Tonight over on r/fantasy, the good folks have set up a post wherein authors can roast their own books.
The repressed catholic in me couldn’t resist. If you want to check out the full thread, follow this link:
So without further preamble, here it is:
Yay! An opportunity to self-flagellate! Lemme at it…
Red Season Rising is a total TURD of a book. No, not Red Rising by Pierce Brown, by all accounts that is the sh*t! No, this roast is directed to Red Season Rising, by that turd-peddling, trope-churning hack D.M. Murray.
By my understanding, this guy spent the best part of 11 years writing this ‘book’. What a lazy b*stard he must be. I bet he sat about in a dark study, listening to Enya, and pretending he was a tortured (f)artist, whilst celebrating every scene he managed to club to death with his crushing lack of imagination and poise as if it were the most innovative work since [insert innovative work of choice] (told you, crushing lack of imagination).
So, speaking of lack of imagination, Red Season Rising starts well, in that it has a beginning. It farts its way through the usual tortured hero crap, in the much abused winter landscape, with nightswatchy types being all beardy and gruff (this Murray chap seems to think GRR hacked his dodgy old Toshiba from eons back and copied the Jon Snow character, and you know, he would say that. Just to drum up attention).
These gruff bearded types seem to be gruff and beardy for about one-third of the book, and then, FINALLY, a female shows up. What a sausage party. It’s as if this guy can’t identify with women or something… Ahm…”what’s that, honey?”
There appears to be the usual questing type of events going on, for some mcguffin or another. I dunno, really, I sleep read it, as the voice in my head was that of the author, and it was really monotone. Zzzzzzzzz.
The multiple POV made for a varied sense of time and place, but it may also have been the copious amounts of caffeine and sugar I had to consume to make it past the first act, in order to get to the POV split.
Speaking of which, I couldn’t wait to get past the lead character’s scenes. That guy is a d*ck. I wanted to slap him a bit. My favourite character is that one that died after 30 pages, he was the lucky one. Unlike me having to read on to THAT ending. I mean, COME ON!
All in all, if you liked reading classic old fantasy, and are a fan of greats like Eddings and Feist, then go and read Eddings and Feist. This guy has just ripped them off, and then took the ripped off turd of a story and smashed it into the face of the Grimdark sub-genre in the hope it would come out looking grizzled and warry (it’s a word) as f**k. Instead, it just reeks of someone who just wants to get their Fantasy works finished so he can write Scottish romantic fiction, and dino-erotica, and basically adds up all the tropes he can get his grasping hands onto.
Ahhhhhhhhhh – that was great! *Pats self down looking for a cigarette*
Well, if that doesn’t kill the sales, I dunno what will!
D.M.
D.M. Murray 