Astrid Update Update Update

Astrid is dead, long live Astrid!

The other day, I actually posted a review of the book on Amazon's website. My review read as follows:

I purchased this book back two or three titles ago, when it was still called "Astrid the Viking Vampire," and the title character's name was "Astrid."

The title has changed several times - I may have missed a few, but at one point it was "Vampire Warriors (paranormal romance)" and now it's "Viking Vampires: Victory or Death."

It was ... bad. I mean really bad. The characters were flat, the story was confusing, and it went nowhere.

Amazon recommended this book to me, as I've been reading a lot of fantasy lately - especially contemporary urban fantasy. Jim Butcher. Tom Sniegoski. Seanan McGuire. Authors I recommend reading. The only thing this book has in common with them is that they're theoretically in English.

It was that bad.

The opening sentence was, "I was born and raised an 18-year-old Viking Vampire." If you can't see the error in there, please let me know so I can call an editor for you. It also included such wonderfuly-crafted sentences as, "He looked like him." There were several points in the reading of this book when my brain tried to escape.

And now Amazon keeps recommending similar books to me, as I was foolish enough to waste $3 on this one.

Of course, it had some charm despite (or perhaps because of) its sheer lack of concern for coherence, character development, and depth. And by "charm," I mean, "things I could laugh at and share with friends to laugh at."

This book has been through a couple of edits since I originally read it - from what I can tell in the sample, much of the charm is gone. Even the hilariously bad first sentence is gone. Which is a shame - it was bad, but it was bad in that MST3K sort of way. Now it's more like the Daredevil movie. There is no humor to be derived from it. It's a tragic loss, as it means that now the single most redeeming quality of this book is that it is short.

I even received at least one +1 vote for it ("1 out of 1 people think this review is helpful").

Today, the book is no longer on the site. Ms. Van Bokkem still has a significant number of books showing in the Kindle Store, however. And the book (with its latest title, Viking Vampire: Victory or Death!) is apparently still available for the Nook.

Now, there is some question as to who took it down - it's possible that Amazon noticed all the title changes, realized how confusing it would be for a consumer, and yanked it. It's also possible that Ms. Van Bokkem pulled it herself (as is her right).

In honor of the passing of this fine example of literature which will surely pass the test of time, I will henceforth rate all the books I read for this blog in milliAstrids, with one thousand milliAstrids indicating a book equal in quality to Astrid the Viking Vampire. And zero milliAstrids being something on par with George R. R. Martin or Robin Hobb.

All I Want For Christmas is A Memory Wipe.

So in an effort to find a steaming pile of book to review for this blog, I decided to trick Amazon into recommending the worst drek possible by sending samples of the worst drek possible to my Kindle. So I started with (what else?) Astrid the Viking Vampire.

The thoroughness with which Amazon makes its recommendations is staggering. I didn't even have to have the horrible sample sent to my Kindle; it just automatically found me something that also apparently had a Viking/drek theme: All I Want For Christmas Is... A Viking.

I wasn't going to read and review a Viking themed book, since Eric had already trekked, intrepidly, down that sad, horrible road. However, this book struck me immediately for two reasons. Reason the First being that it was published/excreted on my birthday. Reason the Second being the cover features a rather burly and oddly well scrubbed Viking posing in a helmet... a helmet I own. A helmet I have been pictured in a number of times, as a joke. A hat that I bought at a costume shop and not a sexy costume shop either.



(That's not me in the picture. That's a vodka bottle in the shape of a skull, which would normally be totally kick ass. But it has a dorky Viking helmet on it. Not kick ass.)

Therefore I could not resist.

Upon beginning the book I am greeted with… not even the author’s own words (which later turns out to be a blessing because any words in this book that are not the author’s are a welcome reprieve). Instead, it is the beginning of the Night before Christmas, followed by ‘Bah! Humbug!” This was a pre-warning. If I’d known how many more enthusiastically punctuated sentence fragments I would find in the following pages I might not have had the courage to move on.

Throughout the rest of the first chapter we are introduced to the drunk and whiny “protagonist” who also happens to be a successful lawyer. In the game of “Make Your Character the Least Bit Sympathetic” this author doesn’t even get past the qualifying round. Sure, Holly got dumped on Christmas Eve, and generally that would suck… but you really don’t care. She’s a wealthy lawyer who is whining about not having a man. She’s not even whining about not having the man who dumped her; the author doesn’t allude to whether or not she cared for this man at all. She’s just apparently irritated to have lost her ambulatory penis on Christmas Eve, the Sexiest Night of the Year.

