C-
Title: Dark Lover
Author: J.R. Ward
Publication Info: Signet 2005
ISBN: 0451216954
Genre: Paranormal
No. For the love of everything Alicia Silverstone, no.
And this particularly choice turn of phrase always kills me when I look at the first page: “advanced degrees in violent crime.”
Pray tell, sirrah: Where, perchance, may I obtain an advanced degree in violent crime? No, before we even address that burning question: what would an advanced degree look like? Would an MFA be a Masters in Fuckin’ yo Ass (up)? Can you get PhD’s in, say, Violating Your Parole Like A Dumbshit, or Roid Rage (with specializations in Pointless Property Damage or Kicking The Crap Out of Your Girlfriend), or Mini-Mart Robbery Gone Bad?
And I won’t even go into the names, because really, that’s like shooting fhish in a bharrehl.
For these reasons and more, I avoided reading the book. Look, I told myself, if a book can give me about three hours’ worth of riffing material from the first two pages alone, will I be able to get my internal smart-ass to shut up enough to allow me to read through the goddamn thing?
The answer, surprisingly, was “yes.” Dark Lover is nothing if not compelling. It’s also, well, crap. Hooray for compelling crap. We loves us some compelling crap over here in Smart Bitch Central. The grade is essentially an average of my enjoyment (about a B-) and the writing (D throughout, verging on D- in spots). But but but! Ward deserves daps for the Mary Sue joke towards the end of the book. It single-handedly saved this from falling over in to the dreaded D territory.
Do I really need to summarize the story for you? Have you really lived under a rock for the past two years? Because I’m pretty goddamn sure I’m the last person to have succumbed to the lure of the giant homoerotic rapper wannabe clusterfuck tastiness that is the Black Dagger Brotherhood. But just in case you are one of the few, the proud, the hermetically sealed from pop culture (or at least romance-related pop culture), here’s the skinny. Yo. It be off the chain.
Wrath is the King of the vampires—and the last pure-blooded vampire around, incidentally. And he has all sorts of issues about leading His Race
to the glory of the Third Reich
, as well as massive issues about love and intimacy; that, combined with his monstrous cock, short temper and predilection for killing bad guys (in this book, you know they’re teh ebil because they smell like baby powder and can’t get boners) basically makes him classic romance novel hero material. When one of his warriors, Darius, asks him to ensure his half-vampire daughter, Beth, completes her difficult and dangerous transition into full vampirehood safely, Wrath refuses.
Then Darius gets blown into itty-bitty bits by a car bomb. And Wrath, wracked with guilt, goes to check out Beth’s situation, and finds that while he’s completely reluctant to help her, nothing can prevent a Monster Cock from uniting with a Magic Hoo Hoo. It’s like when an irresistible force meets an immovable object, except with more improbable orgasms and body fluids. And behold, within a couple of weeks, he resolves pretty much all his issues about love, intimacy and his hesitations about leading his race (part of which involves purging the world of a subhuman species that’s in league with a Satanic figure and engaged in a world-wide conspiracy to destroy his people).
And then there are the rest of his Brothers. Not real brothers. And not actual brothers either, if you know what I mean, despite their love of Ludacris. His fellow brothers-who-look-as-if-they-possess-advanced-degrees-in-violent-crime-except-they’re-really-killers. The Black Dagger Brotherhood. All of them will get their own stories and Magic Hoo Hoos, of course. The sequel baiting is shameless, as is the dangling of hot, tormented vampiric types. And then there’s the poor schmuck of a cop with absolutely no life who gets sucked into their world as well—but then Sarah wrote a hilarious and brilliant review of his story here.
Oh, and in the midst of all that is a heroine. That’s right. These are heterosexual love stories—nominally, at least. Beth starts out rather interesting, but devolves into a rather bland Mary Sue type by the end of the story, with all the Brothers fawning over her awesomeness. Remember what the more saccharine Julie Garwood heroines were like? Yeah, kind of like that, except with more pointless angst and less charming ditziness.
