general rant on books

ok, I love to read books. I have hundreds of them in my room.
I was given a few hundred military based novels, the kind where some retired slob is relunctently called back into action to help somebody. This somebody almost always involes a woman.

My rant is this, why oh why do they all become lovers?!?! I mean come on, it is so bad that I have to skip the chapters where they do it. This adds nothing to the story at all, in fact it takes away from the continuity completely. Why should they couple? They were doing so well kicking ass together. They beat the evil bad guys, they got revenge for her father's untimely death too.

This makes the whole story line look formulaic. Maybe I am reading too many from that genre, but there are so many, and they were free. I could probably write a few dozen myself just using the standard formulae.

Thank you and goodnight

yeah, I agree man it drives me nuts!
Awww bloody hell, this is my thread.
I suppose no one cares.

Because darling... romance is the spice of life.. and people in real life situations under stresses such as you describe often do fall in love and start getting with each other...

Its expected its true to form and yes It can get boring..but then I read mills and boon for fodder when I run out of more heavy reading matter, so i can't really complain can I.

Interesting footnote..mills and boon now have mystery series romances, with actual action and mysteryious happenings in them, but then again they have time travel now and the characters have finally modernised to having sex at teh beginning of the book in some cases....

I guess romance is all around and a popular topic to add to a book, the interplay of characters.

its like sex in movies

if it doesnt move the story forward, its not necessary

dont get me wrong i like naked women, but in movies its needs to be necessary to move the story forward.


i only use the un necessary kind when i feel lonely




btw, thats a joke!

This makes the whole story line look formulaic

As its supposed to be. Most books out there are forumula based mid-level writtings that are sent out to garner profit. There's a market for the formulas, and people buy them up.

Look at the fantasy/sci-fi section of a big bookstore, there's probably only a few dozen actual independent storylines there, and then 'subtle' (and not so subtle) variations of those few themes.

I recall having read one 'space adventure' when I was younger where a Kingdom was replaced with a despotic and sinister republic, with Knights that have Light Swords and near psychic powers, and one dressed in black badass representing the bad guys. Just a rip-off of starwars, plain and simple.

Or even look at Michael Chricton's stuff. I particularly enjoy his books, but the last several have been the same book, different setting. Jurassic Park is about a corporation that uses high science to create a crazy theme-park or some other 'common' use. Timeline is the same thing. Instead of dinosaurs, its time travel, its even to make a 'realistic' theme park. Prey, same sort of thing, instead of dinosaurs, its nano-bots.

Not to knock chricton, i think that in his stuff its a good example of when its not too important if the book is forumulaic, because the really interesting stuff that he writes, beyond the science, is the human-human interactions and the ways groups work together.

Sorta like how tennis can't be tennis without the same set of rules and progression of stages each time.


But in general most cases of this result in paperback garbage.

Thank you all for understanding. Maybe my holiday blahs are just arriving early. I used to read only books that would inspire me or teach me, these novels that were given to me just seem hollow. It almost feels like there is absolutely no point to them. I just felt cheated after reading about a dozen or so, but I think it's a sin to discard so many unread books. It kind of goes against what I believe. Oh well, if this is my worst problem, I am doing ok.