Darren Craske
Forfatter af The Equivoque Principle
Serier
Værker af Darren Craske
Satte nøgleord på
Almen Viden
- Køn
- male
Medlemmer
Anmeldelser
This book starts out with a good opening of a betrayal and pious rich paying others to do their dirty work. However, after the opening, things get confusing. The storyline is there, but it is rather difficult to follow. It's set back in old London and so the language and setting are obviously more difficult to see. In some cases of description and explanations, the writer takes you through fluidly so that you can see and sense the plot. In others, he is choppy at best. I found myself rubbing my head from the headache of just trying to understand what was happening. However, by the end I was rewarded with a great tale of adventure, mystery, thriller, murder, and a good ending.
The characters are good. You find those you love and those you hate. Others, you understand and some you don't. Quaint, being the main character, is a good kind of guy you love to laugh at. His straightforwardness is what gets him into more trouble than most is worth and you definitely feel the connection to his fortune teller, Destine. With those two characters, you can not only visualize but even see through their eyes. Parm has had some bad luck but it hopefully changes, while Butter is a constant and reliable chracter. Sometimes it was difficult to visualize the chracters, but for the main ones you got.
There is a funny fight scene where Quaint and Butter have to take on a mob of guys, and mystery and enough action to keep you occupied. Overall, the story is good but could be better written. Maybe the next one will be better with a setting in Egypt. I know I liked this one enough to give it a try.… (mere)
The characters are good. You find those you love and those you hate. Others, you understand and some you don't. Quaint, being the main character, is a good kind of guy you love to laugh at. His straightforwardness is what gets him into more trouble than most is worth and you definitely feel the connection to his fortune teller, Destine. With those two characters, you can not only visualize but even see through their eyes. Parm has had some bad luck but it hopefully changes, while Butter is a constant and reliable chracter. Sometimes it was difficult to visualize the chracters, but for the main ones you got.
There is a funny fight scene where Quaint and Butter have to take on a mob of guys, and mystery and enough action to keep you occupied. Overall, the story is good but could be better written. Maybe the next one will be better with a setting in Egypt. I know I liked this one enough to give it a try.… (mere)
Those of you paying attention will notice that this is the second book in a row to be reviewed by me here. If you’re very astute, you’ll notice it’s also the second book by the same author and the second book in his series, and… yes… well… anyway…
Before His Time follows the same two protagonists as those in Above His Station, and the action picks up right after the first book left off in the post-credits scene.
Yes, there’s a scene that shows up after the “thanks to…” and so on at the back of the book. There’s one in this book as well. One should be reading everything in a book, as there’s often surprize gifts in store.
As with the previous story, there’s not much I can say about this without giving a great deal of material away.
Had you been here watching me compose this, you’d have seen me pause a great length of time trying to work out how to carry on about this book without revealing much of anything. This is the problem with the book, if such a thing can be considered a ‘problem.’ The whole thing is so very tightly structured it’s much like an avalanche in that one tiny little thing leads irrevocably to the next thing and the next and so on and then one reveals the awful truth about Vader being Luke’s father and how he longs for the simplicity of playing with a sled in the snow when he was a child on Tatooine.
…or something.
I described the first book as not a normal one. Before His Time is even less normal, but even better written and and more fun yet. Darren Craske has successfully set-up a world for his characters in which anything can – and usually does – happen, and he allows them the freedom to stretch imaginations as a result.
As with Above His Station, Mr. Craske provides an entirely believable impossible series of events within a ordinary man and his faithful talking rat companion overcome all the dangers which the dæmons of Hell can muster variety of plot, with characters who nearly always behave in normal ways (when they don’t it’s always in a fashion that is loyal to the plot) in which we can invest our understanding and sympathy.
There’s a third book to come, apparently, presumably with a title beginning with the letter “c” and the word “His” in the middle of it. Personally I can’t wait to read that one as well.
Read all of his books. Darren Craske is the business.
BEFORE HIS TIME by Darren Craske, Dec 29, 2012; ISBN: 1230000148553
EXPLICIT CONTENT: Not suitable for those under 13, as this book contains bad language and graphic descriptions of rodent intercourse.… (mere)
Before His Time follows the same two protagonists as those in Above His Station, and the action picks up right after the first book left off in the post-credits scene.
