POLL!

[telophase]

Teh back cover blurb of Deborah Chester's The Pearls reads:

Lady Lea--beloved sister of the Emperor Caelan--is beautiful, good-hearted, and magically gifted, with the ability to see into the hearts of others. And when what she sees moves her to tears, those tears are transformed into flawless pearls.

Lord Shadrael, dispatched by his warlord brother to kidnap a member of the royal family, chooses Lea. A hardened warrior, he believes himself impervious to her powerful gifts. But on their journey through the fearsome Hidden Ways of the shadow world, he is drawn to Lea's goodness and inner strength...

In Shadreal, Lea can forsee her destiny, even as she anticipates great grief. For ultimately, if she is to save Shadrael from his own darkness, she will have to choose between her brother and her abductor...
[Poll #1223143]

ETA: Damn! I forgot to add "Keep me humming ZZTop's "Pearl Necklace" and sniggering throughout the whole book." to the list of options!

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Where is the ticky for "BWAHAHAHA"?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Hee. :D I bought it because it's either going to be awful, which means I can make entertaining posts about it on LJ, or she'll hit me right in the narrative kink with the kidnapper there. Either way, I win. XD

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I gave serious consideration to looking it up to make my own entertaining posts, but if you're going to do it anyway, that's much less painful for me. I look forward to them.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I may bounce off it in the first chapter if it's not bad enough to be good, but we'll see. XD

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Honestly, if she didn't cry beautiful pearls, I think I would've gone for it.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I ask this too!

[chomiji]

> sigh <

Y'know, this is how I became the manga-reading fool I am today: the SF&F that's been coming out the past few years is total crud.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yup.

But ya know? In a manga, if I read "...when what she sees moves her to tears, those tears are transformed into flawless pearls" on the back, I'd be laughing hysterically and buy it, because I know there's a chance it would contain The Good Crack. XD

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Either that, or the mangaka is TOTALLY stealing from Yu Yu Hakusho.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Why do you think I've been mostly reading YA and stuff that's been out for a while, lately?

[keelieinblack.livejournal.com]

I wish you hadn't put 'Sanzo' as an option--now I'm picturing the ikkou getting stuck in some dump which has no newspapers to read, but is just FULL of the Saiyuki-world versions of this awful book.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

FIC! FIC! FIC!

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

...and I bet Gojyo secretly LOVES them to bits, reading them painfully slowly with one finger tracing over the lines as his lips move; but he keeps them buried way down in the bottom of his satchel under the porno mags, for fear of the mockery that would ensue if the guys ever catch him at something so hopelessly uncool...

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Heeeeeee! XD

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

The pearl-tears thing, of course, reminds me of Yukina from Yuu Yuu Hakusho. XD

I hope you enjoy it more than I enjoyed Diplomacy of Wolves (by Elizabeth Moon), which I checked out for similar reasons. (WEREWOLVES. FANTASY WEREWOLVES! MAGICAL FANTASY WEREWOLVES! But then someone warned me that the tone of DARKNESS and DESPAIR and excessive rape was going to continue through the third book, and, uh. No thanks.)

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

Goddamit. You won me over and turned me off within one paragraph.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I had to keep looking back to remind myself that this was fantasy, not a medieval romance.

But, you know, what's inside could be much better than the hideous blurb...the heroine of one of the more recent books I read had the makings of a Mary Sue From Hell, but she ended up pretty great.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

It could be interesting EXCEPT for the bit where he's attracted to her purity and goodness.
GAG

[the-z.livejournal.com]

Almost anything can be improved by bacon.

I'm not sure if this is one of those things.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I figure the bacon couldn't make it any _worse_...

[mscongeniality.livejournal.com]

And where's the non-treif options for the rest of us?

[maiteoida.livejournal.com]

....are you kidding.

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

I predict, using the magic brain power, that in the last or next-to-last chapter, she will weep tears of JOY that will turn into the most fabulous pearls - or possibly diamonds - ever seen.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

If I manage to get that far, I'll let you know! And I will, if the books is as full of editing howlers as the second page is, which I'm about to post on.

[chomiji]

To quote the immortal Thurber in The 13 Clocks:

The jewels of sorrow last beyond all measure,

But the jewels of laughter will give you little pleasure.

I bet The 13 Clocks is a lot funnier!

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

The 13th Clocks clearly has NOTHING on one of this author's other books:

http://www.amazon.com/Sword-Ring-Chalice-Book/dp/0441007023/

"Two men. One is a prince of royal blood. The other is a half-breed,
part human, part elf. But the part that is human is also royal.

Two women. One is a princess, pampered and protected. The other lives
in the forest, the leader of a band of rebels. She too has eleven
blood.

This is their story--the tale of love and hate, courage and
cowardliness, and magic both dark and light... "

I'm speechless. It's like a 5th grader's book review.

[chomiji]

Well, it's true that The 13 Clocks was meant to be funny, so it can't really compete in this arena ... .

XD

That is some primo bad blurb writing! But then, even the blurbs of good books can be stultifyingly bad. In fact, whenever I see a really good blurb, I wonder if the author wrote it her/himself.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Oh, please please please tell me that the "eleven" typo is actually printed on the hard copy. That would be beyond awesome!

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

See, that sounds *great*. But then again, I have a tag specifically for mocking books in my LJ, so my great may not be the same as any one else's great.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Oh, I do appreciate me some fine (http://telophase.livejournal.com/tag/death+trance) cheese (http://telophase.livejournal.com/tag/wtf+bollywood%3F). It just remains to be seen if the book is bad enough to be entertaining, or just dull. XD

[akaihyo.livejournal.com]

I almost laughed myself silly over the poll, especially the first choice, but I have not made up my mind on how to vote yet . . .

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping for "so bad it's good," at least. :)

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

By what mechanism are her tears transformed to pearls? Is she oyster-eyed?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I haven't got there yet! Our (Anti)Hero has just strapped on his spikey armor to go abduct her!

[viridian5.livejournal.com]

I want to know if her eyes have to be really irritated to form pearls.