12 Days of Monsters
Review of Architectures of Possibility
Hubert O'Hearn has written a terrific review of Architectures of Possibility for By the Book Reviews. Here is a snapshot:
"It has been my opinion for at least twenty years that the only two indispensable books on writing are The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White (he who wrote Stuart Little among many other wonderful works) and H. F. Fowler’s Modern English Usage. If you, dear writer, haven’t virtually memorized both, please get out of the profession and go make a YouTube video featuring cats doing mildly amusing things.
However, I am bumping those two books down the podium and crowning Lance Olsen’s book as the single best advisory to writers I have ever encountered. This is an absolutely masterful text. Oh, it can be heavy lifting in places. When on the very first page you bump head-on into the phrase ‘the Balzacian Mode’ you know that we aren’t in the land of cheery Bugs Bunny cartoons. Many references and analyses of Big Boy writers like Samuel Beckett, Roland Barthes and the like will leave anyone who thinks John Grisham is a classic novelist writhing in the dust of their opinions. That all said, this is a practical, helpful guide to turning out memorable fiction, poetry, or dare I say it journalism."
"It has been my opinion for at least twenty years that the only two indispensable books on writing are The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White (he who wrote Stuart Little among many other wonderful works) and H. F. Fowler’s Modern English Usage. If you, dear writer, haven’t virtually memorized both, please get out of the profession and go make a YouTube video featuring cats doing mildly amusing things.
However, I am bumping those two books down the podium and crowning Lance Olsen’s book as the single best advisory to writers I have ever encountered. This is an absolutely masterful text. Oh, it can be heavy lifting in places. When on the very first page you bump head-on into the phrase ‘the Balzacian Mode’ you know that we aren’t in the land of cheery Bugs Bunny cartoons. Many references and analyses of Big Boy writers like Samuel Beckett, Roland Barthes and the like will leave anyone who thinks John Grisham is a classic novelist writhing in the dust of their opinions. That all said, this is a practical, helpful guide to turning out memorable fiction, poetry, or dare I say it journalism."
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