Am currently reading Kate Griffin’s A Madness of Angels, start of a magnificent urban fantasy series that’s far more China Mieville than Jim Butcher. (No offense to Butcher, whose stuff I like too; just noting that he’s kind of more typical of the genre than CM.) The story follows an “urban sorcerer” named Matthew Swift on his quest through the magical underworld of London as he tries to find out who a) killed him, and b) brought him back to life.
And… (grr) it’s good. I mean (snarr) really good. So good that (gnash) I’m finding myself… well, a bit jealous. Because see (ARGH WHYYYYY), I like her writing better than my own.
Which is disingenuous. I started writing years ago because the kinds of stories I wanted to read just weren’t being published fast enough for my tastes. This book is that kind of story. And I’m happy. Seriously — you have no idea how happy it makes me to crack open a book unawares and be instantly hooked into a story, then be dragged along by those hooks, in bliss. But at the same time, I can’t help feeling a little professional competitiveness. This is the kind of prose I love to write, but can’t sustain for long periods of time. I don’t have the… hrrm, the endurance? I’m not capable of telling a whole story with this kind of chewy, dense prose. I would gorge myself into a stupor on the deliciousness of my own description, wander far afield from the plot, and never return.
So here’s a writer who does what I yearn to do. This is the kind of book I’ve always wanted to write. But I didn’t write it, so in addition to being delighted, I’m also insanely, giddily jealous.
Well, no biggie; I’ll get over it.
Anyway, in the meantime (rraarrgh), go buy Griffin’s book!
So…you’re on the fence then, I take it?
Pfft. Everything I read makes me jealous :D