I found it on my shelf, though I don’t remember how I got it. I am needing a book to read so I picked it up. So far I’m unimpressed. I’m actually going to put it down without finishing and choose something else, and unless given good reason, I doubt I will pick it back up again.
That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal to most people, but it takes a LOT for me to not finish a book. It’s like walking out of a movie (which I’ve only done once, during Teen Wolf, and that was because I had appendicitis)
Well here is the passage that made me want to quit:
*After a few more seconds she [Dauna] shut the dryer off. “Somebody named Elihu Coogan is trying to sell Aladdin’s lamp to Howard Hughes, junior. The asking price has two commas in it.”
Translation from the Daunish: This Coogan, whoever he was, was working on George Detweiler’s fascination with weird gadgets, and trying to snocker at least a million out of the deal.
(skip)
“Where can I find this Coogan? You have any idea?”
“Sure I do.” On someone else her smile might be a little toothy, but for her it’s just right. “The frail, courageous girl, braving all odds, ravaged the secret files of the implacable enemy and obtained the vital data.”
That one I couldn’t translate; I waited.
“Coogan’s in thenew phone book. Offices in the Trosper Building.”*
Ok, sorry, but that is some of the lamest dialog I’ve ever read. And if I’m expected to read a book full of the main character “translating” his girlfriends oh-so-hip unrealistic spoutings, you can forget it.
So has anyone read the book? Is it as bad as it seems?