And then there are the “Huh!”s. She ends several paragraphs with “Huh!” As in “Huh… I wonder if the author is going to do that through the entire book.”

The first chapter is mercifully short, or so you think until you move on to the next chapter, in which we meet yet another unsympathetic jerk, who also happens to be a Viking and Santa Claus’s son. No really, stay with me. I can’t make this shit up. And I don’t want to be alone with this thing.

I’m wrong though, I could make this shit up. I just haven’t. Because of the standards and all…

But I digress.

I know I threw a lot of intermittent snark into that so allow me to reiterate that our second character is an immortal, toy delivering Viking. Also? His name is Erik. Erik the Viking. I am, at this point in the book, positively consumed with giggles, gleaning the only enjoyment I get from this nonsense by imagining Tim Robbins in that damned helmet. Also, going on the list of Things That Don’t Add to the Sympathetic Nature of This Character, she asks him if he’s ever raped someone. He said he hadn’t… in a few thousand years. So… yes, but not recently. Oh, Erik, aren’t you just a mensch?

The incredibly thin set up is that Erik is delivering presents, and he’s got a very overdue Business Barbie to give to our inebriated main character. She thinks he’s an intruder, naturally. I’m just going to go out on a limb here and guess that she’s going to hit him over the head with something and is going to have to take care of him. That’s how these things go in real life… right?

*Three pages later* Oh, I stand corrected… She had a crystal candlestick, but she actually wound up pulling the rug out from under him ala Bugs Bunny, and that’s how he hit his head, requiring her to take care of him.

My bad.

I admit I am not a reader of romance novels, but I don’t assume out of hand that they’re going to be bad. However, I don’t read them because many of them are bad and I simply don’t enjoy the subject matter enough to find the ones that aren’t. The primary problem I have with most romance novels is the unbelievable clichés, and this book hits on all of them.
This book is porn… bad porn. Really, really, really bad porn. Which, in retrospect, brings everything into perspective. Of course we don’t care about the main character; she’s just a vagina waiting to be… well, you know, plundered.

Allow me to clarify my point here. I enjoy a good sex scene, and I have nothing against porn/erotica. I am, possibly, the least prudish person you’ve never met. However this isn’t even particularly inventive. I should have known that the paper thin plot would be a paper thin veneer to put over the fact that this is little more than an extended sex scene. When they’re not having sex, they’re thinking about having sex or reminiscing about the sex they already had or making future sex plans.

See: Sexiest Night of the Year.

Still sex.

Now? Nope. Still sex.

They’re going somewhere in the sleigh, I know it. They mention it at some point between sex, but I don’t remember now. The Bahamas, maybe?

Okay, maybe… ? But no. Sex.

There’s an upside here though: I can skip ahead by quite a bit and not really feel like I’ve missed anything. Seriously, the sad thing is, there could be good parts here. There could be good writing in there, and I’m so exasperated with all the damn sex that I would never know. Not that I think the writing has gotten good. I’m just saying if it did… I… well, I don’t really care anymore. Keep having the sex, by all means. If I flip forward and see the words “wet” “bronzed”, or “shaft” anywhere on the page I just skip it. At this rate I can get through this book faster than Erik the Viking got into Holly the Horny’s panties. And that, my dear friends, is wicked fast.

Oh, wait! They’re on a beach now, maybe they’ll talk or – nope. Sex.

Sex with sand. That’s the only difference.

NO, hold on, she’s describing the sea! Yay, something… no, wait. Now she’s comparing it to their sex. Seriously.

And now she’s crying. Sex and crying. Great. She’s known the guy for one day, and he has to go back to the North Pole, and she’s crying. Woman, don’t you know there is no crying in Viking Santa Porn (which, by the way, goes on the list of Things I Never Thought I’d Say). This is so obviously an attempt to engage the reader in a novel that otherwise moves the reader to no emotion at all aside from bewilderment and despair that I just become even more irritated at the effort.

Oh, now she’s all tired and sad because they’ve been apart. He’s back, and he’s concerned that she’s so clearly exhausted and distraught and he draws her a bath and…

Yup. You guessed it.

