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A review by songwind
Cold Copper Tears by Glen Cook
3.0
Cold Copper Tears was a fun read from cover to cover.
The story is a pretty basic one, and would be familiar to any fan of hard-boiled detected novels. The damsel in distress comes to our hero with a job. He takes it, and soon finds himself in over his head. Through a combination of pluck, luck, smarts and good friends, he makes it through to the end.
I gave this novel a 3 rather than a 4 because I felt that there were some problems with it. First, the novel spends a lot of time in Garrett's head rather than out [b:getting things done|1633|Getting Things Done The Art of Stress-Free Productivity|David Allen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1158299716s/1633.jpg|5759]. That's nice to a certain extent, but I felt like Cook took it a little too far with this one. I also would like to have seen more of his interactions with his friends.
Second, too many things that happened were just events that happened to the hero, rather than things that happened as a result of his actions. It's nice for events to at least be related to the main character, good or bad.
Thirdly, Cook worked too hard to sell Garrett as conflicted between his natures as knight-in-rusted-armor and lech. Rather than coming off as a flawed hero, or as truly conflicted, the character whipsawed back and forth between the two, seeming to be completely ruled by one or the other, whichever was most convenient at the time. It made him a bit difficult to believe.
The story is a pretty basic one, and would be familiar to any fan of hard-boiled detected novels. The damsel in distress comes to our hero with a job. He takes it, and soon finds himself in over his head. Through a combination of pluck, luck, smarts and good friends, he makes it through to the end.
I gave this novel a 3 rather than a 4 because I felt that there were some problems with it. First, the novel spends a lot of time in Garrett's head rather than out [b:getting things done|1633|Getting Things Done The Art of Stress-Free Productivity|David Allen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1158299716s/1633.jpg|5759]. That's nice to a certain extent, but I felt like Cook took it a little too far with this one. I also would like to have seen more of his interactions with his friends.
Second, too many things that happened were just events that happened to the hero, rather than things that happened as a result of his actions. It's nice for events to at least be related to the main character, good or bad.
Thirdly, Cook worked too hard to sell Garrett as conflicted between his natures as knight-in-rusted-armor and lech. Rather than coming off as a flawed hero, or as truly conflicted, the character whipsawed back and forth between the two, seeming to be completely ruled by one or the other, whichever was most convenient at the time. It made him a bit difficult to believe.