1999-10-11 Disappointing work in progress

But I was dissapointed and in places angered and bored by this.

Its a collection of short stories and one novella. Many of the stories are so short and sparse they are really no more then you'd expect from a writers inspiration notepad book as he jots down ideas.

So we have a collection with 1) a section miniscule ideas that may have made a great tale if they'd been developed. 2) a section of mystifying and boring tales about people I couldn't care about living underground 2) a section, including the novella, of tales about CROSS (the hero that isn't Burke). A pure cypher, but with loyal troops which of course are either man mountains, wear makeup and are called Princess or etc. I sudenly realised that if you pretend the Cross stories are comic strips then it works, I can see them in a Marvel comic.

But you know Cross will succeed; need a Harrier jump jet? - no problem, not only can he rent one but he also has a team member that can fly one in combat. I mean - come on....

And because there is no explanation, you cannot even admire Cross's cleverness at doing the exploit. Although Cross seems to suceed because the author forgets some restriction he previously set as soon as it becomes inconvenient. (what happened to the guard on the girl when the prisoners were being executed?)

NO - if you've not read Vachss before, don't start with this mistake. If you have - then its for die hard fans only (like me) so you can get a full set.