Less than ten percent to go… I can do this… I am going to finish this thing tonight so that no more of my days are polluted with this work.

Someone remind me why I’m doing this again?

Oh, thank god, the last 2% was “about the author.” Which was, much to my dismay and confusion, written quite well, which is just adding insult to injury. I seriously hate this book with the all consuming power of a hundred billion suns. The author makes up a ridiculous plot with tiresome characters, writes it poorly, gives us sex scenes that aren’t even good, then gives us a single paragraph about her that is well written? I feel as though someone I trusted threw a big shit in my face and then told me that they had the choice of either throwing the shit in my face or nicely feeding me a chocolate cream pie and they knowingly chose the poo flinging. Not only have I suffered, it appears I have suffered needlessly. Yes people, this book makes me feel like my best friend is a spider monkey.

Now that we’ve gotten the entirety of the hackneyed plot out of the way, let’s address some of the issues revolving around language usage.

She refers to his skin as ‘bronzed.’ A Viking… from the North Pole… “Bronzed”? Honey, you’re not thinking enough about your fantasy. You either want bronzed or a Viking, and trust me, never the twain shall meet.

“The sack rattled emptily, and Holly had to stretch to reach the only box." To me, this is right up there with "I was born and raised an 18 year old Viking vampire." How does something rattle emptily? If it rattles, that would probably (to the logical thinker) indicate that it is not empty. If you don’t even know what “empty” means, you should not be a writer.

Dear Author of This Book, Learn words. Love, Me.

“Lying on his back, she’d have expected him to look less imposing, not more so. And kind of vulnerable. Even unconscious, he didn’t seem to do ‘vulnerable.’”

Then later…. “… Definitely not so scary when he was asleep.”

So wait… is he less imposing or more when he’s asleep? I’m confused. So are you. So is the author… oh, never mind. Apparently these things just depend on where in the ridiculous fantasy we are…

And here at the very last Erik mentions Thor and Loki like they’re old buddies, but his own back story is never given. What the hell? He doesn’t indicate that he or his father (who is, in case you’d willfully forgotten, motherfucking Santa Claus) are actually Norse gods. We get no explanation as to how a Viking got to be A) Immortal B.) motherfucking Santa Claus. Are we supposed to assume that all Vikings are immortal? Are we meant to just gather on our own that all Vikings are in the running to become fat, jolly toy deliverers? And if so… how the hell did THAT happen? Who looked at the fucking Vikings and went “Well, they’re known for raping, pillaging and sacking. Let’s give them the power to pop down people’s chimneys whenever they’d like and set them up to be adored by young children!” I don’t typically mind if some things are left to the imagination but there’s really no reasonable explanation one can come to on their own here. Which probably also tells us why the author didn’t give us a reasonable explanation either.

So to sum up, the whole Erik the Toy Delivering Viking thing was just a thin ruse to *ahem* get him down her chimney.

Oh, but for the record, my best friend is not a spider monkey, though it must be said that she has also never fed me chocolate cream pie.

Astrid Update Update

This Astrid the Viking Vampire thing is turning into a real saga - three posts for one bad book!

I re-downloaded the book, and (other than the title), it was identical to what I previously wrote about. I downloaded the new sample, and it was updated to the new version.

So I contacted some of my Amazon-employed friends and managed to get some information - apparently I don't have access to the new version of the text without either buying it again or contacting customer service.

I read the new sample - it's as bad as ever, but some of the mind-blowing badness is gone.

Like that classic first line: "I was born and raised an eighteen-year-old viking vampire."  It's gone. Replaced with a much less-entertaining first line. All the names have changed (probably to protect the innocent). It otherwise appears to be the same book - which is a shame.

It's like we've moved from Plan Nine from Outer Space to Bad Santa - both films are terrible, but one is a classic due to the sheer pressure of awful.  The other will (hopefully) be forgotten.

Because of this, I'm not going to re-buy the book. And I'm not going to ask Customer Service to update my version to the latest one.

Given a choice between Plan Nine and Bad Santa, I'll choose Plan Nine every day of the week. I'll pay $3 for Plan Nine. I won't pay that same $3 for Bad Santa.

