Jay Pearmon

It’s hard to be overly critical of any Terry Pratchett novel. His Discworld books are fabulous, mixing humor and satire beautifully. Unfortunately, the long wait for Unseen Academicals didn’t produce the fabulous story I had been hoping for.

It’s not that the story is bad, but the humor is on the light side. Several new characters are introduced in the story, which seems to put the focus on developing the characters rather than using familiar favorites to engage in witty banter and biting satire. The new characters are treated kindly and the story becomes more a lesson in accepting others despite differences than anything ironic. Which is fine and good, but when I read Pratchett, I want text that makes me laugh out loud. There was none of that here.

As mentioned though, any Terry Pratchett makes for a great book, so it’s hard to be too critical. It’s still an excellent story, just not up to par. According to his web site, it sounds like another Tiffany Aching novel is up next, so I’m hoping all the humor will be packed into that.

I had to resort to an audiobook to make it through the New Testament, but it worked. While the reader was a bit dramatic, he helped keep people separate and gave appropriate emphasis in the correct places. I chose this translation because I had heard it was the most “scholarly” and it seemed to be pretty legitimate.

As for the New Testament itself, it was interesting to compare the actual writing to what preachers and conservative Christians think the Bible actually says. The strongest impression is found in the four gospels, where Jesus consistently preaches about love for all and getting along with one another. There’s no hate, but lots of emphasis on not judging other people. It’s sad how distorted this message becomes when in the mouths of the wrong people. Once you get into the letters of Paul and so forth, more of the judgmental ideas start to surface. But if you focus on what Jesus says, it’s really all about loving each other.

I think this needs several listens to really understand, so I look forward to going through it again at some point in the future.

Romantic fiction is not generally my genre of choice, but given that Radclyffe is a popular lesbian fiction writer, I thought it was necessary to give this a try.

Radclyffe has some great plot ideas, and this one is no different. Her ideas for situations are unique and capture the reader’s interest. Her characters aren’t quite as developed as they could be, but they are still different and interesting nonetheless, except for physical features, which seem to standardize with fit and slightly muscular.

That being said, Radclyffe gets stuck in the romance aspect of romance fiction a bit too much. Above All, Honor is actually on the light side of the romance, and because of that, is probably the best one in her Honor series. I much prefer contemplating the plot than hearing about what goes on under the sheets.

Of course, quite a few people think otherwise, so that is what makes Radclyffe popular. She delivers for her audience. However, I can’t help but be slightly disappointed that she doesn’t take a slightly more serious approach to fiction and fully explore her strong creativity for plots and stories that engage the reader, rather than write for the largest common denominator.