Books Lunch Date: Infected
posted by on July 31 at 13:36 PM
(A few times a week, I take a new book with me to lunch and give it a half an hour or so to grab my attention. Lunch Date is my judgment on that speed-dating experience.)
Who’s your date today? The Infected, by Scott Sigler.
Where’d you go? The Great Northwest Soup Company, a new lunch counter in South Lake Union that a local recommended to me.
What’d you eat? Mushroom and crab soup with a half tomato, basil, and mozzarella panini sandwich ($8.)
How was the food? The panini was under-panini’d, which was unfortunate, but the soup was great. I’d never thought to combine a mushroom soup with crab, but it was a great substitute for a chowder; seafood and fresh mushrooms go well together. After I ordered, I noticed that they had a non-panini homemade chicken curry sandwich ($3 for a half sandwich), and that’s what I would’ve gone with if I had it all to do over again.
What does your date say about itself? It’s a thriller about a virus that makes people go crazy. Jonathan Maberry, whoever he is, calls Sigler the “Richard Matheson of the twenty-first century,” which is appealing—I really enjoy Matheson’s pulpy fiction. Scott Sigler is “the world’s most successful podcasting author…(h)is books have held the number one audiobook position on all the podcast aggregators, including iTunes”.
Is there a representative quote? Jesus, where to start? “With his towel he wiped steam from the mirror. A shadow of bristly red beard covered his face. Bright red beard and straight blond hair…” and “Music drifted over from Bill’s cube. Ancient Sonny & Cher ditty, to which Bill cleverly sang “I got scabies, babe” instead of the original lyrics.”
Will you two end up in bed together? Jesus Christ, no. Those quotes were just samples, but there’s at least one cliche per page right now, and I’m only on page 42. This is a horrible book. Any novel that features a main character looking into a mirror so that he can be described is written by an author who clearly deserves to never write again. You know how sometimes you can tell how intelligent an author is just by reading their writing? I’m going to go out of my way to never meet Scott Sigler, because I’m afraid that my I.Q. would drop just from shaking his hand. This is the worst book I’ve started in a really long time, and I’m in the middle of reading some pretty goddamned bad books.
Sigler is a bit of a shlock writer, his only book that I liked was Earthcore, it was better then infected but not by much.
Seriously. I could never figure out why everyone was jizzing all over about this guy's books. Really the only thing interesting is how he marketed them.
Finally, someone who thinks he is a schlock writer besides me.
He is roundly defended by podcasters for turning minor internet celebrity into a publishing deal.
But then again, I don't think he is that much worse than Dan Brown, so maybe my standards are absurdly high.
Worse than that Heinlein book?
@3: I've read Dan Brown, and I didn't enjoy Dan Brown, but I would gladly read another four Dan Brown books than read one Sigler book.
@4: Lots worse than that Heinlein book. I would read it for fifty bucks on a bet, though. Anyone?
Sigler throws similes around like something that throws things really ridiculously bad. His fanboys are dumb. He is essentially an Alpha Male that found a bunch of geeks who will pander to him.
@7: Kind of like Neil Gaiman?
@8: Oh, SNAP! If your e-mail address was attached to that comment, you'd already be choking on hate mail.
@8: I don't think Neil Gaiman is particularly alpha-male-ish.
It is like Matheson . . . with severe head trauma.
Comments Closed
Comments are closed on this post.