Like I said, I enjoyed the book a surprising amount, considering a) how terrible the prose was (which isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker—as always, I like point to my love of Gaelen Foley and Dara Joy as evidence that I don’t need scintillating prose to love a book) and b) how repulsive I found the characters. The story had an energy and drive that made me turn the pages, even though I knew exactly how everything was going to turn out.
But the characters…oy. To be frank, the Brotherhood didn’t come across as tough; they came across as really, really young, and trying much too hard. Guys who are that painstaking about appearing like hard-asses make me think of small-time drug dealers, or teenage boys showing off they cribs. (“It’s Delux, son! Delux. S’not that hard.” Heeee.) The contrived thug-speak and references to hip-hop did not help this image, feel me? Unlike Sarah, I had no problem picturing what race they were. The impression I got from the story was they were old Eastern European aristocracy, so the dudes were white, white, white in my head, and the way they spoke like unholy Valley Girl/gangsta rapper hybrids circa 1992 just compounded the hilariousness.
Less hilariously: The way in which the struggles the vampires faced was couched in racial terms made me feel squidgy inside, and not in a good way. You may have gathered this from the review. It’s not that I think the vampires are unjustified in killing off the lessers, it’s just that when bad guys are portrayed in that bad a light—as being somehow inherently evil when, frankly, the good guys come across as more creepy in some ways (the Scribe Virgin made my anti-authoritarian hackles stand up like whoa and like damn)—I can’t help but wonder what their side of the story is, as told by a differently-biased narrator. That kind of good race/bad race rhetoric and the obsession with bloodlines and pure blood being “stronger” than unpure blood…squidgy, squidgy, squidgy. For this reason, Tolkien and much of high fantasy in general makes me cringe, too. I mean, I get that the whole “born a king” concept taps into a lot of powerful fantasies, and let’s face it, autonomous democratic collectives based on consensus and merit just aren’t sexy, but sometimes, I just look at the framework of the world and go “Huh.” It’s not that I think these are somehow inherently racist portrayals, but the Othering mechanisms in these sorts of narratives are really, really fascinating, no? Especially the voluntary impotence of the Lessers vs. the overbearing virility of the Brotherhood.
Somebody needs to write a dissertation on the multifarious ways fertility issues are presented and worked out in romance novels. So much fodder for delicious, delicious deconstruction and analysis.
Oh, and speaking of the Scribe Virgin: man, she is one creepy-ass motherfucker. Holy shit. Screw the Omega. The Scribe Virgin is the one to look out for. I kept picturing a combination of Sadako and the Blair Witch every time she was described, only more glowy. Sarah said she picturd Orko, which is, like, leaps and bounds more awesome than the image I had in my head.
But like I said: the book was compelling. All that roaring, and rippling muscularity (Wrath’s abs are likened to smuggled paint rollers at one point, which: HEE. LA. RI. TY.), and angsty toothsome goodness was good, campy fun. I laughed, I cringed, I wanted to smack some of the characters around, but dammit, I turned those pages. I finished that book in two days, which is unheard-of nowadays for me.
So for those of you who haven’t read this book yet: everybody else loves it. And I mean everyone. Odds are high you’ll love it, too. If, on the other hand, you’ve found that your tastes correlate with mine a lot more closely: approach with caution and a finely-honed sense of high camp, because you’ll need it.
Just a data point: Eminem says “I’m outie” in the rap contest at the end of 8 Mile:
From the IMDb:
“Fuck a beat, I’ll go A Capella. Fuck a Papa Doc, fuck a clock, fuck a trailer, fuck everybody. Fuck y’all if you doubt me. I’m a piece of fuckin’ white trash, I say it proudly. And fuck this battle, I don’t want to win, I’m outtie. Here, tell these people something they don’t know about me.”
Maybe he was being ironic? Or maybe this really is something that ganstas say?
The one single thing that bothers me the most about the writing is when a 5’9” twenty something male is described—over and over and over, ad nauseam—as having a little body.
Hello, full grown woman here, who’s 5’2” on a good day, and not little in any way, form or manner, dammit!
But the BDB books are crahck f’r sure.
“…nothing can prevent a Monster Cock from uniting with a Magic Hoo Hoo. It’s like when an irresistible force meets an immovable object, except with more improbable orgasms and body fluids.”
