I, like many here, am an avid reader. Given a choice between a book and a movie, I'll read. Waiting in line, I read. Most any down time I have, I read. I enjoy it and find it relaxing. Now I know many find that a foreign notion and cordially detest reading. I even saw a statistic on it....
Total percent of U.S. high school graduates who will never read a book after high school: 33%
Total percentage of college students who will never read another book after they graduate: 42%
Total percentage of U.S. families who did not buy a book this year: 80% (wow!)
So I understand that some people just don't want to read. (However misguided I think they may be!) But a friend asked for a good read, so I suggested a couple of things to him. One was On Basilk Station. He gave a negative review, and when I asked why that was, he said it was too wordy.
In point of fact, many of my suggestions, he said, were too wordy. That he ended up skimming a lot of sections of the book instead of reading them. All the minutiae of how many missiles were flying around, or how many people were in the army doing x, y or z. Or, in the case of 1632, all off the noble families and history that is given. He said most of it didn't have any bearing or a real point, other then as word filler, so he skimmed it, which detracted from reading the story. So much so that he put the book down.
Thoughts? I didn't suggest authors I felt were 'wordy'. People like Terry Goodkind or Robert Jordan.
David Weber, especially in the first books of his series, tends to have fast moving plots, more action and character growth that makes you want to find out what happens to that character. So that you go get the next book.
