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Daughter of Redwinter Q4: Pacing and narration
Some parts of the story seemed a bit detached from the rest, such as the siege at the start, or the journey to resolve the dispute over land. However, these were also used to introduce important plot features or changes (eg the initial meeting between Raine, Hazla, several members of Clan LacNaithe, the Queen of Feathers, Raine's ability to trance, and so on). Did this style of pacing and narration work for you or not? Did the switch of clan LacNaithe from enemies to allies work for you or was it perplexing?
Comments
Everything in this book worked for me. I haven't even liked a fantasy book since the Lies of Locke Lamorra, but this one was a joy!
I'd forgotten about Locke Lamorra - didn't we read it together in TTRPBC quite a long time ago? Not all that long after @Apocryphal invited me in I think.
I thought the pacing was fine. 'Not much to see here' anyway. I thought Lies of Locke Lamora was a much better fantasy novel, but even so I can't find much to criticize in Redwinter.
This is my only comment on the book. I barely started it because I found the pace far too slow. There were pages and pages of description and padding that I just skimmed over, before abandoning the book. This probably had a lot to do with my state of mind at the time, but this was not the book for me.
In an attempt to make this more interesting than me whining, I wonder if this book is a victim of a trend in publishing for long series of long books, rather than the short novels of the pulp era? Is the book padded and full of "digressions" because that's what sells?
I don't know Neil! My experiences were radically different. I zipped through the book - I even took breaks and read other books to slow myself down, as I wanted it fresh in my mind for discussion. It didn't seem long at all. Now I agree with you in the abstract - publishers are pumping novellas into novels and novels into novel series because of a perceived reader preference, and I prefer the short, sweet novels of earlier times. I just don't think this is a particularly good example of that.
But I do agree that novels, especially fantasy, but also SF, are much longer now. In his introduction to my current read, Limbo, by Bernard Wolfe (1952), Harlan Ellison and the other introducer comment on how long a book it is. But At 400 pages, it’s not really a long book by todays standards. Compared to Baxter, Reynolds, KS Robinson, Erickson, Goodkind, Rothfuss, Martin - it’s actually pretty short. So I think that reveals how much the expectations have changed.
Long ago, a friend gave me a copy of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I started reading - this friend was a good judge of books, but I hated it. I thought it was the worst, most senseless drivel ever written, and I threw it against the wall and it fell behind my bed. A couple years later, I found it and tried again. It was disgusting trash! How could anyone like this? Some time later, at the urging of my friend, I tried it again, and I LOVED it! I laughed and laughed my way through all the sequels.
When I first saw The Fifth Element, i tripped across it on the TV, in progress. I thought it was lame and stupid, but I was busy doing something else - probably game related - and left it on. By the time the alien lady finished her aria I was in love with it!
When I was a young musician, a friend gave me Brian Eno's first two albums, Here Come the Warm Jets, and Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy. I loved Roxy Music, so I stacked them on my stereo and let them play through while I read a good book. At first I thought they were both awful, but I dutifully flipped them over to listen to their B sides. Halfway through the first album's B side I put down my book and started listening to them over and over. The man was a genius! Every song was a musical bomb in my head.
So sometimes it's more what's in our heads than what's on the page. Try it again some time in the future. This is why I try to push my way through books I do not enjoy, and try repeatedly with books that people whose tastes I respect recommend. I am going to go back and try again with Babel in the future, for example. It may have been the wrong time for me, or my own mindset that got in the way.
I think one can see the trend towards length even within authors - for various reasons I have started rereading the Foundation series, and the original three, written in the early 1950s, are short and punchy (especially when you remember that they were first penned as episodes, not unlike how Dickens used to produce his material). But Asimov's later ones, both sequels (Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth) and prequels (Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation), written in the 80s and early 90s, are much much longer. Likewise his robot books started with short stories and short novels (eg The Caves of Steel) and ended with much longer books (eg Robots and Empire). As well as all the specific authors that @Apocryphal mentioned.
I kind of think that beyond a certain point it's an author thing - my local bookshop just passed me on a couple of speculative fiction books to assess - one is what I regard as a sensible length, if indeed a little short (275 pp) and the other is an intimating block at over 650pp. I am hesitant even to start that! Daughter of Redwinter is around 325 (all numbers are for the hardback editions).
I agree that in this case, I wasn't in the right frame of mind to enjoy the book. Perhaps if I'd read it at some other time, I'd have enjoyed it.
On the other hand, the general opinion of this book isn't effusive, so I don't think I'm missing a great deal by skipping it. There are plenty of other good books out there!
No worries!