Anita Bensoussane wrote:Just found out that Quercus have published another adult Famous Five title - Five Go Down Under:
As an Australian Blyton fan, I'm extra insulted.
This is just a bunch of words that include several references to things in Australia. Hard to believe a real person wrote this. It could have been generated by a low-grade algorithm.
I have a feeling "Ausdragon" may have hit on something here...
Society Member
It was a nuisance. An adventure was one thing - but an adventure without anything to eat was quite another thing. That wouldn't do at all. (The Valley of Adventure)
Well, exactly. I recently picked up another of the new ones, Five Escape Brexit Island, and — just as with all the others — promptly found I couldn't read more than a few lines before my brain turned to mush. There was simply no real plot, no resemblance to any of the characters we know from Blyton (other than their names) and nothing even remotely engaging, let alone witty, about any of it.
Society Member
It was a nuisance. An adventure was one thing - but an adventure without anything to eat was quite another thing. That wouldn't do at all. (The Valley of Adventure)
Or maybe word got around that he was really a low-grade algorithm and the publishers changed the name on the books so the public won't realise it's still the same computer doing the writing.
Society Member
It was a nuisance. An adventure was one thing - but an adventure without anything to eat was quite another thing. That wouldn't do at all. (The Valley of Adventure)
Do we know anything about the new writer's background,love of Blyton etc?
The Famous Five have gone on their greatest adventure yet - a trip Down Under to Oz for some gap year fun.
Enid Blyton's books are beloved the world over and The Famous Five have been the perennial favourite of her fans. Now, in this new Enid Blyton for Grown-Ups, Julian, George, Dick, Anne and Timmy head Down Under for some relaxing holiday fun. But will it be the adventure they had hoped for?
Setting up camp in Bondi they soon meet the Sydney Six, a couple of guitar-strumming Kiwis and a rogue South African and find themselves in the thick of Sydney's real estate perils and the attempts of their omnipresent cousin Rupert Kirrin to buy up the local media.
But when the sun, surf and bluebottles have their revenge and things don't quite go to plan, it's time to head for the country for a spot of sheep-shearing and quad-bike riding. Will the country be kinder to them or will their close calls with the Australian wildlife have them heading back to the city before you can say decaff soy latte?
" A kind heart always brings its own reward," said Mrs. Lee.
- The Christmas Tree Aeroplane - Society Member
Courtenay wrote:Or maybe word got around that he was really a low-grade algorithm and the publishers changed the name on the books so the public won't realise it's still the same computer doing the writing.
Well, Bruno Vincent did apparently co-write that 'best seller' 'Do Ants Have A***holes?'
But then again, this could also have been a computer...although surely a computer would do a better job?!
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'
Whoever the current writer/algorithm actually is, I bet she (it?) doesn't have enough genuine knowledge of Aussie wildlife to end the story with the Five being eaten alive by drop bears. I would.
Society Member
It was a nuisance. An adventure was one thing - but an adventure without anything to eat was quite another thing. That wouldn't do at all. (The Valley of Adventure)
It was a nuisance. An adventure was one thing - but an adventure without anything to eat was quite another thing. That wouldn't do at all. (The Valley of Adventure)
Oh dear I had hoped we had heard the last of these "books".
"What a lot of trouble one avoids if one refuses to have anything to do with the common herd. To have no job, to devote ones life to literature, is the most wonderful thing in the world. - Cicero