Book review: BoneMan's Daughters
Jun. 29th, 2010 10:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficDude, what the fuck?
I barely know where to start here. This book breaks rules of drama you didn't even know existed. There are no less than two daring escapes that take place entirely 'off-camera'. A chapter will literally end with the hero thinking "how am I going to get out of this one?" and then after a chapter of other people talking, we catch up with him safe and sound, thinking "man, that was close!" There are two brutal murders, but both of them are reported after the fact and happen to jerks. For a supposed horror novel, this book is relentlessly sanitized. It's the world's first edited-for-TV book.
The basic plot goes something like this. Ryan Evans is an intelligence officer who's captured by insurgents, who then break the bones of Iraqi children in front of him until he agrees to let his own family be killed. This is all revealed in the dullest way possible. It's backstory, having nothing to do with the main plot, yet we go through the events... then at the crisis point, we just skip ahead to him talking to a psychologist about his PTSD. You could say he built a psychosis IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS! Wouldn't it be more dramatic to have him reveal what had happened to him at some point later in the story, or to actually show us him escaping? This is a thriller, where are the thrills?
Anyway, Ryan's brush with death gives him a newfound appreciation for his wife and daughter, but wouldn't you know it, his wife is leaving him for another man. And just in case you feel like sympathizing with the wife in all this 'raising a fucking kid alone' business, the book goes out of the way to make her a one-dimensional witch instead of letting anyone but Ryan Evans be remotely sympathetic. Now, this is just me, but when writing a horror story, shouldn't you try to make the audience like a few characters, then show them being killed so the audience can worry about their fate and then be frightened by their deaths? Look at this, this ridiculous drama-killing characterization.
Celine spun and threw the glass in the sink, where it shattered. "You insolent little cow! You're not even our blood."
Bethan blinked. "What do you mean?"
"You... you're adopted."
[...]The phone rang, and Celine stepped to the phone on light feet. She saw the caller ID, cast one glare at Bethany, and then turned away. "Hello, Burt." All smiles. She was already done with her daughter and in the arms of her lover.
The horror comes in the form of the irritatingly-capitalized BoneMan, who has mixed Freud with Fundamentalism to come up with a seriously uninspired killing spree. His big tic is that he's always thinking something along the lines of 'there were two candy bars BoneMan loved, nay, three he would delight in devouring.' It's supposed to make him seem mentally unbalanced, but it just made me think he was Brian Blessed. "Two, NAAAAAY, THREE!" Just try to read this passage and be frightened of this guy.
There was one thing Alvin despised, nay, two he resented more than death itself. Writers and journalists of all stripes, because they knew far less than their words suggested. Mini Cooper automobiles, because they looked like ladybugs. He disliked bugs because bugs seemed to be attracted to Noxzema lotion for the nutrients it provided them, and he hated women, which made ladybugs a pretty nasty combination.
I didn't change one word of that. That is actually our villain. He kidnaps girls to be his daughter and then kills them when they don't measure up. If you think the author would never be as stupid as to include a pointless twist where he turns out to be Bethany's biological father, think again.
I know stories are supposed to have subtext, but that does not justify long scenes where Ryan (who LOOOOOOOOVES his daughter SOOOOO much) argues with BoneMan about whose daughter she is and how he should be a better father and dude, you're not getting my Bud Light. Neither of them have the wit to start singing "the doggone daughter is mine," so I can't bring myself to care.
There is one scene where the story comes to life, where Ryan has to kill a man for BoneMan by bone-breaking or his daughter dies. It's shamelessly plagiarized from the Saw series, but at least it tries to be horrific. Of course, his failure has no consequences whatsoever. Then at the end, when Ryan and his daughter have managed to beat the BoneMan (this entry sounds dirtier the longer I type it) by sneaking up behind him and hitting him in the head... seriously, that's it... they tie him up and set fire to the house he's in. That's horrifying, but I don't think the author intended it to be. He presents it as an unambiguous Good Thing, as father-daughter bonding! I must've missed the part of the Bible where Jesus said "thou shalt commit vigilante justice, it tis totally sweet."
Yes, the author, Ted Dekker, is a Christian writer, which maybe explains the lifelessness of the story. After all, you don't want to offend your core audience with a story where an ambushed Marine convoy says anything stronger than "crap!" You'd think a worldview that posits that a fallen angel and his army of God-hating demons are spending every waking moment trying to tempt people to evil so that they'll spend eternity being tortured would make for better horror, but I must echo Hank Hill's thoughts on Christian rock. Ted Dekker isn't making Christianity better, he's just making horror worse.
I barely know where to start here. This book breaks rules of drama you didn't even know existed. There are no less than two daring escapes that take place entirely 'off-camera'. A chapter will literally end with the hero thinking "how am I going to get out of this one?" and then after a chapter of other people talking, we catch up with him safe and sound, thinking "man, that was close!" There are two brutal murders, but both of them are reported after the fact and happen to jerks. For a supposed horror novel, this book is relentlessly sanitized. It's the world's first edited-for-TV book.
