I read these 2 books over the Holidays and they make for an interesting exercise in "Compare and Contrast" so I figured I'd review them together.
SPOILER WARNING - I discuss some plot details you may not wish to know if you have not already read the books! Read on at your own risk:
Both books are about a young woman who becomes a pool player. However the writing styles and plot choices could not be more different. In "Stroke" we are taken on a fairly direct path as the heroine Sedonia loses her father, nearly loses her business and along the way finds love and learns to become a world-beating professional pool player.
In the early stages of “Stroke” Sedonia hooks up with what turns out be a bar-table hustler making small hits in 8 Ball, then later on a road-player who hustles big money at 9 Ball across the country. She also is befriended by a gruff pool room owner with a heart of gold (There’s one in “Something Rising” too, seems to be a popular pool stereotype) and joins a hard-playing women's league team who travels to Vegas for a big tournament. At the end she plays in a WPBA tournament and then goes straight on to a major Open (I.E. Mens) tournament in Reno.
In contrast in "Something Rising" the pool is strictly about local money games, and is kept very much in the background of the story. It is a constant the heroine Cassie keeps returning to and intersecting with, but it is never allowed to dominate the narrative for any long periods. If you are looking for detailed play-by-play pool games, this is not the book for you. It is also written in a somewhat disjointed style that makes it a little hard to get into if you like your books straightforward and easy to follow. We are given only brief outlines of how Cassie gets to be a great player, and no attempt is made to have her match up with any pro players or enter any big tournaments. The biggest game comes at the end, and is part of a larger quest to lay to rest demons from her families past, not an effort to become a world champion. There are no attempts to have Cassie play with either real or semi-fictional pro pool players. In contrast "Stroke" delves far more into the worlds of hustling, both low and high stakes, amateur league play and pro tournament play, showing a much greater depth of knowledge of game and the American pool scene.
In the early sections of "Stroke" the narrative put me off by obsessing with pointless details such as the exact price and brand of a beer Sedonia buys in a particular bar that happens to be horseshoe shaped like the last 3 she was in. (A good editor could have helped a lot here.) A problem that recurs frequently in "Stroke" is that the author has a hard time deciding when to use real places and brands and when to use fictional ones. In the first half of the book he sticks mostly to using real things, but by the final sections when Sedonia is encountering the top professional pool players he coyly shifts to using fictional characters, places and events which are very clearly carbon copies of real ones. He even mixes fictional with non-fictional, having real WPBA players competing in a fictional LA tour stop.
In "Something Rising" by contrast everything seems totally real, even if the people and places are utterly fictional. This is due to the high quality and consistency of the writing. With the exception of the final section set in New Orleans I have no idea if the places and people mentioned are real or fictional, and could not care less, as the book stands up perfectly well either way. The best parts of "Stroke" for me were the middle sections, when Sedonia is competing in a bar league. Her interactions with her team mates and experiences in the big Vegas tournament make great reading and really pulled me along to the point I just had to keep reading to find out what happens next. However once she gets so good she is beating every male or female pro she comes across, it started to diverge so much from reality I lost some interest. Although Mr. Miller is clearly a knowledgeable pool player and follower of the sport at both tournament and street level he never makes it clear just how Sedonia gets so talented so fast. Even from the beginning when she seeks out lessons and you expect her to be unable to make 2 balls in a row she is running the table and ignoring what she is being taught to play her own way. By the end she is beating an Allison Fisher clone to win in a WPBA tournament and an Efren Reyes clone to win a major Open title.
Another thing I found off-putting was that as Sedonia starts playing in these pro events she starts becoming rude and arrogant for no good reason, brushing off WPBA requests for televised interviews, shouting down a cue manufacturer for having the gall to offer her an endorsement contract and, when she has finally conquered the best male and female players in the world, she tosses her hair and walks away as if pool is now beneath here until a surprise twist is thrown in for good measure at the last minute. He also portrays his thinly-disguised Allison Fisher clone in an exceedingly poor light, which I found pointlessly offensive, and Sedonia has the predictable love scene at the end that I could just as happily lived without.
I'd love to say "Something Rising" stays strong all the way through, but for me the final chapters were not as compelling as the majority of the book. In these she follows her past to New Orleans, in what becomes an oddly dream-like sequence with a final pool game showdown with a demon from the tortured romantic life of her mother. Like Sedonia she also finds love at the end, but at least it is in a slightly less predictable fashion. However "Something Rising" writing still shines even when the plot is lacking.
Overall if you want really great modern writing with a nice smattering of pool, go with "Something Rising". If you want a fast paced, easy to read drama with lots of pool player fantasy wish-fulfillment go with "Stroke".
