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Monday, April 19, 2010
Book DISRecommendation
Jenna Black:
The Devil Inside
The Devil You Know
The Devil's Due
Speak Of The Devil
The Devil's Playground
Since I don't get paid for this (nor for anything else that appears here at Eternity Road), I have infinite latitude. No one can tell me what I must write, or write about, on pain of losing the compensation for it. One consequence is that, when I write about books I've read, it's almost always to recommend them to my Gentle Readers. Why, after all, should I waste my increasingly scant writing time to tell readers about books I've found indifferently interesting or bad?
But there are reasons a reviewer might do so, and now and then they seem compelling enough for me to speak of a book, or an author, who should be avoided.
Jenna Black's "Devil" series caught my eye by virtue of three things: the simultaneous appearance in mass-market paperback of all five volumes; the originality of her overarching premise; and the prominent position Barnes & Noble gave her books on its "New Fiction" promotional displays. I picked up the first one, The Devil Inside, read the first dozen pages, and, being without any other reading commitment at that moment, decided to give the series a try.
I have never so regretted having spent forty bucks.
First, that original premise: Miss Black depicts an alternate America in which demonic possession is a major factor. These aren't the demons of Biblical stories, but rather a gaggle of incorporeal beings who can, under certain conditions, occupy and dominate the bodies of humans. Some possessions are willing on the part of the human; some are not. The demons are preponderantly eager to "walk the Mortal Plain," and so they "come when called"...and sometimes when they're not.
Voluntary demonic possession gifts the human host with extraordinary strength, speed, and healing powers. Such human/demon hybrids often go into Mankind's most taxing and dangerous lines of work, such as firefighting, and are greatly appreciated for it. Involuntary demonic possession is a serious matter, as such a demon is unlikely contribute to human society, and quite likely to abuse its host at the very least. When such a creature is detected and captured, a professional exorcist is called in to eject the demon from the host...if possible. If not, the majority of the states mandate its destruction by being cremated while alive, which kills both host and demon.
The protagonist of the series, which is told in first-person throughout from the protagonist's viewpoint, is Morgan Kingsley, the best respected and most successful exorcist in America. Here's where the series's problems begin:
- Miss Kingsley is stupid.
- She's also supremely arrogant.
- She reacts to any offer of help by doing her best to offend the offerer.
- She routinely deceives and mistreats the supposed love of her life.
- Atop all that, she's absolutely ruled by her pudenda.
So in Miss Kingsley we have not merely an unlikeable protagonist, but an actively dislikeable one -- and since the entire series is narrated by her in first person, the reader can't get away from her.
Nor do these books' problems end with Morgan Kingsley. Virtually every other Marquee or Supporting Cast character in all the stories is repellent in the extreme:
- Adam, a high-ranking policeman and voluntary host, is heavily into sadism and masochism;
- So is his submissive lover Dominic, whom Miss Kingsley once exorcised;
- Miss Kingsley's brother Andrew, once a voluntary host, goes from being a brutal bastard to a complete wimp;
- Miss Kingsley's parents once tried to force her to host a demon, and have rejected her because she would not cooperate;
- Miss Kingsley's own demon -- yes, she's possessed too, albeit involuntarily -- is forever trying to get into her panties in a weird, interior-world way. Yet that demon, Lugh, proves to be the most appealing character in all the books.
Then there's the action itself. There's copious sex, including sexual violence, all of it described in meticulous detail and virtually none of it necessary to the advancement of any aspect of any of the plots. Some of that sexual violence is homosexual, performed to an audience, and massively disgusting. In a crowning insult to both intelligence and taste, Miss Black has Miss Kingsley make up with her alienated lover Brian, whom she's consistently deceived and held at arm's length, by bringing him a bag of S&M devices and telling him to use them on her however he sees fit.
As if more were necessary, Miss Kingsley never solves her own problems, as would befit one who consistently resists and refuses help. Every conclusion features a deus ex machina, if I may apply the phrase to conflicts resolved by demonic power.
Even after I'd discovered how low, crude, and tawdry the stories were, I forced myself to keep reading, out of misplaced respect for my expenditure. I finished the fourth volume, Speak Of The Devil, yesterday evening, after great and prolonged effort, and realized that I simply couldn't torment myself any further. The fifth volume, The Devil's Playground, will be discarded unread.
I'm left with two questions:
- Why did Dell Paperbacks publish these books?
- Pace Oscar Wilde's observation that whatever his subject, a writer is nearly always writing about himself, does Miss Black see herself in her protagonist?
The first of these is easily answered: Dell's management hopes the line will make money. Perhaps it will; there's a significant audience for trash porn-fantasy, though this is hardly likely to win Dell general respect for its editorial decision-making. The second, whose answer would be somewhat more educational, will have to remain unaddressed.
Avoid these books and this author. And now that that obligation has been discharged, it's on to Tom Kratman's The Lotus Eaters.
Comments
Eeeeew!
Won’t be reading any of them.Life’s too short to waste on bad books.
Posted by Fausta on 04/19/2010 at 08:34 AMEgad. You Poor Soul.
Can you speedread? If so, you might be able to sample future purchases before being inflicted with such dross, not that such advice helps in this case.
Now, for some mindbleach…
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/19/2010 at 11:36 AMThank you Francis. Saved me forty bucks.
Posted by Wollf on 04/19/2010 at 12:19 PMI hate I hate I hate i hate I HATE deus ex machina plot mechanisms in a story. Movies nowadays seem to have them all the time.
It is a cop-out. A sign of an author much better at creating problems than solving them. It has been often said that you can learn more about an author from his/her books than you can about the characters in the book.
I despise people that love to create problems but have no good method of solving them.
Can’t get the door open? Why, we’ll just use this magic door-opening rock that I found right here on the ground coincidentally. Grrrrr!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/19/2010 at 07:43 PMI agree, Goober. Few things annoy me more than the Deus ex Machina solution.
I came awfully close to purchasing the first of these books Saturday, on my afternoon away from the babies, but at the last second, went with the latest Repairman Jack book. In light of this review, I’m glad I did.
Posted by Jim Sullivan on 04/19/2010 at 09:29 PM
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