Tag Archives: Philip K. Dick

More on bad books

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Bad books

I’ve never read Stephanie Meyer and have nothing against her and her work. But I still find this funny because I’m a horrible person.

I’ve finally finished Trudi Canavan’s Priestess of the White. It didn’t get any better. And whilst I could ramble on about its flaws and failings, let me ask another question: why did I follow it all the way to the end? It was hardly short – 688 pages; over 19 hours in its audio version – and yet I stuck through it. Why? And, more generally, why do ‘bad’ books become hits? I’m particularly thinking of Dan Brown and EL James here: critically reviled and yet astonishingly successful.

‘Life is too short to waste your time with bad books’, says Michael Kruger. Joyce agrees: ‘Life is too short to read a bad book’, he says. Piffle and poppycock, says I. There’s nothing wrong with reading a book that someone has labelled ‘bad’ – even for reading a book you yourself know to be bad. Here’s a few reasons I might stick with a non-critically-lauded anti-masterpiece:

  • Bad books can be easy reads

Bad books often use simple language. Not only that but every sentiment will be rammed home myriad times. Every subtext will be explained. This means you don’t have to worry about missing a key fact or ‘clue’ because the significance will be hammered home. You know what’s important. You never get lost.

All this makes a ‘bad’ book easy, undemanding company: sometimes you want simplicity, especially if you’ve a busy, complicated, life, or if you only get to read in short snatches and are frequently interrupted. Bad books (of the Dan Brown variety) do not make heavy demands on you, and sometimes it’s nice to be told what matters.

  • A bad book can have excellent elements

You can fall in love with characters. You can be gripped by plot or seek out sizzling sex scenes. You might be desperate to see what happens. A ‘bad’ book can still seize you by the neck and refuse to let go despite flaws so large they can be seen from space.

This is the Philip K. Dick defence: the writing’s bad but the ideas are so strong that it’s worth the effort. At some point you might decide that the book’s not bad after all. But you can’t honestly say that, by the basic ‘readability’ test, it’s not pretty damn poor.

I promise never to write the phrase ‘sizzling sex scenes’ ever again. Urgh. I feel dirty.

  • Bad books help you learn

Why is a book bad? If overuse of a word sticks in your craw then you’ll know not to make that error yourself. If a deus ex leaps out at you you’ll make sure you appropriately foreshadow in your own work. A writer cannot live on badness alone but bad books can be invaluable adjutants in the long march to brilliance.

  • Morbid curiosity

Part of the appeal of EL James and Dan Brown is that they’re supposed to be bad. Who doesn’t like the odd ‘scoffee break’ in their lives? See also: all women’s mags ever*. I suspect that, in reality, it’s really difficult to hit that sweet spot between compelling and crap that these two have hit. And that’s why they’re rich and you’re not.

*My personal favourite: Take A Break’s psychic special – ‘Help – my bowel is haunted!’**

**No, really.

  • A bad book is better than no book

This is clearly self-evident.

  • Stubbornness

This is my sin. I just can’t bear to give up on a book once I’ve committed to it. If I’ve made a decision to read past a certain point then I want to see it home. No, I don’t know what that point is. And yes, unless you’re a reviewer or beta-reader or have some similar excuse, this is stupid.

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Anyone got any recommendations for can’t-miss bad books? What makes you stick with a book even though part of you wants to hurl it at the nearest wall? Are some sins just too much to bear? Comments, as always. welcome.

The books that made me

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Today’s blog comes from my metaphorical sickbed. This week I’ve spent four nights in hospital and have committed not a word to hard drive. Sorry. So, without a status update or any insights into the creative writing process, here instead is a quick canter through a few books and authors that I count as major influences on me and my writing. Hope you enjoy.

