List love: 10 more bookish pet peeves

Thursday’s meme only gave me an opportunity to list 10 of my bookish pet peeves, but I have many more, so I decided to make a list of an additional 10 that irk me just as much as the first 10. Here it is, in no particular order:

Introductions or prefaces to novels that give away important plot points or endings. Especially prevalent in modern editions of classic novels.
Mary Sues and Gary Stus, i.e. characters so perfect that the sun apparently rises out of their exquisite arses. Perfect characters give no leeway for character development and because they are perfect, problems aren't really problems for them, so there can be no real conflict in the story.
Reading a book and only discovering at the end that it’s the first in a trilogy or series and the story will not end for several more books. I have no problem with series books if each book is a self-contained story that can be read out of order of publication.
Writers who give their books happy or perfect endings when it is clear that an ambiguous ending would have been both braver and more suitable to the story. The opposite is just as annoying - an unhappy or ambiguous ending when a happy ending would be better.
Interchangeable characters. Annoying when they are supporting characters, intolerable when they are lead characters. Seems to happen a lot in fantasy.
Deus ex machina endings or plot point resolutions. This is a lazy, cheap and nasty way of resolving things.
Characters who are Too Stupid To Live, i.e. rush headlong into danger again and again and then have to be rescued and never learn from their mistakes.
Historical characters as protagonists, behaving out of character or doing things that history tells us didn’t happen. I don’t mind so much in genuine alternative reality fantasy/sci-fi, but in real-world settings I detest it, especially when I know the characters well. All in all, I just think it’s lazy to grab a historical character instead of making one up. I do love seeing them as supporting cast, except I think that George, Prince of Wales and Prince Regent of the UK from 1811-1820 has been overused in Regency set romance novels, as has Beau Brummel.
Authors who don’t respect my intelligence. Comes out in any number of ways, including telling me the same thing over and over and over again, explaining things that are self-explanatory and talking down to me.
Authors who change history to suit their purpose. This is something I totally enjoy in speculative fiction but not in novels that are presented as based on historical fact. This is why I only got a couple of chapters into The Other Boleyn Girl before I gave up in disgust, but was able to enjoy Temeraire.

This was just a sample. I have enough for at least two more lists, but I have a couple of reviews I want to post first. Maybe next week.

Book 7: Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński (reading notes)

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How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...

Reading in Reykjavík

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