Lol - It reminds me of some ancient German prints of Edgar Wallace. And, yeah, rather cheap novels - nevertheless entertaining.

 

When the first description for this was revealed I thought it would be some kind of Midsomer Murders novel. I'm glad this isn't the case, but I'm still not convinced it's for me. Like a lot of us, I like my fantasy.

I'm still curious. There's little doubt this will sell well. But I will wait to see what some of my friends and the people on here think before I buy into this.

 

Basically what's happened here is that rowling has been overawed by the success of Harry Potter and now seeks accreditation as a good author to prove to the world that she didn't randomly hit the jackpot with HP and that she's consistently capable of capturing the readers' with her words. Also, the move to an adult novel is again an attempt at appearing a more "serious" author.

I think this novel will be a good novel, not a great novel. Of course it won't sell as much as HP but no one expected that but what she probably didn't expect was how averagely-good it will be quality wise.

So with her pride wounded and ego dented, she will do one of three things (a) Try and write another novel to prove the same thing. (b) Give up on writing serious adult novels and go back to writing children stories, possibly use the HP world for it. Or (c) Realize that she's done with writing and pursue a new hobby.

There you have it folks. My predictions on the matter.

 

I'm fairly convinced this will have limited international appeal, beyond British audiences.

 

Some years ago when she announced she would like to start writing crime novels she said she'd use a pseudonym to be judged evenhanded.

Perhaps it's so bad that the publisher didn't want to take the risk publishing an 'unknown' author.

 

Wouldn't surprise me. It sounds pretty shit.

 

Yeah, I for one have zero interest in it. Most things related to rural/small town/middle-class Britain tend to put me to sleep, except maybe comedies.

Rowling created a great fantasy world in Harry Potter, but most of what I enjoyed about those books was the magic, not really the characters themselves. I doubt I'll even read this.

 

I'm even less interested than I was before.

 

Interesting interview I found here.

I'm not entirely sure how to take this. On the one hand, it does seem to indicate that she may have rushed certain novels (which explains HBP and DH, that's for damn sure), and that she might go back to revisit that story.

On the other hand, I'm reminded starkly of when Lucas went back and 'revisited' the original Star Wars movies years after the fact. And as much as I'd love to see a side story to Harry Potter, if only to add additional meat to the world, it's not hard to see all the places where it could go wrong.

 

The firsts reviews are not what I expected. The critics are loving.. and horrified.

It seems like she unloaded all the hate, destruction and despair that was still heavily sugarcoated when she wrote about the Dursleys, Umbridge and the Death Eater Ministry.

Spoiler:

Spoiler

And so, from the pen that brought you The Leaky Cauldron comes this: "His knuckles in her belly as he undid his own flies – she tried to scream and he smacked her across the face – the smell of him was thick in her nostrils as he growled in her ear, ‘F-----’ shout and I’ll cut yer.’" So much for Hermione Granger.

She seems to pull it off though.

The Mirror: 5/5

The Telegraph: 3/5

I have to admit, I've gotten more interested in the book after reading these reviews. Mostly because it's Rowling, but still.

 

No time to write much but let me say this: There's pretty much Zero chance she'll ever revise and re-release any HP books. Even less so than the long-awaited encyclopedia. And that chance tracks inversely with the success of this new book, by the way.

The cynic in me whispers that the only reason this comment was made was to wield the power of HP to get The Casual Vacancy into a couple more media outlets just at release time, which, I might add, I do not begrudge her for.


As for this new book, I like the sound of it. Truth be told, HP (and of course, Dresden nowadays) is about as far into 'fantasy' as I go, and character pieces do it for me far more so than high fantasy or sci-fi.

 

Yeah, perhaps.

There are tv-Ads running in Germany. During the most expensive time frame - right before one of the main news shows.

Either the publisher fears without it won't sell, or they are deliberately pushing it based on her name.

It basically said: "The Casual Vacancy - The new book for adults - by JKR - author of the Harry Potter series."

 

Read it, hated it.

Its not because its not HP. I had no illusions about that, but this was just poor writting.

Read the reviews on Amazon for a good overview, far more 1 stars than 5s, and the 5s even admit they would give it a 3-4 but they want to boost its ratings to counter the 1's... not sure they understand how a rating system works.

Main problem: To many characters. Could have done with half, even a third of them.

I dont mind that everyone is a dick, its an interesting take, but the fact we see so many people we dont really see WHY they are dicks. So they all end up very 1 dimensional.

The story is bland to start with but could have been executed a lot stronger. I think a good editor would have saved the day, but I can almost see her throwing her weight around to leave it as is.