**dies**
Oh man, I missed the “phearsome” thing in book three. Damn.
verify word: length24. Now that’s a Monster Cock. Ouch!
I’m another one who’s been under that rock, and I think I won’t bother to read these books.
I thought J.R. Ward was a pen name for Nora Roberts. Is that right? If so, what’s she doing writing this stuff?
Not that I want to be too critical, since I can’t write fiction. And she is a best-selling, award winning author, so what do I know? I’ve been unemployed for a year and a half.
Nope, Nora is J.D. Robb. Close, though! *g*
“the giant homoerotic rapper wannabe clusterfuck tastiness that is the Black Dagger Brotherhood.”
So it wasn’t just my gutter mind imagining huge gay (not to mention white middle-class hard-ass wannabe) fuckfests taking place offscene in the BDB manor two years ago. And that was even before I started reading erotica…
God, Candy – I love you so much. Please can I be your bitch? Meow.
It’s why I so dislike the Kushiel series: all that strange prejudice and, well, racism.
A friend described the overall attitude of the D’Angeline protagonists as “I’m descended from angels and YOU AREN’T. Nyah!”
“Nope, Nora is J.D. Robb. Close, though! *g*”
Thanks for the correction, Victoria. I was really having trouble believing that Nora R. would write stuff like this, even under another name.
The whole we’re-descended-from-angels-and-so-we-r0xx0rs thing from the first trilogy of Kushiel books is why I prefer the second triology. The protagonist himself is often at odds with this attitude and chafes against it in his own life and choices. I think it’s nice when an author realizes there is an underlying attitude among character or the culture that s/he has developed and takes a chance at reevaluating it through a new characters perspective, etc etc.
(My apologies if my grammar is ridiculously dense. I just got out of a 2 hour of Turkish class, and it clearly affected my syntax.)
I had to put down the first book because of the awful slang and weak decriptions. I think I got to page 20 and gave up. I dont get the addiction. Can it still be called crack if some people dont get addicted after taking a hit?
And E, Eminem is not a gangsta ( in spite of what he would have you believe about how hard he is and being from the streets, for real.)
Hands off my crack, biotch.
Actually, this is the one that I liked the least. I just sent my sister a box of porn, I mean BOOKS, for Christmas (hmmm…that just seems so wrong, but whatever) and on the card I wrote,“Get through this one, then read the others.”
The space under that rock is getting crowded.
Indeed. I think it’s time we all crawled out for a bit…not to read these books but to, um, find bathrooms.
He was a huge sympathizer of the racial separation and anti-Semitism that the Nazis envisioned, yes, but he wasn’t a fan of the violence, publicly speaking out about it. He saw the Nazis’ violence as signs that the Germans weren’t as ‘advanced’ as the English.
Interestingly enough, Lovecraft’s wife was Jewish.
Oh COME ON….. these aren’t comments on a review. This thread looks like a group that sees a way to beat up on a writer while the followers jump on top of the pile and cackle with glee…
Ward didn’t start a satanic cult, she built a world and if it’s not your cup of tea, fine, do what so many of the people on this thread did… don’t read it. Of course, that should mean that you don’t get to have your two cents worth, but what the hell, kicking some author’s ideas and words to the ground is a lot easier then reading a book…. oh yeah, I forgot, someone else read it for you.
Geeze, the woman had an idea, wrote it, got it published it and it sold by the tens of thousands….
This is one of the things that happens when people talk about a book that they haven’t read… they make it not about the writing but about the writer. More to the point, you don’t just say, wow, great writing, good story or wow, bad writing, bad story… no, it’s all about some pseudo-intellectual bullshit that has little or nothing to do with the reading of this book.
That’s why Candy’s review doesn’t jibe, it’s almost as though she had to say some, what she thought, funny things about a book she not only liked, but was embarassed about reading. If you want to review and intellectualize about Freakonomics, have at it, but this is popular fiction folks, just a few hours of getting away from the every day stuff.
Who gives a fuck what music the characters listen to? And Christ, who cares about Eminem or what he did or didn’t say?