Sargasso of Space – Andre Norton

A half-remembered classic, one of my most formative experiences of science fiction. My Mum read this to me when I was but small – around 10, maybe. Looking back, I remember not the story so much as the atmosphere Norton created. First published in 1955, it’s a very British novel with such a different feel to the writing of Asimov or the other early American pioneers. It was my first introduction to the concept of ‘Terra’ and also contained the Psych test, now thoroughly ‘appropriated’ by me for the Night Shift novels. I reread one of her later novels recently and found it to be quite stiff, especially in dialogue – very much of her time. But her voice remained strong and her stories are always gripping.

Five Red Herrings – Dorothy L. Sayers 

Gaudy Night has the most beautiful writing. Murder Must Advertise is the classic crime novel. And yet this is the one that I have most admiration for. There are six suspects in a murder investigation: five of them are red herrings. That’s it. Beautifully plotted, I read it for the first time relatively recently and couldn’t help but smile at the deftness with which the story played with itself. Plus Wimsey really does stand up as a character, even in these cynical and proletarian times.

Caliban – Roger MacBride Allen/Isaac Asimov

Don’t be fooled by Asimov’s name – this is one of those ‘by Isaac Asimov, with RMA’ things where you know that all of the work was really done by the lesser name (are you listening, James Patterson?). This novel’s all but unknown now and that’s a shame because it deserves a lot better.

Asimov’s involvement is in the creation of the Three Laws of Robotics and in sketching out the consequences of these on humanity. He posits that they’d create an indolent, unproductive society, cosseted by an ever-worshipful army of dependent robots. But when a robot becomes lead suspect in a murder enquiry society might choose to sacrifice their planet for short-term comfort.

This, you’ll notice immediately, is classic speculative fiction: ‘so if things continue like this, how will they be in a century?’ It’s also a quality crime novel, and a massive, massive influence on the Night Shift trilogy. It’s also a series I’ve re-read many, many times and have lent to many, many people.

Archer’s Goon – Diana Wynne Jones

A confession: I watched the series before I read the book. Well, children’s TV was worth something in 1992. This is everything you want in junior fiction. It’s inventive, funny, thrilling, and a tour de force of the imagination. Howard, the young protagonist, arrives home after school to find a Goon in his kitchen. That’s it – no messing about, we’re right into a wonderfully surreal adventure in a town controlled by seven mysterious siblings, all with their different areas of responsibility.

A Scanner Darkly – Philip K. Dick

I’ve written before about PKD. About how I’m not a fan of his writing – and, like Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, this is a story that might actually be better on screen. But the ideas – the ideas! Oh, I can’t tell you how this affected me when I first read it. Unsettling, terrifying, dislocating. I can’t tell you too much because I’ve stolen ideas liberally. Just, if you are going to read this, be prepared for some extreme scowling at the page as you try and decipher those hopelessly convoluted sentences.

Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman

My first taste of Gaiman and still (alongside Good Omens) my favourite. With an everyman hero and a delightfully off-key world – at the same time larger-than-life and sad and tarnished – London Below is a beautiful labyrinth. It also has some of the best villains in literature. Don’t just take my word for that – ask Mr Pratchett, who lifted Croup and Vandemar wholesale for Discword novel The Truth. I’d have been a teenager when I first came across this, long before I knew I wanted to be a writer. Lenny Henry’s involvement was the big news, not Gaiman’s input. In hindsight it’s a wonder this didn’t make more of an impact because it captures the imagination like nothing else.

UnRoman Britain – Stuart, Laycock

Non-fiction time! And historically/archaeologically dubious non-fiction at that. Which is not to say this isn’t based on good solid evidence, just that the conclusions Laycock draws aren’t widely accepted in academia.

This matters not a jot. This is a fascinating work and one with a good strong story; that of the collapse of Roman culture after the last of the legions left Britain. I doubt you’re interested, but it fascinated me with its analysis of cultural change throughout (and before, and after) the Roman occupation. It strongly influenced Chivalry and, whether or not it all happened like Laycock posits, it really made me think how people react to authority. And what they might do when that authority is removed.

