Reading Pet Peeve

I've been reading a pretty good book lately but the author occasionally does something that bothers me. I might even call it a pet peeve. He'll start a chapter with some great, eerie, description that clearly suggests that something bad is about to happen. But then he'll short circuit it with some phrase like, "Looking back on it now, we had no idea how bad that night would be."  There are couple of things about this that bother me. First, it's as if the author doesn't trust his prose to convey impending threat and has to "tell" us that there is a threat. This is the equivalent of showing AND telling.  Second, it clearly lets us know that, no matter how bad things got, the person who is "telling" us the story survived. This cuts the suspense.

Now, the story is written in first person so you have a pretty good idea that person survives anyway, but I'd still rather "see" that survival occur rather than making sure ahead of time that I know it.  I actually did this in Swords of Talera and didn't even think about it at the time. Later I wished I hadn't put it in. I don't think it's as big an issue with fantasy as with horror, but it's still something I don't really like.

How about you? Does this kind of thing bother you? Or do you not even really notice it?  If you happened to  read Swords of Talera, did you notice it? It's about mid-way through chapter 1.

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