I sampled a few more of Ms. Van Bokkem's books - there is a bit of Plan Nine, but it's mostly Bad Santa.  Purchase at your own risk.

Astrid Update

So ... remember that review of Astrid the Viking Vampire that I wrote a few weeks back?

The author may have spotted the review, as the book has a new title - and the lead character's name has changed, according to the summary.

It's now Vampire Warriors (paranomal romance). And the character's name is now Klara.

I'm ... I'm sending it to my Kindle so I can re-read to see if there are any changes of note. Other than the title and the name of the main character.

Astrid the Viking Vampire

A few weeks ago, I said that some of the books we'd be reading would be "transparent self-insert wish-fulfillment fantasies." Well, the first book I set myself up for is one of those.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to Astrid the Viking Vampire by Vianka Van Bokkem.

There are ways you can tell a book is going to be bad without ever having to look at the book itself. For example, look at the author and how prolific they are.

No. Really.

Stephen King is an excellent example to highlight this. You see, he has written a number of books. He's a book-writing machine.

He dedicates between four and six hours per day minimum to writing. And he rarely spit out more than two or three books per year, even at the height of his output.

So, when an author has shit out twenty-four books in four months, that's ... well, it tells you something about the likely quality of that author's output.

That said, please examine Ms. Van Bokkem's bibliography.

Amazon recommended this one to me. See, I've been reading a lot of urban fantasy lately. Jim Butcher. Tom Sniegoski. Seanan McGuire.

You know. The good stuff. I recommend reading any of the three of them. They are excellent authors.

But apparently people who read their works also read this one. Or something.

So I did what I always do when faced with a potential new book for my Kindle: I grabbed the sample.

And the first sentence told me what I was in for:

I was born and raised an eighteen-year-old Viking vampire.

I read that sentence, and I put my Kindle down, and I called Del.

See, Bad E-books wasn't originally going to be a group blog. It was going to be "Del Destroys Books." But I got tired of waiting and offered to help.

Oops.

So I called Del, and I said, "Del, I've got another one for you. And I'll bet you can't even get through the first sentence without cringing."

I was born and raised an eighteen-year-old Viking vampire.

"What? She was born at eighteen?"

"Apparently so, Del."

"She was raised as an ... I ... "

"I know, Del."

"You already dumped that other book on me. This is All You, Eric."

"Damn."

Then I stalled for a couple of months. Pointed out some bad-looking books to Del and Steph. And hoped she'd forgotten what I'd found lurking in the dark corners of Amazon's site.

No such luck.

So I spent the $3, and braced myself.

Let me give you the whole first paragraph:

I was born and raised an eighteen-year-old Viking vampire. I have long blonde hair that I keep braided. My eyes are gray and I am 5'9" tall.

This, by the way, puts the author well ahead of Stephenie Meyer - I know what the protagonist and POV character looks like.

Why don't we continue with the second paragraph?

My leather skirt of choice has always been a short one. A long one gets in the way when I have to run after my favorite meal: human blood. Scandinavia was my home since I was born. I decided to relocate to the kingdom of the Netherlands, outside a small charming town named Rhoon when I was fifteen years old.

At this point, my brain started trying to escape this one. I mean ... more than usual. We're two paragraphs in, and I'm not sure what tense we're in - it appears to be first-person past tense, but ... well ... it's awkward. "Scandanavia was my home since I was born." Really?

Ms. Van Bokkem, if you happen to stumble across this blog entry, I'm sorry. I really am. In person, I'm sure you're a wonderful woman. I'm sure you're sweet and nice and wonderful. And I hope that what I have to say here doesn't hurt your feelings too badly, but the fact is this book is bad. When you sit down in front of a keyboard, you are a menace to everything I hold dear.

I've heard people talk about "drinking game" books - "Read until you laugh. Take a drink and pass the book clockwise. If anyone else laughs, they have to take a drink but you continue reading" - but, before this, I'd never seen one before. I had regarded them as little more than urban myths.

Dear Reader, I'm not going to quote the whole book for you here. It would be unfair to the author - after all it's possible that one or two of you may actually decide to buy the book out of morbid curiosity, based on my ranting.

I am, however, going to give you a couple of highlights:

"We are not vampires," I replied, while making a mental strategy to kill them all. Like a good Viking, I never left home without my sword, axe and shield.