The basic plot goes something like this. Ryan Evans is an intelligence officer who's captured by insurgents, who then break the bones of Iraqi children in front of him until he agrees to let his own family be killed. This is all revealed in the dullest way possible. It's backstory, having nothing to do with the main plot, yet we go through the events... then at the crisis point, we just skip ahead to him talking to a psychologist about his PTSD. You could say he built a psychosis IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS! Wouldn't it be more dramatic to have him reveal what had happened to him at some point later in the story, or to actually show us him escaping? This is a thriller, where are the thrills?
Anyway, Ryan's brush with death gives him a newfound appreciation for his wife and daughter, but wouldn't you know it, his wife is leaving him for another man. And just in case you feel like sympathizing with the wife in all this 'raising a fucking kid alone' business, the book goes out of the way to make her a one-dimensional witch instead of letting anyone but Ryan Evans be remotely sympathetic. Now, this is just me, but when writing a horror story, shouldn't you try to make the audience like a few characters, then show them being killed so the audience can worry about their fate and then be frightened by their deaths? Look at this, this ridiculous drama-killing characterization.
Celine spun and threw the glass in the sink, where it shattered. "You insolent little cow! You're not even our blood."
Bethan blinked. "What do you mean?"
"You... you're adopted."
[...]The phone rang, and Celine stepped to the phone on light feet. She saw the caller ID, cast one glare at Bethany, and then turned away. "Hello, Burt." All smiles. She was already done with her daughter and in the arms of her lover.
The horror comes in the form of the irritatingly-capitalized BoneMan, who has mixed Freud with Fundamentalism to come up with a seriously uninspired killing spree. His big tic is that he's always thinking something along the lines of 'there were two candy bars BoneMan loved, nay, three he would delight in devouring.' It's supposed to make him seem mentally unbalanced, but it just made me think he was Brian Blessed. "Two, NAAAAAY, THREE!" Just try to read this passage and be frightened of this guy.
There was one thing Alvin despised, nay, two he resented more than death itself. Writers and journalists of all stripes, because they knew far less than their words suggested. Mini Cooper automobiles, because they looked like ladybugs. He disliked bugs because bugs seemed to be attracted to Noxzema lotion for the nutrients it provided them, and he hated women, which made ladybugs a pretty nasty combination.
I didn't change one word of that. That is actually our villain. He kidnaps girls to be his daughter and then kills them when they don't measure up. If you think the author would never be as stupid as to include a pointless twist where he turns out to be Bethany's biological father, think again.
I know stories are supposed to have subtext, but that does not justify long scenes where Ryan (who LOOOOOOOOVES his daughter SOOOOO much) argues with BoneMan about whose daughter she is and how he should be a better father and dude, you're not getting my Bud Light. Neither of them have the wit to start singing "the doggone daughter is mine," so I can't bring myself to care.
There is one scene where the story comes to life, where Ryan has to kill a man for BoneMan by bone-breaking or his daughter dies. It's shamelessly plagiarized from the Saw series, but at least it tries to be horrific. Of course, his failure has no consequences whatsoever. Then at the end, when Ryan and his daughter have managed to beat the BoneMan (this entry sounds dirtier the longer I type it) by sneaking up behind him and hitting him in the head... seriously, that's it... they tie him up and set fire to the house he's in. That's horrifying, but I don't think the author intended it to be. He presents it as an unambiguous Good Thing, as father-daughter bonding! I must've missed the part of the Bible where Jesus said "thou shalt commit vigilante justice, it tis totally sweet."
Yes, the author, Ted Dekker, is a Christian writer, which maybe explains the lifelessness of the story. After all, you don't want to offend your core audience with a story where an ambushed Marine convoy says anything stronger than "crap!" You'd think a worldview that posits that a fallen angel and his army of God-hating demons are spending every waking moment trying to tempt people to evil so that they'll spend eternity being tortured would make for better horror, but I must echo Hank Hill's thoughts on Christian rock. Ted Dekker isn't making Christianity better, he's just making horror worse.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-29 07:24 pm (UTC)Austin 3:16.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 01:25 am (UTC)Also, they're superheroes.
HOW'S THAT FOR EXCITING?
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-06-30 06:10 pm (UTC)Of course if you take the hippie cool guy approach to Jesus, it would probably be less of a fight and more of a mild confrontation.
Dragon: "Raaar I am fierce and possibly a sexual metaphor! I burninate your village!"
Jesus: "Hey man."
Dragon: "Oh shi-"
Jesus: "What the hell is this, Dragon?"
Dragon: "Hey Jesus you don't even know. I got problems man. Like real problems."
Jesus: "This is not cool, man."
Dragon: "Yeah okay I know. I know. But man I have all these issues, and this stuff..."
Jesus: "You could've called me, man. You could've called."
Dragon: "Fuck, man, I know. I know I shoulda called."
Jesus: "Well come on let's go give my dad a call and see if he can't straighten this shit out. No more burninating and shit, dude."
Dragon: "Yeah okay."