For people who like Stiegg Larrrsssonnnn:

[theweaselking]

What's the appeal?

I'm a third of the way through the first book, and so far he's basically a moderately boring Len Deighton with more Lutefisk and larger Mary Sues.

What am I missing?

Comments

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Keep going. It gets better. I got about 30 pages in early in the summer, went "what the shit is this shit, I thought this was supposed to be good?", set it aside, and only picked it back up for semi-disposable plane reading. And yeah, it definitely got better. It's not a fast mover, in any sort of fashion, and it likes to take its time. Eventually, it gets there.

[atothek.livejournal.com]

I have not read any Len Deighton, so I can offer no comparison. I can say that I thought the second book way better than the first -- and the third book way better than the second.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Deighton is... methodical.

You get "at 3:04 pm on Friday, Our Protagonist picked up the blue phone on in his temporary office on the second floor of 308 South George Street (the satellite FBI office here in Fredricksburg, North Carolina) and dialled 555-555-5555 - the direct line to Vlad 'Vladisvostok' Vladson, the KGB station chief at the Soviet embassy at 2345 Whatever Street in Washington. The call was automatically routed through three Bell S902 Switches before the beige phone on Vladson's fourth floor, north side office rung with a distinctive bell-like trill"

Basically, every detail is spelled out. Constantly. EVERY LAST DETAIL.

That's Len Deighton.

[ice-hesitant.livejournal.com]

The goal of this writing style is to avoid the corollary of Chekhov's Law.

Chekhov's Law says that, if there's a gun on a shelf in the first act, it must be fired in the last.

The corollary would be that, if there's a gun on a shelf in the first act, you know how the book will end and so there's no point in reading to the end.

The writing style aims to avoid the corollary by DDOSing the reader with red herrings while still slipping in a gun on a shelf.

[bunnybutt.livejournal.com]

You haven't even begun to suffer until you're halfway through the 2nd book. Kept waiting for it to get better, but it got worse.

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

I thought the Thomas Covenant books were a never-ending spiral of that. I eagerly awaited each successive book, thinking "this can't POSSIBLY be worse than the last one, can it?", and sure enough, it was.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

And you'd think that they couldn't degenerate after opening with the protagonist raping a woman.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of Memnoch the Devil. I kept thinking "well INterview with a Vampire started out slow but got better."

And yet, that didn't happen.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Damn, first his books pop up as the top suggestion on Amazon, then one of the book covers is on one of the screens on the Kindle page (and not auto-generated from what I was just browsing), now you're yakking about him. Weird.

Finish it and see how you feel.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

I don't normally read thriller/mysteries/whatever this is, but I'm enjoying the first book quite a bit now that it got rolling.

[marlo.livejournal.com]

I haven't read them, but my theory is that books like The Da Vinci Code become so popular, I think, because they appeal to people who don't normally read. They're easy and fun, and then it gets all hyped up because everybody has read it and they haven't read enough to know there are way better things out there. Whereas people who DO read a lot are like, "what is the big fuss? I've read like 100 books better than that one."

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

See, if I didn't regularly read, I would be all WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS USELESS SHIT like 100+ pages ago.

[andrewducker]

I made it less than a page into The Da Vinci Code before having to put it down before I was driven made with rage at the awful writing.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, on the other hand, is perfectly competently written. I wasn't blown away by it, but then I'm not a massive thriller reader.

The Swedish-made film of the first book is well worth seeing, if you don't mind subtitles.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

I wonder if I kept with the book because I saw the movie and kind of liked it.

But man, there's a ton of stuff about financial news.

[andrewducker]

Aaah. I find financial stuff fascinating - I used to have a subscription to The Economist :->

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

"The Girl...." series has something in common with "The Da Vinci Code" in that it's a runaway hit, but whereas the "The Da Vinci Code" is just crappy writing for people who don't read (sort of like how Travis is music for people who don't like music) "The Girl...." series is sort of OK, only somewhat hyped.

[swwoodsy.livejournal.com]

It does get better and it does pick up. Bear in mind that the author of these books was also an investigative journalist, so it is methodical because he is essentially building a case. (If you want to be a reputable investigative journalist, you need to back up your wild claims with evidence. Doesn't seem to stop others, but maybe Sweden has different standards.) So setting all that up can be a little dull, but it is important.

[jettakd.livejournal.com]

You are missing nothing. That book utterly sucked imo.

[kowh.livejournal.com]

I read as far as the Kindle sample went, and your take was pretty much my take. It's not actively offensive, but not actively interesting either. As a sample, it really doesn't make one want to buy the full book.

Not that I needed much encouragement to skip Larsson, but just after I finished the sample, Zero History dropped, so I haven't looked back.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

It's a decent 300 page thriller trapped in a bloated 650 book that seems to think that you want to read about financial reporting and Men who Hate Women (the original title and it is sure trying to live up to it)