Caveat Lector

Among the dangers of blogging one must reckon loss of interest in certain first-person writing styles.

After reading the light, amusing Khaavren books by Steven Brust—quite competent Dumas pastiche, though if I’d been editor I’d have lined through some of the lengthier crosstalk sections—I picked up a couple of Vlad Taltos books, hoping for more of the same.

Nope. Vlad Taltos is a prime example of the First Person Smartass, and I can’t read that stuff any more. I used to be able to. I read some of the Stainless Steel Rat books in high school and thought they were okay, though I do hope the dreadful grammar was an intended character effect and not the result of an editor asleep at his/her desk. (Even in my father’s freshman-anthro essay exams I never saw so many run-on sentences.)

If I’ve got to live inside a character’s head, I’d really prefer that the character be someone I can get along with, or at least understand enough to tolerate. Snide, manipulative know-it-alls—smartasses, in a word—just plain don’t make my list.

So no more Vlad Taltos for this blogger. Plenty more first-person writing out there in the blogsphere, most of it better.