[ SECRET POST #5974 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5974 ⌋

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


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[Arto]



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[Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 30 secrets from Secret Submission Post #854.
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.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I enjoyed the first book and read it through, but had this weird, nagging feeling something was off. I didn't really recognize it until I started Harrow the Ninth and found myself struggling with the first 200+ pages.

I finished it eventually because I genuinely wanted to know what happened to the plot and these characters, but I think I found out what that weird, nagging off-feeling was that made these books such a struggle: it's... kinda sorta bad at explaining its own lore and worldbuilding?

I don't know how to explain it. It's like, yes, they are Doing the Thing, or This is Their Culture, but they don't explain it in a way that would make sense to an outsider (AKA first time reader.) It's like Gideon and Harrow are having a conversation with themselves over their culture and world and I'm the third wheel who just has to figure out how it functions by trying to put the pieces together. I was all "Okay, so they're saying this jargon and doing that whatchamacallit now?"

...Also Harrow the Ninth liked to drag its damn feet. Like, I get it's very character-driven (and it was, and it does it well), but I was basically Milhouse wondering when they were going to get to the damn fireworks factory ("fireworks factory" in this case being the damn Resurrection Beast.)

Needless to say, I just read a summary of Nona the Ninth and will likely do so for Alecto the Ninth.

[(Anonymous)]

I tried reading it and didn't make it very far and I think you are spot on for why that was. I was just kind of confused about a lot that was going on, there was no real good explanations for the world and motivations and was just left with more questions than answers. Which I don't particularly enjoy.

[(Anonymous)]

See, I like that it doesn't hold your hand or over-explain, and that you gather information more...organically? I prefer being taken along for the ride and "trusted", not so much being talked at like I don't belong, if that makes sense.

But I do get that it's definitely not for everyone.

[tabaqui]

That's a good thing sometimes, but if it leaves the reader just confused and lost, maybe they need to give just a tad more info....

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, I wasn't confused or lost, I was intrigued. So for me, the info and its delivery was fine. It might not be for everyone, but IMO it would have been tonally very different if it had been so hand-holdy, and the "reveals" paired with the strong voice were big selling points for me.

Versus every time I've started a book that loads exposition more strongly, my eyes cross halfway through the page and I can't absorb it. So different strokes for different folks.

[(Anonymous)]

This is a really interesting post to me, because I would say that style of exposition is not just the standard way of doing exposition in SFF, but actuslylg generally considered the *ideal* way of doing exposition in SFF, for decades.

Ofc that doesn't mean that you have to like it or that Muir executed it well. But it's just interesting because the whole construct of allowing the fictional society to exhibit itself and allowing the fictional people to behave as they actually would is so heavily valued - ever since the whole Heinlein bit about the door dilating.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, that fits with what I recall of it, too. I also kept getting thrown off because the plot and world building feels like something from centuries past (albeit with some sci-fi touches for variety) but the main character talks like a teenager/20 something from the 21st century and I didn't really enjoy that, nor did I think those things went well together. It was like reading a Regency novel that used modern slang.