God, all these comments resonate with a bitterness that makes me wonder just how smart some bitches are.
Wow. Someone’s a really angry fangirl. (Or fanboy—can’t forget the men, right, Teddypig?)
How many sips is it when someone invokes the title of the blog, again? I am still kicking myself for not printing out that drinking game!
Man that’d make for a short review.
Um. The people who read it and ask themselves why that character is listening to that song?
And now, it begins.
But it wasn’t about the review, it was about the comments following the review.
You’re probably always right, except about my being a fangirl.
And I’m 59 and I’ve not played a drinking game in 4 decades.
My point about the music was that it didn’t mean anything to me. I don’t know what’s hot or metal or rap and don’t care. It’s a book about vampires, I let my need for reality go when I picked it up.
Is this going to be another “gang bang”?
Or is my opinion not valid because it doesn’t go with the groups?
So if something is fiction then there shouldn’t be any analysis of it?
Why exactly would this be?
Is fiction somehow less deserving of intelligent dissection than lich’rtur? (Never mind that most of said literature is fiction)
Candy’s review doesn’t jibe? Pray tell, with what exactly? ‘cause this bit
And the funniest thing: from what I can see, most of the commenters explained why they liked/read the book or not. Isn’t that what a thread about a book review is about?
spamword: truth62 [this software is scary shit]
zmom, just for the record? I enjoyed the book too—as did many of the bitches here, regardless of their hot buttons—and I never stopped to think about whether the music was/n’t appropriate. It didn’t raise even a tiny blip in my radar.
But it evidently bothered other readers. Should they not say so because it didn’t bother you?
Or is it a pile on (gang bang? huh?) only when it’s criticism of an aspect of the book, instead criticism on the reader(s) who didn’t adore the book uncritically?
(that’s awkward writing… sorry)
I am a darned big fan of the book and the series. I didnt even notice the issues everyone raised because when Im engrossed in a book, i try not to think too much (Books are my drug of choice and the BDB are CRACK!). Thats not to say I dont appreciate the very valid observations people raised. I thought the discussion was very interesting and thought provoking. The comments were NOT a review, they were a discussion… Not only about the BDB series but other books and pop culture too. It kinda felt like I was in the middle of my pop lit class again.
“Have brains, will think” I hate when people brand as bitches people smart enough to form their own opinion and voice it out. So can we settle down?
That being said, I think I will happily forget all your smart opinions (and ignore the little voice screaming murder in my head) when the next book comes out. I just hope its better than the last two because.
(horse69? seriously i do not need that picture in my head)
I’m intrigued by the Metalocalypse comparison. If Wrath is Nathan Explosion, who is Toki? And most importantly of all, who is Dr. Rockso?
Hey, I’ve read every one of the series. So do I get an opinion? As I’ve pointed out on my own blog, I don’t understand how I can love a series of books that I don’t even LIKE. They irritate the crap out of me most the time, and I still pound them down like shots! So I NEED these discussions to help me make sense of the whorld. Sorry, but I do.
And I do know that music, so it does hit a sour note in my head. Maybe you don’t understand the problem (for others) because when you were reading you could not hear the music and/or understand the signifigance of some of the (way too specific) brands of liquor and cars, etc.. JR Ward names those things for a reason, she’s trying to evoke something, and she’s evoking the wrong thing for some of us. And I’m sure she doesn’t give a good damn about that, and more power to her.
She created a series and a world that evokes STRONG reactions in people. That’s amazing and something to be admired.
Oh, dear. I read all of these too. And I lurk on her message board to find out the release dates of the next ones. Talk about “world building”… the BDB TALK on there. It’s a little nhuts…
I didn’t start reading them until the third one came out, and the third one is why I’ve kept reading them. I think I’ve read that book 8 times. The fourth is the next best and the rest are mediocre. I think she has one more re-readable book coming, but that’s not really going to make a difference in terms of me reading them all anyways. Theoretically, I know I should hate the series, but in practice they appear to fill some void for me. Which void you ask? Perhaps its the “what flavor is this magical hoo ha?” void, which is a running theme throughout. That might be the void they fill for JR Ward too, seeing as how her name on her message board is “Peaches”, which is Beth’s ummm “flavor” in Dark Lover.
