Just wondering if anyone else has the same love and fascination with long vehicle journies in novels. There's just something about travelling the landscape in a vehicle and the way it's depicted that I love - night drives, rain on the windscreen, stopping off at rest spots, motels, diners... I think this is why I've always been drawn to writing a road novel.
Like anything, I like it when it's well done and purposeful. The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg has a road-trip that parallels and foreshadows a more metaphorical "road-trip of the mind" that's in the novel. Well done, liked it muchly. I recently tried to dig into Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson. It has a foot-journey across the length of a vast fantasy landscape. It's purposeless and plodding and like pulling molars with your fingers. Poorly done (IMO), disliked it muchly.
I liked the excerpt of yours in the workshop very much. It reminded me of Steinbeck. Can I add Jean M Auel's The Plains of Passage to the (very, very, very) poorly-done list?
I can recall American Gods by Gaiman off the top of my head right now regarding car travel, he had a fair bit of car travel in that, he never really described much in great or complex detail yet I felt satisfied that I had been present and filled in on the transitions and pertinent details.
I liked the journey up to The Overlook Hotel, the sense of leaving civilisation and the world become increasingly remote.
