Saga of the Sesame Oil: Concluded

I ran home from work at lunchtime to pull the crock pot out of the fridge and plug it in. In a short time, the smell of the sesame oil seemed a lot weaker, though I wasn't sure if I was imagining it or not.

When I got home from work for the day, my apartment smelled AMAZING. Like great Chinese food. I had high hopes for the meat! I pulled out a small piece to try. (Usually I don't open it during cooking, but I needed to see how close to done it was.) That first piece wasn't very good (bland), and wasn't cooked enough (it was cooked through but not fall-apart as crock pot meat should be). So I let it go another hour or so, and tried again. Cooked enough!

Unfortunately the taste didn't match up to the smell. It wasn't bad, but it was still lacking something. I let it cool off and tried it again as I was packing the rest away -- much better! I have high hopes for it tomorrow, maybe the flavor will improve more.

It's very salty (marinating in soy sauce for nearly 24 hours...), but not too salty for me. It's very nicely rich, too (yay sesame oil!). It has an interesting flavor to it (interesting in a good way). I'm not sure if it's the ginger or what.

I don't think I'll be making it again, but I'm pretty sure I'll be finishing the leftovers.

Book 18: His Majesty's Dragon

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik.

I should be in bed. I was reading this book before turning the lights off, but my annoyance grew so strong I had to come post instead of sleep.

I know some people on my friends list liked this book. You might want to stop reading my post.

This book offended me. Every time I pick it up, it offends me. I do not know how it got published. Not only does it use a semicolon in every other sentence (or more, sometimes it's every single sentence in a paragraph), it uses them incorrectly. This is not a book published through self publishing, it comes from a major publishing house. How in the hell did it get published? Did the author sleep with someone? Is she the daughter of the CEO? The writing is so technically bad, there's no way for me to describe it other than that it offends me.

And the story? You can basically take everything I wrote in my Sharing Knife review and reverse it. Not one character, from most minor to main, was believable. Not for a moment did any of them come off as real people.

The dialogue, both internal and external, was AWFUL. When I first started reading, I said to myself "This sounds like an American trying and failing to write British dialogue" and I was right. None of it rings true, I couldn't picture hearing any of it spoken.

I'm about 60% of the way in and hit nearly the last straw: The main character is the biggest Gary Sue to ever grace a published page. He has zero flaws. He has the most unique dragon in all of Europe. He learns everything fast and easily. When others bait him, he always takes the higher ground. When left out of things, he always understands that it's natural. When he can take no part in conversations, he listens to "educate himself". Never does he have a negative reaction or emotion (or if he does, it's explained away in seconds). Never does he lose control. Never is he not the better man.

The story isn't working much for me either (though I suspect her writing isn't helping that). I'm not a history buff, I don't care about the Napoleonic Wars. I find myself disliking RL names popping up in the middle of my fantasy book.

I may finish the book, I don't like dropping one without finishing it, but I don't know. I've been ready to quit the book since page one, and I'm to the point where it's annoying me too much to want to read more.

But seriously, how in the world did this thing get published? A semicolon every other sentence, used incorrectly. I am not exaggerating. Poorly written (technically). Main character is a huge Gary Sue. I know so many good writers who are struggling to get published, how does stuff like this get through?