That bit? Leads to an action scene in which eight experienced vampire hunters are completely unprepared for the speed at which Astrid is capable of moving. How unprepared? Astrid throws an axe at one of their hearts. She then grabs her sword and stabs the hearts of six more. Without a struggle, so far as I can tell.

"Why do you sleep in a long double coffin, Astrid?"

"I want to be prepared when I find a tall, handsome vampire."

Because, like most guys, he won't want to go back to his place. It's probably a mess with half-eaten meals staining the sink and bones overflowing the garbage. Or he has a stoner roommate. Or both. I can imagine that the roommate is too stoned to be aware of the fact that this theoretical Viking Boyfriend is a vampire.

Just so you know - even within the sample - Astrid had turned another girl into a vampire. And she takes Nessa into Amsterdam to do some clothes shopping.

I took her to a store that sold her type of clothing.

That's right: Amsterdam is advanced enough to have clothing stores at this point. Not only that, but it has changing rooms.

At about this point, I realized: I don't know what year this is set in. It's possible that it's 2011 and Astrid has been hiding in the forest for hundreds of years. But no-one else in town seems to be noticing her unusual garb. See, it can't be the dark ages, because there is a clothing store in town.

Oh - not only is there a clothing store in town, but it's apparently open all night. Because the sun could turn them to ash ... then she hears an amazing male voice, and sees two guys chatting. And there we have the great sentence, "He looked like him."

He ... he looked like him? HE LOOKED LIKE HIM?

At this point, by the way, I'm 38% of the way through the book.

I've given up hoping it would improve. My thought process went something like this: It's only 417 locations long. That's ... that's not long, right?

Right.

So the handsome stranger? Introduces himself and asks to speak to her outside. Did I mention that he was wearing an iron helmet with ivory horns? Ivory? As elephants are uncommon at best in Europe, I am forced to speculate as to exactly what animal gave up its life for this ivory.

Let me set this scene for you, and we can do a quick multiple-guess:

It's the Dark Ages. You are a lonely author 5'9" hottie, and a 6'4" man just asked you to step outside for some privacy. Once outside, he directs you to a park across the street.

What do you do?

A) Expect a trap filled with vampire hunters and follow
B) Expect to be pillaged and follow
C) A, only you don't follow
D) B, only you don't follow
E) Follow without worrying about being staked or pillaged because the possiblity of nefariousness never occurred to you.

Thankfully, he apparently doesn't have any nefarious intentions, though. See, he knows that Astrid and Nessa are Viking vampires. Amazingly, he is one, too. And so is his cute friend.

How convenient and wonderful!

Oh - and he and his buddy are looking for allies. The British vampires are apparently invading Norway, and the Viking vampires are losing because it's winter and the sun isn't going to rise.

Because, you know, Viking vampires are vulnerable to winter. Apparently. Or so I am led to believe by the author's assertion that the British are winning because it's winter.

Astrid ponders this proposition for several pages of agonizing thought about two seconds and decides that he sounds sincere and must be trustworthy.

They take the boys back to their place. At this point the party consists of ... Astrid, 18; Viktor, 19; Nessa, 16; and Joska, 17. I sure hope Nessa and Joska don't hook up ... they're both underage!

So they meet Viktor and Joska's brother.

"Astrid, Nessa, this is our brother Iver, and the reason why he is not blonde is because he took after our deceased mother, who was a brunette with blue eyes."

So ... yeah. The most important thing about Iver is that his hair is different from his brothers' hair.

They shortly board a knarr (which carries a few karves) (thanks for the historical detail there!).

Oh - and apparently the entire fleet of Viking vampire ships (sixty or so in all) report to Viktor. This strikes me as a bit of a mistake, unless Viktor is the greatest war leader in vampire history. It'd be like making a recent high school graduate an Admiral.

Fifty-two percent. I can get through this book. It won't kill me.

You just need to be smarter than the book. Right?

So, on the voyage, Iver flirts with Astrid.

Oh - and there's another Vampire Hunter Ambush. This time, Astrid doesn't stab six of them. Because the islanders are better prepared than the experienced vampire hunters.

Yes. Really. And Nessa and Joska are captured, along with much of the rest of the crew of the ship.

So they retreat back to the ship to come up with a plan.

A brilliant plan.

One with no chance of failure: Waiting until 2am to attack. Becase the guards will be tired.

