The good, the bad and the plain old f-ugly...

Welcome to Wednesday! Depending on which part of the world you are reading this in then you're either wondering "Why the heck is he welcoming me to a day that is almost over? Is he mad?" or you're thinking "Well thanks for the good day wishes, what a wonderful fellow this Matthew Wood is!" Honestly, I think both thoughts on little old me will do just fine.

Today I'm going to talk about what some might be so bold as to say is the most important part of reading, which we can all agree is therefore a vital part of creating stuff to BE read.

What we like, tolerate or just downright loathe in a book.

Okay, maybe not so much 'we' in this part as 'I'. The 'we' bit comes in when you fill in that little box on the bottom of this post marked 'comments' with your thoughts on the subject. This little Geeky would love to see some!

Plugging for comments aside, let's get talking book...

*Cue the theme to 'The good, the bad and the ugly'*

The Good

When it comes to books, first and foremost, I love a good plot. Something which has at least one subplot and isn't so transparent that I've guessed (correctly mind you) the outcome by the end of the second chapter - unless it's one of those devilishly clever pieces that leads you into a false sense of knowing the outcome, only to shock and awe with a completely unexpected yet very believable conclusion. It gives me goosebumps and sends me to bed a happy man!

Which brings me onto...

Detail folks! One of the things that drew me to Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park at the tender age of nine, never to find a re-read tedious to this day, was the level of detail he put into the science and technology side of the story. Reading about re-sequencing DNA, a process which required stressing three Cray supercomputers of the time, in all of its glory had me hook, line and sinker and always will.

So, lets say a book has those two elements. My feet are in the water, but I want to jump into the deep end head-first! Give me this last bit and I'm all yours, oh swimming pool of literary creations...

Flawed. Characters.

Oh yes. There is nothing I love more than characters who are not particularly well suited to the challenges they face during the course of a story. The reactions, interactions and development of said characters during the course of the plot become so much richer when you've got - for example - a zombie apocalypse on your hands and the only guy in the group who seems to know what the business-end of a rifle does...has only ever used one in video games.

(Yes, that was a play on a real book blurb I once read in a bookstore where the main character was introduced as an ex-special forces, martial arts expert copper about to face - you guessed it - a zombie infestation.)

The Bad

Okay so I might have put some of the stuff you should find in this section in my explanations above. Shame on me.

But to expand upon that which I blathered on about above, protagonists who are so well suited to a situation that he or she simply sails through the book's crisis asking for something more challenging - annoying. Cheap. Generally bad in my books.

See, wasn't that expansive?

I would add more to this section, but the more I thought about what I would put here, the more I found them drifting towards the next - and final - part of this post...

The plain old f-ugly

And boy, do I have some material for this one! Mostly because I stole it from 'The Bad', but that'll teach him for being such a wimp and letting me take it.

I think the one crime which, in my reading taste, is the biggest offence of all is this -

After a long and nail-biting battle of wits, strength and courage, Grand-Evil-Terrorist-Poobah Bob met his demise under the weight of a million stress balls.

"Well," Rob said with a super-cool flick of his fashionably long hair, "Glad that's over. One more girly slap and I would've been toast."

Jill, who up until this final confrontation had thought SHE was the hero here, came out of hiding and ran to Rob's side. With nothing better to do, they let their gazes meet. After all, Rob was super-humanly handsome. She could think of far worse things to stare at.

Rob took a deep, dramatic breath and suggested they retreat back to his place for a celebratory drink.

"Sounds like a great idea!" Jill exclaimed before fluttering her eyelids, "Because I've really wanted to hook up with you since this whole shenanigans began..."

Yup. It's a cliche that has a habit of finding its way into the endings of major thrillers (and most action movies come to mention it) these days. Maybe it's just me, but after a while knowing that the hero and his opposite sex sidekick will hook up at the end ruins the thrill of the crisis for me.

In my opinion. That's about as f-ugly as it gets.

So there you have it. The things in books that give me kicks and those that, sadly, don't so much. What gives you your literary kicks? Feel free (notice the recurring theme of PLEASE COMMENT again? It's sad. Have pity on the new guy.) to share your goods, bad's and f-ugly's below!