Couldn't finish

For some of you, that's all you need to know.

 But wait, there's more to the story, and that's part of the problem.

Some stories are easy to follow. Ones based on the hero's journey typically are. Think of every superhero movie lately; they plod along from step to step, dull as used dishwater at best. Writers found they could build interest by combining several stories, or mixing up the order the story is told in, or adding extra layers of description. Anything to dress up one of the few original plots. (Some say 7, some 12, but in any case there's only a few.) Writers have to tickle your imagination, but movie makers can delight it with special effects showing things never before seen, or utterly impossible things, or they can bludgeon your poor imagination into submission with badly done effects.

For me, there has to be a character I care about for some reason somewhere along the way, preferably one of the main characters. I'll noodle through poor writing, dreary chases, artificial complications, whatever, to see what happens to 'my' character. I don't care how they dress up a chase, it's boring unless you care if 'your' character escapes or catches their goal.

That turned out to be the problem with Starless Sea. The person I thought of as the main character was completely colourless. He went through these beautifully described, magical places, and I had no idea why or what he was trying to do. He might as well have been a marble bouncing around a pinball table.

I wanted to like it. Her first book, The Night Circus is amazing and I recommend it to everyone. Even Starless Sea, I loved the descriptions of the places, and they tickled my imagination, and some of the little side stories are wonderful. But we'd see a place and move on, never to return. I couldn't see how the places affected the character, or how the order of them mattered. Then time travel started coming into it, and I started to lose it. Then a wardrobe and I was done. I put it down and looked at it for several days and couldn't pick it up. I think Linda has started, but don't know what she thinks.

Next is Shadow of the Wind.

Some waterfall shots for you. These are between Dunedin and Invercargill. We stopped to have a snack and do this short walk. As will be obvious, I played with different camera settings.

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A flower from the rose garden in Dunedin.

Cats of the Day

Driftwood of the Day
All the same chunk. This beautiful smooth gold finish shows up periodically, and in the right light it's absolutely gorgeous.