatively publishing novels in the way they do today for centuries - I only know a bit about religious publishing but I'm pretty sure that that's not how it used t work.
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Sep 2014
10:09pm, 30 Sep 2014
5,759 posts
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Pestomum
I love that this is all utterly subjective
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Sep 2014
10:15pm, 30 Sep 2014
4,811 posts
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Autumnleaves
Nearly halfway through my second reading - finding the humorous bits of dialogue are more amusing. I felt a bit kinder towards the protagonist as he listened to music and read poetry, and he is haunted by his action in causing the death of Daniel.
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Sep 2014
10:30pm, 30 Sep 2014
7,479 posts
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Diogenes
I think it is precisely the opposite of speculative these days. Whilst every publication is a gamble, especially for new authors, there is so much more market focus these days it is much more difficult for stuff that is less obviously commercial to get published and writers needs to be involved in the marketing process more than ever.
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Oct 2014
9:32am, 1 Oct 2014
11,497 posts
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RuthB2
I enjoyed reading it, but didn't think it was that great a book.
I wish the author had been braver and played around with the reality/psychosis idea, even making the narrator more obviously unreliable. Admittedly this wouldn't have been original, but like others I think the family dynamics parts worked best rather than the alien parts, so this angle might have helped more.
It varied between well written scenes and phrases with sections that simply jarred like The List (which, for the record, I disliked). I thought he could have ended it sooner too,left it even more ambiguous than he did.
But I liked reading a new book, and thanks dio for suggesting it.
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Oct 2014
9:40am, 1 Oct 2014
768 posts
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JustDistracted
I quite enjoyed reading it but found inconsistencies annoying - the sleeping with the student and then blurting it out might have happened earlier in the book when a bit more naïve, but by that point it didn't feel like it fitted. I found the list over long and a bit of cleverness that the author wanted to shoehorn into one of his books somewhere - some points raised a smile and others did seem a bit shallow / trite?
I also thought that being an alien was going to be the product of psychosis an was almost disappointed when it was just a real one!
Overall it was a good read but didn't grab me or move me in any way...
It's not a book I would have read, so it's interesting to read someone else's' choice. I definitely wouldn't read the next author but will give it a go!
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