Yes, there’s a scene that shows up after the “thanks to…” and so on at the back of the book. There’s one in this book as well. One should be reading everything in a book, as there’s often surprize gifts in store.
As with the previous story, there’s not much I can say about this without giving a great deal of material away.
Had you been here watching me compose this, you’d have seen me pause a great length of time trying to work out how to carry on about this book without revealing much of anything. This is the problem with the book, if such a thing can be considered a ‘problem.’ The whole thing is so very tightly structured it’s much like an avalanche in that one tiny little thing leads irrevocably to the next thing and the next and so on and then one reveals the awful truth about Vader being Luke’s father and how he longs for the simplicity of playing with a sled in the snow when he was a child on Tatooine.
…or something.
I described the first book as not a normal one. Before His Time is even less normal, but even better written and and more fun yet. Darren Craske has successfully set-up a world for his characters in which anything can – and usually does – happen, and he allows them the freedom to stretch imaginations as a result.
As with Above His Station, Mr. Craske provides an entirely believable impossible series of events within a ordinary man and his faithful talking rat companion overcome all the dangers which the dæmons of Hell can muster variety of plot, with characters who nearly always behave in normal ways (when they don’t it’s always in a fashion that is loyal to the plot) in which we can invest our understanding and sympathy.
There’s a third book to come, apparently, presumably with a title beginning with the letter “c” and the word “His” in the middle of it. Personally I can’t wait to read that one as well.
Read all of his books. Darren Craske is the business.
BEFORE HIS TIME by Darren Craske, Dec 29, 2012; ISBN: 1230000148553
EXPLICIT CONTENT: Not suitable for those under 13, as this book contains bad language and graphic descriptions of rodent intercourse.… (mere)
It’s not often I’ll write a review of a book, but it’s not often I get to read something so very, very different.
This is not a normal book, IT’S GREAT!
Right, that’s got the pull quote out of the way… which should make someone happy.
Now, what to say about the book per se… well… now comes the trickier part, because at least 90% of the joy of reading this is the constantly nagging question in the mind of _what the hell is going on here?_ It’s not often that one can really have the feeling of discovering things along with the characters; typically one has a rough notion of where things are going ahead of time.
Not with this. No no.
Initially it seems like a fresh take on the set-up presented in *Arthur Machen*’s 1917 novella _The Terror_, which also provided the starting structure of the Benji Spriteman Mysteries _The Terror and the Tortoiseshell_ and _The Designated Coconut_. That’s just the starting point, however.
Once we’re past that… Lordy does the thing get up to cruising altitude quickly, and it stays there right until the end. Imagine trying to explain _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ to someone who’s never even heard of it. How does one go from _there’s a guy who’s going to get his house knocked over for a road…_ all the way to _meeting a man who has two heads and three arms and who happens to be the Galactic President…_ without losing all credibility? You’ve barely got into the story at that point, as well.
Were any of the plot provided, too much would be given away. No, really: anything more than what you already have would ruin the surprise. There’s much in here to exclaim loudly at the page _*what?* Are you insane?_ In a good way, obviously.
The characters are wonderfully developed over the length of the tale, the settings are excellently detailed, and the dialogue is grand stuff with all sorts of witty back-and-forth.
If there is any shortcoming to the book, it’s that it might benefit from a tiny bit of careful, very precise, surgical-style editing. Hastening to emphasis the ‘tiny’ aspect of the criticism, as there’s so much to enjoy that someone simply looking for _a dashed good read_ wouldn’t see a single thing wrong it. I just happen to be a bit more picky, which doesn’t make me any better, it merely makes me “different.”
The first chapter is considerably longer than the rest of them, but does have the herculean task of providing the entire back story of the protagonist and his relatives. While there might be some way to break-up this block of material some way — possibly through the sort involving an initial arrival in Royal Street Station with a large tiger leaping at our hero, followed by a statement of the _…but let me back up and tell you how I got here…_ variety — but I’m at a loss to suggest anything precise.
There are other points through the book that the Editor in me had thoughts of _that last last exchange of dialogue ought to be trimmed back…_ as well as an occasional _might be better to shift that ahead of the action it follows right now…_ but those both were few enough in instance to collectively count on one hand, and they’re only mentioned in order for this to not be seen as an altogether glowing and celebratory review. Praise the good, indicate the bits to work harder on next time; that’s my approach.
