I read a lot. I have tried reading classics like Dickens and Hemingway, but find them a bit too stuffy or cerebral for real enjoyment.
I mainly read what I call bubblegum for the mind, fantasy, sci-fi, or anything with a comic theme. One thing that gets my goat, however, is a series of books which not only feature the same good guy protagonist, but also the same villain.
When I get into a series, I like to think I have invested time in getting to know the main character.
I know what he or she does, their background and what motivates them. I like to think that I am in for a torrid time where they are continuously one step behind the bad guy but have a series of remarkable escapes and finally triumph and put the baddie away, maybe even in a classic rooftop finale.
There is nothing wrong with series such as James Bond or Philip Marlow or even Rincewind the Wizzard, where each has a different scenario and foe to be overcome.
Modern authors seem to be lacking in imagination because having set the scene and introduced the main character, and even his enemy, they cannot do the same with further books in the series. It is just too easy to keep both sides the same and have the good guy winning at the end but the baddie escaping to fight another day.
This means that when you pick up the next book in the series, and a few pages in you understand that it is still the same enemy, you know exactly how it is going to end, which is a bit annoying when you are only at page five.
I now have a collection of authors whom I have given up with after a few books when I realise this scenario. In fact if I read book one of a series, and there is no closure for the reader at the end, I rarely pick up book two. Some authors such as our own Seumas Gallacher write about the same group of good guys, but there is a different situation and different villain in each book.
So when you pick one up, you know you are going to get a satisfying ending even if he throws a couple of surprises halfway through. Ian Fleming gave James Bond a different villain in most of the books. It has been the ghost writers keeping the series going who have started to bring the same villain to more than one book.
In science fiction, you can have the Borg or the Empire in a number of different books but they are spaced out and not in consecutive episodes.
In television, it is happening also I have given up with Sherlock because Moriarty was only in one book, The Adventure of the Final Problem where he fell to his death along with Sherlock Holmes and that was that. But in the TV series, he is in every episode and always manages to escape.
So what’s the point in watching it? I also think it’s time the Doctor killed off the Daleks and the Master as well.
Jackie@JBeedie.com