"Stroke" by Carlos Miller (http://www.redbudpublishing.com/stroke.htm)
"Something Rising (Light and Swift)" by Haven Kimmel (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=0-1135145547-0)
SPOILER WARNING - I discuss some plot details you may not wish to know if you have not already read the books! Read on at your own risk:
Both books are about a young woman who becomes a pool player. However the writing styles and plot choices could not be more different. In "Stroke" we are taken on a fairly direct path as the heroine Sedonia loses her father, nearly loses her business and along the way finds love and learns to become a world-beating professional pool player.
In the early stages of “Stroke” Sedonia hooks up with what turns out be a bar-table hustler making small hits in 8 Ball, then later on a road-player who hustles big money at 9 Ball across the country. She also is befriended by a gruff pool room owner with a heart of gold (There’s one in “Something Rising” too, seems to be a popular pool stereotype) and joins a hard-playing women's league team who travels to Vegas for a big tournament. At the end she plays in a WPBA tournament and then goes straight on to a major Open (I.E. Mens) tournament in Reno.
In contrast in "Something Rising" the pool is strictly about local money games, and is kept very much in the background of the story. It is a constant the heroine Cassie keeps returning to and intersecting with, but it is never allowed to dominate the narrative for any long periods. If you are looking for detailed play-by-play pool games, this is not the book for you. It is also written in a somewhat disjointed style that makes it a little hard to get into if you like your books straightforward and easy to follow. We are given only brief outlines of how Cassie gets to be a great player, and no attempt is made to have her match up with any pro players or enter any big tournaments. The biggest game comes at the end, and is part of a larger quest to lay to rest demons from her families past, not an effort to become a world champion. There are no attempts to have Cassie play with either real or semi-fictional pro pool players. In contrast "Stroke" delves far more into the worlds of hustling, both low and high stakes, amateur league play and pro tournament play, showing a much greater depth of knowledge of game and the American pool scene.
In the early sections of "Stroke" the narrative put me off by obsessing with pointless details such as the exact price and brand of a beer Sedonia buys in a particular bar that happens to be horseshoe shaped like the last 3 she was in. (A good editor could have helped a lot here.) A problem that recurs frequently in "Stroke" is that the author has a hard time deciding when to use real places and brands and when to use fictional ones. In the first half of the book he sticks mostly to using real things, but by the final sections when Sedonia is encountering the top professional pool players he coyly shifts to using fictional characters, places and events which are very clearly carbon copies of real ones. He even mixes fictional with non-fictional, having real WPBA players competing in a fictional LA tour stop.
In "Something Rising" by contrast everything seems totally real, even if the people and places are utterly fictional. This is due to the high quality and consistency of the writing. With the exception of the final section set in New Orleans I have no idea if the places and people mentioned are real or fictional, and could not care less, as the book stands up perfectly well either way. The best parts of "Stroke" for me were the middle sections, when Sedonia is competing in a bar league. Her interactions with her team mates and experiences in the big Vegas tournament make great reading and really pulled me along to the point I just had to keep reading to find out what happens next. However once she gets so good she is beating every male or female pro she comes across, it started to diverge so much from reality I lost some interest. Although Mr. Miller is clearly a knowledgeable pool player and follower of the sport at both tournament and street level he never makes it clear just how Sedonia gets so talented so fast. Even from the beginning when she seeks out lessons and you expect her to be unable to make 2 balls in a row she is running the table and ignoring what she is being taught to play her own way. By the end she is beating an Allison Fisher clone to win in a WPBA tournament and an Efren Reyes clone to win a major Open title.
Another thing I found off-putting was that as Sedonia starts playing in these pro events she starts becoming rude and arrogant for no good reason, brushing off WPBA requests for televised interviews, shouting down a cue manufacturer for having the gall to offer her an endorsement contract and, when she has finally conquered the best male and female players in the world, she tosses her hair and walks away as if pool is now beneath here until a surprise twist is thrown in for good measure at the last minute. He also portrays his thinly-disguised Allison Fisher clone in an exceedingly poor light, which I found pointlessly offensive, and Sedonia has the predictable love scene at the end that I could just as happily lived without.
I'd love to say "Something Rising" stays strong all the way through, but for me the final chapters were not as compelling as the majority of the book. In these she follows her past to New Orleans, in what becomes an oddly dream-like sequence with a final pool game showdown with a demon from the tortured romantic life of her mother. Like Sedonia she also finds love at the end, but at least it is in a slightly less predictable fashion. However "Something Rising" writing still shines even when the plot is lacking.
Overall if you want really great modern writing with a nice smattering of pool, go with "Something Rising". If you want a fast paced, easy to read drama with lots of pool player fantasy wish-fulfillment go with "Stroke".
"Stroke" by Carlos Miller (http://www.redbudpublishing.com/stroke.htm)
"Something Rising (Light and Swift)" by Haven Kimmel (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=0-1135145547-0)