fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3526 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3526 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

[Feed The Birds, from Mary Poppins]

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03.

(Once Upon A Time)

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04.

[ Dota 2 esport ]

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05.

[Great British Bake Off, series 3]

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06. http://i.imgur.com/82bEEum.png
[The Private Report on My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness; linked for nudity/implied porn, illustrated]

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07.

[We Happy Few]

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08.

[Stranger Things]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #504.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

At first I thought Novik simply wasn't going to write female characters (except obvious side characters like the MC's mom and ex-girlfriend, who exist just to add characterization to the MC) and was a little puzzled by it, given that the author is female, but I think she was trying to find a way to write them in while still a. keeping it an action and military oriented story and b. staying true to the time period. I thought it was clever how she did it and really cool how she built up to it and surprised the readers. I expected some of the more major plot twists, but I didn't see the female captains thing coming! (I did earlier in the book wonder if there would be any but then dismissed it when Laurence just kept talking about all the guys at the covert.)

I agree about battle scenes. They didn't seem to be her forte. They were fine, but not the most skilled I've seen them written. Part of it I think is the difficult of incorporating military tactics in with creatures/vessels and don't actually really exist. It didn't really take away from the story for me though. Maybe they'll get better in the sequels? (which I will definitely be reading!)

The overall pacing felt fine to me, though.

And yeah, the focus of the story was the bond between Laurence and Temeraire and that's awesome and good. Why not make that the main relationship? I hope that continues to be the case until the end. Romance is well and good, but this story is just about a man and his dragon - alternately, a dragon and his man. <3

Honestly, it didn't phase me that much that there weren't a lot of female characters simply because so much of the story was about Laurence and Temeraire that I didn't really pay much attention to any of the other characters. I'm really okay with that too because I loved their interactions. It sort of reminded me of Timothy Zahn's Dragonback series, at least the relationship between master and dragon. (two very different stories, but still)

I am also hoping that the other books don't contain much romance. I think it helped that Laurence is a proper gentleman, so a lot of things are filtered through him.

Overall this was a good choice for the book club and I can't say I was disappointed.

Anon who was talking about the Navy upthread agrees about the difficulty of getting female characters into this kind of story. I think Novik did a good job with it - in fact, trying to remember the later books, I'm not sure if any other countries had female captains? Short of a twist like that, it really is hard putting women into such stories. I'm writing Age of Sail at the moment, and am refusing to write a cheesy shipboard romance, which leaves me not a great deal to work with!

I definitely agree that she did a good job! And I read some of the trivia at the end that indicated that Longwings are a British breed so we don't have any particular reason to believe other countries have female captains. I'd honestly love to see some other countries' captains' reactions to learning about Harcourt and Jane though!

Don't spoil me for the later books! I'm definitely planning on reading them! Read the first chapter preview for Throne of Jade at the end of the edition of HMD that I got and am definitely looking forward to it. I predicted even before I started reading that the second book would take place at least partially in China based on the title and cover art, which is super exciting because we don't see as much of them in this historical period in literature as we do Europe and I think Chinese history is really interesting too. After reading that chapter, yeah, there's no way that's not happening! I'm looking forward to it for sure.

[ SECRET POST #3526 ]

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