The Literate Kitty

It’s happened before, and it’ll happen again--an author I like (or, make that used to like) puts out a piece of schlock, leaving me totally out-of-sorts about being cheated out of a respectable chunk of valuable reading time (not to mention, some hard-earned money). The absolute worst is when an author you really liked suddenly starts producing dreck. Now, other people may be much more forgiving or tolerant than I am, but once an author loses me due to a run of bad books, it’s very hard--okay, nearly  impossible --to ever get me back. (I can think of two popular authors, off the top of my head, whom I haven't read in years because of this.) My willingness to give the author another chance is commensurate with his/her abilities, naturally; if the author showed impressive talent in the past, I’m more willing to give at least a couple future books a chance. If that writer’s abilities were only marginal at best, though, I’m considerably less inclined to reach for his/her latest at th...

One thing you can say about the field of Urban Fantasy fiction? It’s a crowded one, and getting more so every day. (Seriously, isn’t everyone writing one now?) Another thing you can say? As happens with most genres, the majority of UF stories tend to follow a similar formula (their authors obviously adherents to the school of “if it ain’t broke...”).  That tried-and-true formula usually goes something like this... There's always a youngish kickbutt heroine--a gal who’s really good at, well, wiping the floors with bad guys (who totally deserve their really unpleasant fates, by the way).  She generally has a friend or two she can rely on when things don’t go as planned (which is a very good thing, because nothing ever goes as planned). And, in between hanging out with her pals and engaging in all that bootay-kicking, the heroine always gets a hot love interest to spice things up. (Yeah, so the hunky dude is predictable; who really wants to read about her getting busy with th...