Buffy novel

[doyle]

I nearly broke down and bought Chosen, the novelisation of season seven. What I flipped through looked okay, writing wise - until I turned to the Spuffy snuggling scene in Touched. And when a line in italics read "In the arms of an angel..." I thought "oh, it's not..." But yes, it was songfic. Sarah McLachlan songfic, in the middle of one of the published novels. Okay, only a few lines of the song were quoted, but still. That cracked my shit up.

Couldn't afford to buy it, but it amused me vastly.

Comments

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

It's really not very good, if that helps ease the pain. I ranted about it here after buying it myself; literally every other page had a typo which killed the flow and it didn't add much detail at all.

[evemac.livejournal.com]

SONGFIC!!!

::fumes::

Why are those authors published and people like Barb Cummings aren't? Grr. Argg.

[bailunrui.livejournal.com]

That is just... so wrong. :-(

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

I went back and found my rant;

"I just finished the novelisation of S7, "Chosen". Oh, boy. It's ambitious to cram 22 episodes into one book. I appreciate that nuances have to go but, really, this is dire.

First, there's a typo on almost every page. Quotation marks left off dialogue, spelling mistakes, tense changes...this was edited by someone with their eyes shut. Unforgivable number of mistakes. If it turned up at Bad Buffy fic, it wouldn't look out of place. Look at this and I've copied it exactly.

"No you get some rest," he ordered her, rising. "I'll check in before first light You can decide how you want -"

'No' should be 'Now' and there's a missing period after 'light'. Trivial? Maybe if it were just the once.
"He hit her back, hard, and she returned the favor with equal forced."

A few lines later,

"She wrenched out his grasp and kicked him in the gut, readying for his returning blow."

Or, "Buffy made of avoiding eye contact with Giles, and he sucked it up."

And there's the clumsy filling in of the script. "Candles glowed, bronzing her with a glow." Do we have a vocab deficiency? Throw in effulgent if you have to!

There's also a distressing tendency to use Buffy speak in the narrator's voice which bugs me.
"Much with the creeping, as Buffy snuck into Principal Wood's office..."

Bottom line? Not impressed. Still teared up when I got to Spike's exit though..."

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

That's appalling. My God, there are plenty of people online who beta for free, and these publishers can't spring for a proofreader?

I can't believe this kind of nonsense gets published and the many, many excellent fan authors don't.

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

Agree totally. Fanfic spoils you really; it's free, it's there, there's lots of it...and so much is so _good_.

I realise it was probably a rush job, and I'm not sure if the blame lies with author or publisher, or both, but it was poor. Very poor. Rarely seen so many errors in a published book. I could have opened the book anywhere and found one, they were that common.

[imation23.livejournal.com]

Bwah! And not just any old songfic, but Sarah McLachlan songfic, to possibly the most overvidded/overiconed/overused song in the entire *universe* with the possible exception of 'Full of Grace'. Geez. And why buy that kind of thing when you can just get it off ff.net?

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Does the author not know the cardinal rule of "every time Sarah McLachlan sings, somewhere a vampire gets his soul"?

BTW, when spoilers broke for Awakenings I would have put money on that song being the soundtrack for the last Angel/Cordy scene. I was (pleasantly) surprised that it didn't show up in Touched. Thank goodness we have the novelisation to make up for it! *g*

It'd be fascinating to do a breakdown of which songs inspire the most songfic, but I fear I'd only get through a half dozen before my brain imploded. I bet Sarah McLachlan and Avril Lavigne would lead the pack, though.

angel

[pukajen.livejournal.com]

Does the author not know the cardinal rule of "every time Sarah McLachlan sings, somewhere a vampire gets his soul"?

that and the song is all about addiction and drug use. the way 'posession' is about a man who stalked her and then killed himself. kinda funny/ironic when you think of how many times those songs have been used. not just fan vids, but mainstream, used on tv or movies as soundtracks especially in touching, heart wrenching scenes.

Re: angel

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Does the author not know the cardinal rule of "every time Sarah McLachlan sings, somewhere a vampire gets his soul"?

I'd be willing to bet that every time Avril Lavigne sings, another fanfic writer loses both her soul and every vestige of literacy.