Pick it up
Dec. 30th, 2005 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threemonkeysPlane trips are good for reading. For some reason, I find that hanging about waiting for the boarding call and being on the plane are good for the powers of concentration. As a result, for such occasions, I often choose books by author's whose work is a little difficult to work through. Figuring that to do them justice, I need to be able to focus on them properly. Back when I was doing a lot of travelling for work, I read huge amounts of Philip K Dick works on planes.
It was with this in mind that I chose to read The Year of our War by Steph Swainston on my recent trip south. I had been attempting to read this book for quite some time but I kept putting it down and not picking it up. I just couldn't get into it. Yet it did seem to have something interesting about it - the setting seemed full of potential (immortal drug addict flying messenger hero anybody?), so I decided to persist with it rather than ditch it.
I'm not at all sure that using plane time was worth the effort for this book. I was able to get through it, but never really properly engaged by it. At the end, I still considered that it was an interesting fantasy setting but nothing else that engaged. Just why that is can be hard to pin down because it can come down to quite detailed elements of wordcraft and style. But there are a few things which did bug me. First was a story line that kept breaking off and going into another story. Not parallel threads, just another story with some of the same characters in common. Second was the use of multiple names for characters. I know people who get into the whole heraldry thing love this, but it just makes it hard to follow who is who amongst the supporting cast. Third was inappropriate use of modern jargon. I think the author was going for a bit of post modern humour but just didn't pitch it right.
But the main reason why I couldn't engage was that there seemed to be a lot of basic information about the world missing and was never revealed properly. Despite being described as a "debut", this really did seem like the second or later book in a series from a scene setting point of view. I'm not sure of this was poor storytelling or I am missing out on reading a body of shorter work. What I suspect is that Swainston has spent a large amount of time developing the world. There is a sense that a lot of detail has been developed. Then for this work, only a fraction of that development is shown. Almost as if the author is so familiar with the place that the rest of us should be as well.
All that potential detail is why there seemed to be so much promise in the work. It may come to pass that this is realised in subsequent work. But I won't be attempting to find out.
It was with this in mind that I chose to read The Year of our War by Steph Swainston on my recent trip south. I had been attempting to read this book for quite some time but I kept putting it down and not picking it up. I just couldn't get into it. Yet it did seem to have something interesting about it - the setting seemed full of potential (immortal drug addict flying messenger hero anybody?), so I decided to persist with it rather than ditch it.
I'm not at all sure that using plane time was worth the effort for this book. I was able to get through it, but never really properly engaged by it. At the end, I still considered that it was an interesting fantasy setting but nothing else that engaged. Just why that is can be hard to pin down because it can come down to quite detailed elements of wordcraft and style. But there are a few things which did bug me. First was a story line that kept breaking off and going into another story. Not parallel threads, just another story with some of the same characters in common. Second was the use of multiple names for characters. I know people who get into the whole heraldry thing love this, but it just makes it hard to follow who is who amongst the supporting cast. Third was inappropriate use of modern jargon. I think the author was going for a bit of post modern humour but just didn't pitch it right.
But the main reason why I couldn't engage was that there seemed to be a lot of basic information about the world missing and was never revealed properly. Despite being described as a "debut", this really did seem like the second or later book in a series from a scene setting point of view. I'm not sure of this was poor storytelling or I am missing out on reading a body of shorter work. What I suspect is that Swainston has spent a large amount of time developing the world. There is a sense that a lot of detail has been developed. Then for this work, only a fraction of that development is shown. Almost as if the author is so familiar with the place that the rest of us should be as well.
All that potential detail is why there seemed to be so much promise in the work. It may come to pass that this is realised in subsequent work. But I won't be attempting to find out.