HA. issue39.
It’s JR Ward’s creation, so she can have the BDB listening to whatever she wants them to: rap, metal, country (dearlovinglordgodNO), or Tuvan throat singing. But the long hair, the leather, the angst-ridden, behold-my-muscle-bound-immortal-STURM UND DRANG-douchiness make me think of every heavy metal cliche in existence.
Of course, these characters are hundreds of years old; some of them are old enough to have seen Mozart, Beethoven, or Debussy first hand. As a music snob, it rankles me that they’re listening to a musical genre younger than most of us posting on this board. One of them might have seen the premiere of Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps” and now he’s listening to the Insane Clown Posse. WRONG.
P.S.- Toki Wartooth? That’s Phury. Rhage is absolutely Skwissgar Skwigelf. I don’t know how the rest would fit.
OK, the Metalocalypse comparisons are fuckin’ KILLING ME. Every time I think of them, I snort-laugh with glee.
Also, lil’s comment.
Dillene: I had exactly the same thoughts, actually. Bitches had the opportunity to see the havoc wrought by Wagner’s operas and Stravinksy’s Rite of Spring and Verdi’s La Traviata; why are they so monofocused on hip-hop? Largely BAD hip-hop, at that? I mean, a little bit of diversification into other types of music would’ve made it more convincing for me, ANY kind of music. Heavy metal, industrial, goth, psychobilly, the many different flavors of electronic, punk, fuckin’ virtuoso kazoo jazz ensembles—something, ANYTHING.
And as always, I’m kind of shocked at how civil the discourse has been about this review, by and large, given that I’ve just cheerfully shit all over a book in a series that’s notorious for inspiring fanatical devotion. I would love to read more opinions that disagree with the substance of the review, by the way. (By the way, Gwen, thanks for pointing out that the overall tone of the review doesn’t adequately convey what I enjoyed about it; I’m still trying to think of a way to explain WHY I enjoyed it in as articulate a way as why it bothered me so much, but mostly I’m left with “Because the over-the-top action and gestures sucked me in.”)
Who gives a fuck what music the characters listen to?
JR Ward, obviously, and she wants us to care too which is why she mentions it so often.
Music is incredibly evocative. Think about how some songs take you instantly back to a certain place or time or emotion (yes, I realize I’ve just defined “evocative”). This is the effect writers look to create when they mention music in their books. It’s like a movie soundtrack. Imagine seeing a movie with a soundtrack that, for whatever reason, got on your nerves. It may not spoil the film entirely, but it’ll bug you. That’s what the constant mentions of rap do to a reader. You may not be very musically inclined or familiar with the music mentioned, so it may not effect you that way, but that doesn’t mean it’s not valid for it to bug other people or for them to raise the valid point that you have a group of men who were exposed to some of the most beautiful music ever created and they choose instead to listen to the same stuff fifteen-year-old kids enjoy. Heck, I think a man gets too old to be heavy into rap when he hits about 30. At least add some R&B/soul in there!
I paid 7 freaking POUNDS for Dark Lover at Forbidden Planet. That’s FOURTEEN DOLLARS, twice the cover price, and frankly, even at the cover price buying a copy gives me the right to say whatever I want about the book.
Of course, these characters are hundreds of years old; some of them are old enough to have seen Mozart, Beethoven, or Debussy first hand. As a music snob, it rankles me that they’re listening to a musical genre younger than most of us posting on this board.
Oh, GOD. Yes, yes, YES!!! zmom, you said yourself, you’re 59 and this music means nothing to you. These guys are hundreds of years old. What the hell did they listen to 20 years ago? And they just dropped Steely Dan for 50 cent like THAT? All of them? And what about what they listened to 100 years ago? Why isn’t one brother locked in his room listening to opera and telling those other mf’s to turn that not-even-music shit DOWN, for god’s sake? Come on, now.
Thanks for making a great point, dilene.
As we’ve said, JR has created this culture for a reason. Her fans can’t just dismiss as meaningless. It DOES have something to do with the story, or she wouldn’t have constructed it so carefully. True? *g* Don’t diss your author like that, zmom.
