I’ve written and rewritten this post, because first of all I wanted to talk about a book that I had finished this afternoon – Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks – and I wanted to talk about how I loved reading it, but I didn’t really enjoy it much at all? The prose was wonderful. Banks is a wordsmith, with jokes hidden in imagery, presenting plainly as poetry, which circles around in another joke. There were turns of phrases that struck me as beautifully crafted, and parts where my stomach quite literally dropped and my vision narrowed as if I were about to have a panic attack. But I started this book in July and only finished it in October. I had to drag myself through it, page by page. I had to slog through it, and so when it came to the end and when it cycled back through to the start, when it all made sense, I had already forgotten most of the breadcrumbs that led to it. And so when I decided to-
I’ve written and rewritten this post because I wanted to talk about a book that I finished and felt as though I should have liked more than I did. But, here’s the thing, I don’t actually like writing bad reviews of books. Not outside my yearly listicle thing anyway. So I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to talk about why I didn’t like a book.
But it’s late. It’s late, and I’m pushing the clock before I have to call it quits, and I miss typing on my keyboard. My novel is with friendly readers, and all my upcoming projects are in notebooks. I have a videogame novel that’s becoming less about videogames and more about parasocial relationships which I’m having mixed feelings on, and a series of stories around my absolute favourite trope – the time loop.
I miss typing on my keyboard with its thunky clickety clack. I miss doing proper writing.
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