Honestly, the best suggestion I can make here is the following:
_It’s great, it’s not like anything you’ve encountered before. It’s tough to really say much more, so just *read* it, okay?_… (mere)
This is not a normal book, IT’S GREAT!
Right, that’s got the pull quote out of the way… which should make someone happy.
Now, what to say about the book per se… well… now comes the trickier part, because at least 90% of the joy of reading this is the constantly nagging question in the mind of _what the hell is going on here?_ It’s not often that one can really have the feeling of discovering things along with the characters; typically one has a rough notion of where things are going ahead of time.
Not with this. No no.
Initially it seems like a fresh take on the set-up presented in *Arthur Machen*’s 1917 novella _The Terror_, which also provided the starting structure of the Benji Spriteman Mysteries _The Terror and the Tortoiseshell_ and _The Designated Coconut_. That’s just the starting point, however.
Once we’re past that… Lordy does the thing get up to cruising altitude quickly, and it stays there right until the end. Imagine trying to explain _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ to someone who’s never even heard of it. How does one go from _there’s a guy who’s going to get his house knocked over for a road…_ all the way to _meeting a man who has two heads and three arms and who happens to be the Galactic President…_ without losing all credibility? You’ve barely got into the story at that point, as well.
Were any of the plot provided, too much would be given away. No, really: anything more than what you already have would ruin the surprise. There’s much in here to exclaim loudly at the page _*what?* Are you insane?_ In a good way, obviously.
The characters are wonderfully developed over the length of the tale, the settings are excellently detailed, and the dialogue is grand stuff with all sorts of witty back-and-forth.
If there is any shortcoming to the book, it’s that it might benefit from a tiny bit of careful, very precise, surgical-style editing. Hastening to emphasis the ‘tiny’ aspect of the criticism, as there’s so much to enjoy that someone simply looking for _a dashed good read_ wouldn’t see a single thing wrong it. I just happen to be a bit more picky, which doesn’t make me any better, it merely makes me “different.”
The first chapter is considerably longer than the rest of them, but does have the herculean task of providing the entire back story of the protagonist and his relatives. While there might be some way to break-up this block of material some way — possibly through the sort involving an initial arrival in Royal Street Station with a large tiger leaping at our hero, followed by a statement of the _…but let me back up and tell you how I got here…_ variety — but I’m at a loss to suggest anything precise.
There are other points through the book that the Editor in me had thoughts of _that last last exchange of dialogue ought to be trimmed back…_ as well as an occasional _might be better to shift that ahead of the action it follows right now…_ but those both were few enough in instance to collectively count on one hand, and they’re only mentioned in order for this to not be seen as an altogether glowing and celebratory review. Praise the good, indicate the bits to work harder on next time; that’s my approach.
Honestly, the best suggestion I can make here is the following:
_It’s great, it’s not like anything you’ve encountered before. It’s tough to really say much more, so just *read* it, okay?_… (mere)
Måske også interessante?
Statistikker
- Værker
- 10
- Medlemmer
- 153
- Popularitet
- #136,480
- Vurdering
- 3.2
- Anmeldelser
- 12
- ISBN
- 17
Darren Craske weaves a tale with layer upon layer of crime, villainy and murder. No-one is quite what they seem, except possibly the horse Cornelius steals to get to Hyde Park more quickly. The story moves rapidly from one side of London to the other and back again, with one character after another proving to have been duped by Mr Reynolds, and most of them ending up dead.
It is a challenging story which moves at a fast pace, yet I felt dissatisfied with it on a number of levels. After the first quarter of the book, the prose became unduly descriptive, with such intricate detail of the surroundings it detracted from the action. The scene and the suspense had been set, such detail was unnecessary. Shortly after there were two or three chapters where long interchanges of dialogue were run together in a single paragraph, so that it was difficult to see who was talking. And the two main characters seemed to delight in making long speeches at each other. Especially once they were finally stripped of their pretences and approaching the denouement. At this stage, the detail had faded into the background, quite in contrast to the earlier chapters. I felt the book needed a good edit to help sort it out. And a map to help them work out why they are having trouble getting from Kensington to Hyde Park when they started from Wapping.
So although I hoped to find a tale that intrigued as much as the description had promised, I am afraid I found Mr Quaint rather tedious in the end, and I won’t be following his further adventures.… (mere)