To say nothing of the dog: Connie Wills - reading_fox's review

Before I post this in review discussions I thought I'd check in here that I haven't been too harsh, and that I've actually made sense: Hopefully I've taken the worst of the typing errors out.

to say nothing of the dog : my review

Dull. Drags throughout, with the increased boredom of the victorian era, and a hopelessly unresolved paradoxical timetravel plot. I think it's supposed to be funny. It isn't.

The year is somewhen in the future. And a woman with a silly name has risen to a position of influence and decided that all resources must be used to rebuild the Nazi bombed Coventry cathedral in all it's glory. This requires the 'historians' to travel back in time through the 'net' to establish exactly - god is in the details - how it looked back then. And for some reason nobody can get into the cathedral or even Coventry at the time of the raid to determin if a hideous statue called the Bishop's Bird Stump is actually there. Hence the researchers are sent to various other times to try and determine the answer from other evidence. This results in our heroine Verity rescuing a cat in the victorean era, and our hero being sent back there to replace it. Confused? So you should be. The remaining 300 pages are a Victorean 'comedy' of manners as Ned tries to cope with Victorian society and ensure everything happens as it's supposed to. Bizarrely, the ending suddenly turns into a 30s mystery novel.

The characters are thin, 1D cutouts with no complexity, no ulterior motives (or any motives), and dull, except from the very few occasions when they're mindlessly overexaggerated. The plot doesn't make sense, no effort is made to explain the science, or the deviations, logical consequences or paradoxes. There's lots of tedious exposition about various historical events, and the significance or otherwise of them - and then plenty of statements that they couldn't have been changed anyway. So who cares? It doesn't work on many levels.

The prose is fairly light, but overly descriptive at times. It fails to capture any tension, even in the middle of an air raid. There's no romantic interest until everyone collapses in each others' arms. Perhaps the dog is the most sympathetic character in it, and he does nothing but drool. Even worse the formatting emulates the victorean gothic novels with themed chapter headings. A style that just ought to have died out long ago: if I want to know what happens, I'll read the actual words. Although the book is so badly written in places that I was tempted to just read the headings and skip the words.

Don't bother reading this, and I'm unlikely to read any of the author's other works. It was that bad.

Over all I thought it was decent and sounds fair for the book

The ending bizarrely suddenly turns into a 30s mystery novel.

This sentence is weird, it's missing something.

Maybe

The ending suddenly and bizarrely turns into a 30s mystery novel. ?

Overall I think it is a good review. I just picked up a couple of points that bother me. Mainly a question of syntax.

There is something wrong with this sentence There's no romantic interest until everyone collapses in someone else’ arms.. I can't quite pinpoint what and I don't think it is just the missing "s" after the apostrophe in "else's". I hope someone else can say what, but it just doesn't read well to me.

and also here A style that is just ought to have died out long ago "that is just ought to have" doesn't make sense to me. Maybe drop the "is" so that it reads A style that just ought to have died out long ago or A style that just should have died out long ago.

Hope this helps.

edit for typo:-)

No, you aren't too harsh on the book. You didn't like it and explained why. Why soften up your opinions?

I just found a few issues:

Confused? so you should be.

The 'S' in So should be capitalized.

The ending bizarrely suddenly turns into a 30s mystery novel.

The two -ly words in a row read funny. I agree with post #2, there should be an and in the middle.

The characters are thin, 1D cut-outs with no complexity, ulterior motives (or any motives), and dull, apart from when they're mindlessly over exaggerated.

A couple of things here. I think ulterior motives could use a no or or before it. Also, apart should be aside or except I think.

I have a couple of suggestions based on what readafew and calm have said.

I think that, in The ending bizarrely suddenly turns into a 30s mystery novel, "suddenly" is modifying "turns", but "bizarrely" applies to the whole sentence, so it should read Bizarrely, the ending suddenly turns into a 30s mystery novel. That is, what r_f wants to indicate is that the ending suddenly turns into a 30s mystery novel, and that is a bizarre thing for an ending to do.

There's no romantic interest until everyone collapses in someone else’ arms.. As calm said, else's definitely needs its final s. But I think it might be better as There's no romantic interest until everyone collapses in each others' arms.. Or maybe until they all suddenly pair up.

Thanks all.

I've incorporated your suggestions.

Oops, we missed "victorean". Should be "Victorian".

ETA: three times!