You know what? If one of the brothers was heavily into Chinese opera, my respect for him as a hard-ass would soar because that? Is some truly scary shit.
Charlene, thanks for clarifying. I over simplified.
I was reading Ward’s message board a while ago and someone asked if any of the brothers was going to end up with someone who isn’t white. Ward’s answer was something to the effect “I don’t know. They choose their own mates.” Which of course means no. I don’t really think that authors have an obligation to write interracial relationships, but it might help dispell the notion that your characters are a paranormal version of the aryan brotherhood.
Also, what’s up with all the women? They all fall for a vampire who has to protect them and cosset them and lock them in the house never ever to leave again, because when a woman goes out on her own bad things happen to her, Wellsie, and Bella are both examples of this. Even Beth to an extent, when she goes upstairs all by herself. The only female in the stories who’s allowed any independence is Xhex (that word looks so stupid) and she’s described as masculine.
Amelia, that is incredibly funny.
This slays me.
You run in, call us pseudo-intellectual posers whose only purpose is to beat up on an author, as well as calling us stupid and bitter. But we’re supposed to “Be Nice!”
But it wasn’t about your comment, it was about your attitude during the comment.
If you don’t want to get gang banged in the future, I’d be happy to rewrite your comment in a manner which would start a satisfying discussion.
I’m with you, Victoria: The BDB are the only books that I kinda pretty much ABHOR everything about (characterization, plot, pacing, continuity, etc.)—and I was still at my Local Independent Bookseller on the very day the last two books came out.
NOT ASHAMED.
That said, fascinating thread, ladies. Love the vareigation of opinion in the Bitchery.
Candy said…“I would love to read more opinions that disagree with the substance of the review, by the way…”
That’s the problem. You can’t. Everything you said is dead on. The criticisms are very fair. The only thing I would disagree with is the grade.
Admit… you hated it… but you loved it. You want more. You want to read about Zhadist. You have to know how tortured he is. You won’t be able to stop. John will start to suck you in and you’ll keep reading until there isn’t a brother left that you don’t want to know more about.
I feel you. I do. And as dead on as your review was… this book deserves at least a B. There is something sucking the readers in. Even the ones who know better. But like any good drug… once the addiction hits you can’t stop.
Would you give you heroin a C-?
Would you give you heroin a C-?
Oh, god, Stephanie, that is just wrong. *g* But I think that actually makes Candy’s point. A “B” as far as enjoyment, a “D” for effect on the autonomic nervous system.
To be fair to her review though, I don’t think she was as sucked in as some of us. I got the feeling she didn’t actually enjoy it as much as Sarah did, for example. Maybe I’m wrong?
BEGIN QUOTE You may not be very musically inclined or familiar with the music mentioned, so it may not effect you that way, but that doesn’t mean it’s not valid for it to bug other people or for them to raise the valid point that you have a group of men who were exposed to some of the most beautiful music ever created and they choose instead to listen to the same stuff fifteen-year-old kids enjoy. Heck, I think a man gets too old to be heavy into rap when he hits about 30. END QUOTE
Hmm, I sense some serious animosity towards hip hop and rap music in this thread. Whats that all about? Yes there is some weak rap promoted on the airwaves but that does not do justice to the richness of the genre of protest music ( yes protest music) that is now a worldwide phenomenon. Maybe Ward refers to the Top 40 Clear Channel promoted kind of rap and hip hop and thats where the animosity comes from. But to say that rap/hiphop is not a genre worthy of any adoration proves the person has no familiarity with the genre. Check out this statement by Michael Ric Dyson aka the Hip Hop Intellectual at http://www.venusproject.com/ethics_in_action/Michael_Eric_Dyson.html .
That common dismissal of rap/hip hop is the same type of intellectual snobbery that allows people to say that Romance as evidenced by the tripe of Cassie Edwards is just trashy porn for barely literate masses of disillusioned fat chicks.