Remember waaay back at the beginning of the post when I mentioned that this was a self-insert fantasy?

Viktor and Iver courted me during our long, eventful voyage.

Yep. Two suitors. This reads like the sort of novel the Bear would write (don't ask)¹.

Oh - and the British have cannons. So I guess it's not the dark ages. Well ... maybe. Because there are records of cannon as early as the 13th century ... I'm so confused.

So there's a battle, and then ... Nessa and Joska hook up (off-camera - we're not reading kiddie porn, here). Oh - and it's made clear that Viking vampires are better than British vampires in battle. A lot better. One wonders how the British managed to seize the Viking territory.

Remind me again why the Viking Vampires headed to the Netherlands to find help? Because it was one battle which the Vikings won rather decisively ... of course, they are on the shore. Maybe winter is ending?

My favorite part to this point, by the way, is when the English counterattack and the human Vikings attack them with torches:

A big number of English vampires were running around covered in flames. The ones who tried to get rid of the fire by running towards the water made the fire spread quicker. Somehow saltwater acted as a fire accelerator.

I just read that paragraph to Steph. She's giving me that blank look that is so rare on her face. She's trying to understand what I just read, and it's not working.

I read it to her, and I have no idea what's going on. Maybe vampire flesh is like pure sodium and explodes on contact with water? That wouldn't work, though, as there is a fair amount of water in blood, so they'd explode when they tried to feed.

Actually, I find myself wishing that the vampires were pure sodium. Because vampires exploding when they fed would be awesome. And better than this book.

Oh - and Astrid decides to stick with Viktor rather than going to Iver.

We won the war against the English and Norway is free of them. We can go and do whatever we want to do.

And then Astrid and Viktor hook up and live happily ever after.

Well, until the Australians need some strategy hints in their struggles with the invading Spanish vampires ...


¹ I lie. Much as I dislike the Bear, she writes better than this.

Introductions: Steph

I'm, well, a big bookworm, obviously.  I'm a kid who went straight from the Berenstein Bears to the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.  I have a great love of mysteries, random true-crime novels, spec-fic, and zombies.  I've been attempting to write for awhile, but am well aware that nothing I write is ready to be released into the wild.

So ... What's the Plan?

Now that you know who we are, let me explain to you what we are doing here.

You see, we are three people who love books. We delight in good books. We share them with each other. we buy them for each other. We hang out together and talk about how awesome they are.

We love books.

We all have e-book readers, too. In our cases, they're all Kindles - and it does make a difference in this case because Amazon has an excellent program for self-publishers.

This means that hundreds of "indie" authors - without the support of the formal publishing system - are producing books for the Kindle.

And it's a mixed blessing.

There are gems out there. There are signficant undiscovered works of staggering genius. There are authors who have written books for Kindle that deserve recognition and awards.

We will not be writing about these. If you poke around a bit, there are dozens of blogs dedicated to helping you find good books for your Kindle. There are even several excellent blogs devoted to indie authors that are worth reading. We plan to link to some of those blogs as well, so you can see that we aren't just harbingers of doom.

But we're going to be writing about the other end of the spectrum.

The bad books we're going to be writing about here are clunky. They're awkward. They'll spend too many words describing the scene and not enough telling us what's happening in the scene. The dialogue will be stilted and unnatural with little (if any) differentiation between the voices of the various characters. The books we'll be writing about will feature battle scenes with each side firing canon at one another¹. The characters will be charming rouges¹. The words "there" "their" and "they're" will be used nearly interchangeably.

And sometimes the story will be a transparent self-insert wish-fulfillment fantasies. And no, I won't refer them as being a "Mary Sue." Mary Sues are the domain of Fanfic.

Speaking of fanfic, there will probably be stories which are really just Fanfic with the names changed to avoid possible legal problems.

We really don't know the depths to which we will have to sink to highlight some of these lowlights.

We're reading them so that you don't have to.

We're going to be updating irregularly - as we find (and finish) books. Sometimes, we'll read the same books and will have comments to make together. We may even occasionally get together and record a podcast about some of these shared-pain books.

In short: Our pain, let us show you it.










¹ If you don't understand why this is a problem, use a dictionary. Not a spell-checker - a dictionary. And yes, I know I used the same footnote number multiple times.