Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site uvacs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!columbia!topaz!packard!desoto!cbdkc1!cbosgd!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!ncsu!uvacs!rwl
From: rwl@uvacs.UUCP (Ray Lubinsky)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Re: To Reign in Hell ("The Idiot Plot" ???!!!)
Message-ID: <2294@uvacs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Aug-85 23:47:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uvacs.2294
Posted: Tue Aug 13 23:47:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 07:25:31 EDT
References: <3505@decwrl.UUCP> <2660@ihuxf.UUCP>
Organization: U.Va. CS in Charlottesville VA
Lines: 28

> Just to toss out another opinion on this book; this was the worst book
> that I've ever finished.  It wasn't bad enough to make me give up on
> it completely, I guess I just kept waiting for it to get good.  
> Admittedly fantasy is my least favorite form of fiction but this book
> borderlined on what Roger Ebert likes to call "The Idiot Plot".  If any
> one of the main characters acted sensibly during the first half of the
> book, the book would have been over.  After all the good things I'd
> heard about the book, I was definitely disappointed.

   You, sir or madam, wouldn't know a work of fiction if it jumped up and bit
you on the arse!  ``The Idiot Plot,'' huh?  Perhaps you haven't read ``Romeo and
Juliet,'' a play by Will somebody-or-other.  Melodrama, man, M-E-L-O-D-R-A-M-A.
It isn't often handled too well these days; I really credit Steve Brust with a
job well done for ``To Reign in Hell.''

   Melodrama means your characters are prey to forces beyond their control.  In
this myth, even the gods are caught in the web of their own machinations.  The
characters don't ``act sensibly''... but rather they act like people.  Brust
handles this with the dexterity and dry wit of the early Zelzany.  Yeah, it's
got some flaws, but the overall quality is high.

   Who knows -- maybe you were joking.  You know, ``:-)'', and all that.
Probably not.  I guess you're right; fantasy isn't your can of worms.  Back to
Sidney Sheldon with you.
-- 

Ray Lubinsky		     University of Virginia, Dept. of Computer Science
			     uucp: decvax!mcnc!ncsu!uvacs!rwl