Oh, the agony

I am an avid reader. I love the Kindle for the simple reason I have over 500 books and I don’t have to dust a one of them.

I have managed to get nearly every book I ever loved on my Kindle, and have become a great fan of hundreds of new authors, most of them indies.

Every now and then I read a book that is not in the genre of fantasy, sometimes taking a dip into general fiction.  I did that this week, reading a book I saw advertised on twitter.  I picked this one up because I like the title.

I don’t usually read general fiction because so many times I am left with a bad taste in my mouth. I’m OCD–if the book isn’t too horrible, I can’t put it down until I have read it to the end and confirmed that it was indeed a waste of paper and time. I hate that.

It never fails–I buy a book based on glowing reviews and after I’ve done my part and slogged through the depressing, overdone theatrics and get to the end I find that, just like an ex-lover,  it turned out to be a pretentious riff on a tired theme after all, with nothing positive to offer.

No happy ending, and perhaps no ending at all.

Why do I ignore the warning signs?  The cringing when certain characters (once again) turn their head just so, the clenching of my teeth when the bored protagonist lights yet another cigarette. What is this fascination some authors have with portraying moneyed, bored people who cheat on each other and their taxes as if they were somehow glamorous? What makes me keep reading despite the fact that if I were to review this travesty I would give it a 3 star review and a good thrashing?

I was up to 2:a.m. reading that crap. Now I feel soiled, as if I’d suddenly developed a craving to party the night away at the local club and woke up with a horrendous hangover and a drummer named Scooter.

Today I am going back to Roger Zelazney. He’s a lover who has never let me down. I am going to revisit the scene of our most passionate affair, that amazing world of Rondoval, and Roger’s masterpiece,  Changeling.

Give me flawed characters larger than life, seething with jealous rage, untapped magic, and raw violence–and put them in an environment that makes them have to work to survive.

Oooh baby…. Now THAT is the antidote to bored ennui in my reading material!