Why the World May as Well End Right Now

                I’m just going to throw it out there. Tamora Pierce is my favorite author ever. Or at least she was. You may not have heard of her, and I can guarantee you that your life is deficient because of it. It’s not that she’s the greatest writer in the world. Heavens no I have certainly read better, but in my calm subjective opinion she is the best storyteller ever to grace fiction. To me the point of a good story is to get one out of one’s own head and into the world described before them. The world of Tortal in Pierce’s novels is spread out among numerous books and is the connecting vein between several different series’. It is the common factor that makes every book of hers enjoyable. Her world is captivating in a way that transports you right onto the streets of an imaginary place like nothing, so different from the world you know. The problems in this place are old worldly and are like nothing that people of our generation have ever had to face. However, the human interaction is such that you can relate in a very human way. It’s fantastical and just plain fantastic. Everyone that I have ever encountered that has read even one of her books is a happier person for it.  Thusly I believed that she could do no wrong. Apparently I was very mistaken.

So sue me. I like books

                I have read seventeen of Pierce’s novels and had enjoyed every moment of every single one. Then I read her most recent novel that came out in 2011. I realized after that that the world may as well end right now for my favorite author had clearly run out of ideas.  This may sound melodramatic to some, but most people can’t even begin to comprehend how profoundly I love books. I collect them by the hundreds and read them by the thousands. I’m passionate about each and every one. I love books and wildly hate them, rarely am I ambivalent. When I read books I feel.  So, when I say that the world may as well end now I mean it. The woman I had thought to be the greatest living author gave me the greatest let down of my life.

Best book ever

Worst book ever!

 The book to which I credit my searing disappointment  was the third book in what had previously been my second favorite series by Pierce simply entitled after the main character Bekka Cooper (my first favorite series is Wild Magic, and it truly is divine. Just so ya know.) I won’t explain what the series is about here because I have never read a plot summary that has EVER done a book justice. Let me suffice to say that the series was superb.  It has intrigue, subterfuge, romance, mystery, action, and everything else that has ever made a book great. So imagine my surprise when I rushed out to buy the last book in this series entitled Mastiff, (yes an actual copy because well, screw kindle) rush home in a frenzy to read what I imagine is the most fantastic read I’ve had in months only to find out that it was terrible. I had been waiting a year to read this (since I had finished the previous one without this one being written yet.) So I had waited all that time to have this book be such a letdown. But it wasn’t only disappointing, or poor compared to her other books, it was flat out bad. I hadn’t read a book that horrendous in years, and the poor quality was something that you would expect from a first time novelist, not a seasoned and acclaimed author of over twenty-seven books. How was it horrible you may ask? Oh, let me count the ways.

See look how can you make such a rookie move after all these?

                                  

First I have to ask, is it just me, or is the point of a series to tell one cohesive story stretched out over a few books? It’s not just me right? Ya, I didn’t think so. So imagine my surprise when I open the last book in a series to find that it has almost nothing to do with the previous two installments!  It wasn’t merely a skip forward in time. Oh no, that happens often in well written series. (Series?  Series’s? Series’? Seriously how do you pluralize that word?) It wasn’t even that there were different characters to pick up where we left off; I almost wish there had been, no matter how much I had wanted to continue the story where it last left off. No such luck. It just left a huge chunk out of the eponymous characters life and expected you to feel empathy for events that the reader was unaware had even occurred.

  At the end of the previous book there had been a budding romance that most of the fan base had just been waiting to blossom. Once again no such luck.  Enter book three where there was an apparent relationship and engagement between the main character and a brand new man that happened entirely out of text!  That’s right. In that gap poof new man we know nothing about. I’m sorry that’s just poor, sloppy writing. You can at least use a prologue instead of just leaving it to the imagination. People are lazy. The whole point of reading is to have someone use our imagination for us. Nope this time the reader has to make the whole thing up. The book actually opens upon this random dude’s funeral. Awesome so he’s dead now. Am I supposed to feel sad at the death of this character I don’t know?   That’s all she wrote. There was a man, the protagonist loved him, and he died. Forget the fact that she had emotions for another man at the end of the last book. Nope! Someone else was there, he died… classy.

 Well, for those fans interested in the continuation of a romance from the second book at least the new man is dead right? That means she can get right back into it with her old flame yes? Ha ha just kidding. Nope everyone’s favorite rogue there for two second, maybe less than five pages and is never mentioned again.  What? Okay, I get artistic license, but come on, that was the only reason that anyone even cared about what happened anyways. Trust me if you haven’t read the books you would have loved him. But you know that’s just a personal peeve of mine, not necessarily bad writing.  I mean a bit baffling, but not exactly bad.  Authors do stuff that I don’t agree with all the time. Well, after that piece of creative genius it all went downhill from there and truly showed what a bad book looked like.

Boring, that’s what a bad book is. It’s boring. I have never been so captivated by a story than a book written by Tamora Pierce, but I was so bored! It was a struggle to read the rest of the book. Only the thought that surely it must get better let me struggle through, but I turned the last page and was still just uninterested. It was shallow and vague and just poor story telling. The whole thing was a facsimile of former glory. Mastiff took everything great about the rest of the series and tried to reiterate what had been into a new story. It didn’t work. It was then that I knew that Pierce had flat out used up all of her God given writing talent. The flow of such grandeur can apparently only last so long. She had tried to tell the same story in a different way, but it just lacked the luster that brings a book to life.

The rest of the faults of this book aren’t even worth specifically worth reiterating. Just thinking about them fills me with a terrible feeling of ennui. But, just like I was when reading the book I must soldier on and drag through the awfulness if only for a bit more. There were new characters, but they were awful. I have discussed this with others that have read this book, who actually disagree with this sentiment, but they’re wrong, they were awful. Period. The plot should have been intriguing, but it wasn’t. I felt like I’d read it before, and I had. It was merely the rest of Pierce’s other works combined.  There was a new love interest for our heroine but he was uninteresting. Especially when compared to the intrigue of a former flame.  There was horrific treachery but I couldn’t even muster the energy to be appalled. Finally there was conquest and conclusion. I had read over 1,500 pages about this characters life and couldn’t even be bothered to be excited when she became freaking Abraham Lincoln and ended slavery all by herself. That is how much I didn’t care.

                So now it’s over, my faith in an infallible story writer, the story, and this article. The world of good literature has now ended and now that I know there are to be no more good stories such as the like of Tamora Pierce in her prime the world can end too for all I care. Wait… ooh this one looks good… I’ll be right back. Okay so my declaration of the end of the world might have been a little hasty (and melodramatic [slightly.]) Perhaps there are more good stories as of yet unread and explored.  I guess I was just really disappointed. But I mean really it was just bad! I guess we all have to get back out there and realize that there’s more to life than one failure, disappointment, or embarrassment.