Mastiff?

I have to say, I'm not looking forward to Tamora Pierce's next book. 

When I was about fourteen or fifteen, a friend of mine brought up the Song of the Lioness quartet for probably about the third time.  The first time or two Sarah recommended it to me, I forgot.  I had other things to read, so why would I remember to purchase Alanna: The First Adventure the next time I was at the book store?  I wouldn't, of course.

The last time she recommended them to me, I did pick up A:TFA.  And I read it in less than a day and was addicted.  I promptly picked up the rest of the quartet, In the Hand of the Goddess, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, and Lioness Rampant.  All of those books were very good.  I was an ardent supporter of Alanna/George by the time I was done and I loved Liam Ironarm because he was just so stinking awesome. 

I picked up the first two books from the next quartet, The Immortals - Wild Magic and Wolf-Speaker.  I loved both of those books and ended up getting that series and the next series, The Protector of the Small (which is made up of First Test, Page, Squire, and Lady Knight), when I could.  That involved getting the first two books of that before I got the last two books of The Immortals (Emperor Mage and The Realm of the Gods).  I was fine with that, of course.  I adored Pierce's work.  It was amazing - magic and knights and romance that wasn't cheesy all rolled into one.  I loved it.  The duology that followed PotS is the Daughter of the Lioness duo, or the Trickster duo (Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen).  Those weren't my favorites, but they were still good. 

It took me ages to finally get my hands on Terrier, the first book in The Legend of Beka Cooper, which is also called The Provost's Dog Trilogy.  That was the most amazing book Pierce ever wrote, in my opinion.  I adored that book for the longest time.  I still enjoy it to this day, despite the fact that it's been about four years since I first read it and almost two and a half since I read it last. 

I have a reason for waiting so long to reread it.  That's the second book in that series, Bloodhound.  That is honestly the worst book I have ever read.  Okay, maybe it's second to what I've read of the book I have to read for history in a couple weeks.  Still.  It's the most poorly written book I've ever read.  The characters are all out of character compared to the first book.  The intelligent, strong, independent sixteen-year-old heroine from the first book?  Now an airheaded, weakling of a seventeen-year-old who will jump into bed with a guy she barely knows.  Seriously.  I'm not joking.

Beka's character changed so much between Terrier and Bloodhound that it's not even funny.  It's ridiculous.  I hated who Beka had become and she was my second favorite character from the first book (second to the oh-so-wonderful Rosto the Piper, who I absolutely love even now.).  She had changed so completely that I wasn't even sure that she was the same person.  And she wasn't the only one.  All of the characters were out of character.  All of them.  Even Rosto, who barely appeared (compared to his rather large role in the first book), was completely out of character for the most part. 

And go figure, he was continually mentioned, but all he did was sit on his butt in Corus (the capital of the country) and not do what one would think the King of Thieves would do when someone was counterfeiting silver and he was getting paid in false money.  No.  He just sat there.  And did NOTHING.  The only line I liked in the whole book was where another character described him as being "as mad as a bear with a thorn in his, er, paw."  And for good reason, too.  What would you do if the love of your life (because I'm absolutely sure that he loves Beka) slept with someone they had known for maybe two weeks after you had been pursuing them for a year?  I'd be mad as heck, personally.  So, I see his point of view.

Plus, Beka's too stupid to see what's right in front of her face.  Hmm.  Nasty, evil, horrible woman as the Rogue of the city who OBVIOUSLY has everything to do with the counterfeiting and everything?  No, she couldn't possibly be the one doing it.  I'll go chase my tail for a couple of weeks.  A couple of weeks later?  Wait a second.  I found silver in her things.  And she's chasing me.  She must be the one who did it. 

That's pretty much Cooper's thought process for the whole book.  It's horrible.  I've never seen such bad writing.  And the sad thing is that people adore the book.  How silly.

Oh, and don't even get me started on Dale Rowan (or, as I like to call him - Chipmunk Boy - because he reminds me of Dale from Chip and Dale).  I could rant about how much I hate him (with a passion.  After I read the book, I called him Evil Incarnate for weeks.  I still hate him more than any other character I've ever encountered.), but I won't subject you to that this time. 

And there's Okha.  He creeps me out.  Beyond all belief.  I never thought something would bother me that much.  It's worse than anything anywhere close to having an excessively graphic battle in a book or the graphic nature (very gritty, dark, etc. not gratuitous sex scenes) of one of my favorite trilogies.  In every possible way.  Heck, I'd rather read A Great and Terrible Beauty than read Bloodhoud and get freaked out by that again.  And that was one of the less than a handful of books that I had bought and started only to put down because there was something wrong with it.  Okha (who is a transvestite who believes he was born a woman in a man's body, by the way) is one of the few things that has seriously disturbed me in any book.

Those are some of the many reasons that that book was so horrible.  A friend of mine speculates that the book was horrible because Pierce lost everything to a complete computer crash and just started over by writing her beliefs and slapping names on it.  I couldn't agree more.  Bloodhound was one of the worst books I've ever read.  That includes Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga, which I greatly dislike.  It was also one of two books that I have ever wanted to throw against a wall.  The only other one was Breaking Dawn (yes, a Twilight/Sparklepire book...) at the anti-climax in that.  I didn't do that to either, of course, because my parents would have killed me for waking them up by throwing my book against the wall.  Well, maybe. 

Still, the point is, the excerpt from Mastiff is mediocre at best.  It's not enjoyable and it's dry.  Plus, there's a distinctive lack of Rosto-y goodness in it. 

If Pierce can't fix it in Mastiff, I'm never reading any of her new books again. 

Funny thing is, the uber feminists loved the book where Beka was so utterly weak that she just had to sleep with Chipmunk Boy.  You'd think they wouldn't do that.  Obviously, the ones who thought Beka was stronger in there and actually liked it to the point where they approve of the new portrayal of her, I don't approve.  I'll keep my thoughts to myself in that regard...but my point remains. 

Not worth it.  Just not worth it.

If you're going to buy a book, buy it from a good writer, like Brent Weeks, Brandon Sanderson, or Jim Butcher.  They're amazing.  And they don't destroy their characters from a series and utterly change them between books.  They actually write well and change the character on screen.  They're the good writers.