One for the books
I don't get the same thrill out of visiting the bookstore as once I did. There was a time when simply walking into a bookstore used to make me happy, and I could spend ages browsing racks and finding things I'd simply love to read. But that doesn't happen anymore. I can go and browse the bookstore, but it doesn't hold the same allure, the same interest it once did.Maybe it has something to do with books hitting the $10-12 mark for a single paperback. Maybe it's the fact that you no longer find as much variety. Now it seems like I look on the shelf and it's 38 titles by the same author I've tried and don't like. Look at the Horror rack. There's a bazillion Stephen Kings, Dean Koontz, and Anne Rices, and then three pedestrian works by people you don't know.
Maybe that's part of it too. The stuff being churned out these days seems to always be hackneyed plots populated by cardboard, stereotypical characters. I find the sci-fi/fantasy section particularly depressing these days. Every book I see there seems to suffer from delusions of Tolkein (in itself a bad idea, he wasn't that good a writer, Lord of the Rings isn't the best book ever written), and the stories are afflicted with everything that made the first draft of Star Wars unsellable to the studios. They're all:
Ooopson Oodilo has lived in Zaptap all his life, tending his Jagteeks, never suspecting that he was anything more than a simple farmer. But when rebellion breaks out in Flagthurgh, and the Princess Quisha needs help, Ooopson is the only one who can save the Flathurghian Empire. Ooopson sets out with his best friend, Fuzzinks a 9 foot tall living teddy bear, to save the Princess Quisha and reclaim his birthright as Emperor of Flathurghia.
Or words to that effect at least. It seems like all you have to do is stick some bizzare names on things, tie it to a trite plot and Bob's your uncle you've got a Fantasy series. Oh yes, has to be a series. If it's not a 15 story chronicle it's not worth publishing.
sigh
Well, maybe the potential of ebooks and that sort of thing will help reinvent the publishing industry. Maybe that way we'll start to find some new stories (well, new twists on the standards anyway). What I see it as is, in general, a lack of imagination on the part of the creators of this drivel. I don't know if it's the writers, the publisher, both, neither...all I know is that there seems to me to be a lot of chaff for very little wheat.
I'll keep going to the bookstore. I'll even keep looking, and keep hoping for that spark to come back. Someday I know it will.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home