The problem with rap is the same as any other popular genre of music (or indeed books): most of what you hear is absolute tripe. I’m an unashamed pop fan, but I’m also the first to admit the genre is saturated with complete bollocks. Same goes for hip-hop or R’n’B or rock or country or anything else. Done well, a rap song can be brilliant…but unfortunately, what most of us hear, and what forms the basis of our opinions, is rubbish. And I’ve got no time to listen to rubbish.
Not to mention that having her characters listen to a certain kind of music is making a strong statement about those characters. Maybe JR sincerely loves rap music, but it seems like she’s added it to her characters to lend them credibility, like your dad going to a concert and going, “I love this trendy music!” Ain’t working.
I once read that the definition of cool is using the least amount of energy to define oneself. The more props you use to shout your presence to the world, the less cool you are, my friend.
(spamfilter: cars71. Do not get me started on cars. I can’t remember the last time I read an Alpha who wasn’t driving a total penis substitute)
Sorry, Trumystique, my objection has more to do with the fact that I believe men of a certain age—and women, too, for that matter—should have other interests and tastes beyond the Top 40 (which, yes, is the music Ward writes about), especially if they’ve lived long enough to have experienced more. Still liking rap at 40? Great. Still listening to only rap, all the time, at 40? You’re stunting yourself intellectually, by limiting yourself so stringently to one thing. Don’t you even want a change of pace ever?
I just don’t think grown men should drive around with the windows down thumping bass all over the city. That’s something teenagers do, IMO. It’s not attractive to me as a grown woman.
Okay, I’m 85 pages in, and still not hooked. Do I need to keep going? I had a similar experience with Buffy at first, and of course now I’m completely in love with that whole world.
Regarding the music, I have to tell you – it’s not a good idea, no matter how much you like a particular artist or song, to include it by name in the work. The exceptions are timeless artists whose complete body of work has been around long enough to “settle” in the cultural zeitgeist; your Mozart, your Ella Fitzgerald, hell, I’ll even accept Johnny Cash. This is because, once an artist’s entire body of work has remained highly visible for a certain number of years, it has a “feel” that most people will agree on. Plus, most people are familiar with them, and most people, when you say “Ella Fitzgerald” will think, “smooth, classic, bluesy.” Even then, it’s risky, because some people may not know Ella, but it’s not as risky as, say, 50 Cent. I’m 36, and I have no flippin’ clue about 50 Cent. Might be a great artist, but I’m still listening to Ella, see. Baby, it’s cold outside.
I took a movie sound class years ago, and my professor (brilliant man, mentor of the guy who won an Oscar doing the sound for the original Star Wars trilogy) told us that, when you choose a piece of music to go under a scene, you need to choose something no one knows, or few people know, or you end up getting all the associations people have made with that piece of music over time.
In fiction, it’s the exact opposite. The only thing you have when you mention a piece of music is the idea that everyone’s associations with the music will be the same, that you can count on that to help you set the scene. Something generic, “the pulsating beat of hardcore rap played in the background,” works great. “50 Cent’s ‘In da Club’ played in the background” only has meaning to those people familiar with the music, and even then, you’re gonna have people for whom it just doesn’t work, so you run the risk of kicking everyone who doesn’t know the music out of your story – which, given the demographic for romance, is probably half – and then you’re kicking out probably another quarter who don’t like it or don’t think it fits the mood of the story or whatever. It’s just not worth it.
Music is tricky, tricky, tricky, and no matter what your opinion is on this particular author’s use of music, one thing is clear – if it’s generating this much argument, as an author, it’s territory in which you want to tread carefully.
Trumystique, you are absolutely correct: there is a lot of fantastic rap/hip hop out there. I, for one, am a fan of the good stuff, especially the protest music, and have a huge thing of Italian and Turkish rap. My own comments should be viewed in this light. These characters, whoever, do not in my opinion listen to the good stuff. They listen to the very worst of what can be found in the top forty. They never even mention old school rap. It’s like they are in a vacuum which I think is the real problem/complain. At least that’s my take on the comments. It’s like for such very old creatures/beings/vhampires they have absolutely no sense of history. I mean, if you love rap, truly love it, then you know its roots and have a sense of appreciation for it.
Ah my two cents turned into 2 dollars. Forgive me, music is a passion right up there with language for me. 🙂