Revisiting the classics

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My Mum, when I was younger, used to read me the books of Ellis Peters. I loved them. In my innocence and naivety I never realised that they are, in fact, pretty poor. The crime-solving (and let’s not forget that the Ellis Peters award is still given to the best historical crime novel every year) is weak; the romances that always went hand-in-hand aren’t even worthy of Mills and Boon. But they’re loved and still a most pleasant way of passing an evening.

Same goes for Agatha Christie. Hugely important, the first name of the Golden Age of crime-writing – but are her novels actually that good? Not really. You couldn’t expect them to get published today.

See, I have a theory that books – like popular music, in fact – are much better now than they ever were in the past. There’s been a massive improvement throughout literature and now classics are held as such more for what they did at the time than for their actual literary merit.

Take James Joyce’s Ulysses. By all accounts that’s a fearsomely difficult read. Can you really hold that out as genius when most people can’t get past the first few chapters? Take Philip K. Dick. Now PKD’s been a huge influence on me. He was, is, and will be the first person you turn to if you want ideas. Just look at the influence he’s had on movies, all the novels he’s had adapted. But he too was, by modern standards, a pretty poor writer. He jumps from mind to mind so you often don’t know whose thoughts you’re sharing. His prose is unnecessarily complicated. You often have to re-read his paragraphs three times to get what he means.

(Same goes for William Gibson’s Neuromancer, by the way. Another genre-progenitor that’s fearsomely difficult to read. Asimov’s not great either.)

This is not a criticism of these particular authors, by the way. I admire them all hugely and it’s never possible to divorce a writer from the times and circumstances they wrote in. Without them we’d never have their successors – like me. If I can write it’s because I was raised on Peters and Christie, Tolkien and Dick. They taught me a huge amount about literature and stories and craft.                                                                                

But do they stand up as good novels by modern standards? I say no. I say they’d never be published today.

I’ve never read any of Dan Brown’s stuff; seems to me there’re a lot better things to choose in a big old literary market. But everyone who enjoys his books says that they’re incredibly easy to read. Isn’t that, first and last, what we need from a novel? Something that sucks you in, drags you along, and turns you out as a slightly different person at the end? In terms of craft I think you could make a pretty decent argument that he’s a better writer than all the aforementioned.

And what of Tolkien? Lord of the Rings – most popular novel in the UK, a creation that’s influenced every fantasy (and historical) novel ever since. Single-handedly this work created the epic fantasy genre.

But there are faults. Some, the songs and poems, I don’t actually mind so much. But the characters are all drawn so shallowly. Only Sean Bean shows any real character development. The plot holes are legendary. It’s my assertion that this book never would have been published in today’s market – certainly without a hell of a lot of editing. Ditto Kerouac’s On the Road. Not sure about Catcher in the Rye. I reckon Catch-22 might have scraped into print, although the non-linear structure might frighten more than a few agents.

For all the talk of a decline in literacy in the Western world, the standard required to be published has improved enormously. More than that, the number of good quality books that are being rejected for publication is incredible. Is this a sign of the democratisation of reading? That it’s not just a hobby for the ‘intellectual’, the ‘elite’; reading is now for everyone and the hoi polloi require books that are easy to read – even if they lack the depth and psychological truths of a Virginia Woolf?

Maybe that’s a bit cynical. Maybe it’s that we expect more these days. We expect reading to be a pleasure, not a duty. We expect books to be properly constructed, the laws of point-of-view to be obeyed strictly. We demand an absence of errors. And whilst a good story can still blind us to obvious plot-holes, we’re looking for these things more and more. We’re less forgiving, perhaps.

It’d be fascinating to know what the luminaries make of our modern tastes. Would Tolkien enjoy Terry Pratchett? Would PKD be a fan of Ann Leckie? Dostoyevsky – would he like Akunin?

In a hundred years time which of today’s books will be classics? And will they be the ones that are most read?