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Tripoint Q2 - Characters
The central viewpoint characters are Thomas Bowe-Hawkins and Christian Bowe, half-brothers, one brought up on Sprite, the other on Corinthian. On Sprite, the major other characters are Misha and Marie Hawkins, Thomas' uncle and captain, and his mother, respectively. Corinthian has more major characters: Austin, Thomas' and Christian's father and captain of Corinthian, There is also Sabrina Perrault, Christian's slightly older aunt and cargo chief, Tink, the baker, and Capella, the strange navigator.
How did Cherryh's character development work for you. Did they seem real and convincing? Did Cherryh spend too much time on character development, or would you have liked to see more? Did the relationships as they developed seem organic or artificial? Would you have liked to see more of a spotlight on any of any of the more peripheral characters?
Comments
As mentioned, the viewpoint characters all kind of blurred together for me and although I didn't have trouble working out who was who from context, I had a lot of trouble detecting this in the writing.
Was there much character development? About the only change that struck me was Tom's decision to stay on Corinthian rather than return to Sprite. The relationships didn't feel real to me for the most part and I struggled to feel that I understood why they did certain things.
I preferred some of the minor characters - Capella in particular was intriguing especially as we learned more about her particular brand of what you might call ESP (and particularly when it was hinted that Tom has the same ability). Tink was likeable. I could not decide if Saby was genuinely attracted to Tom (as she asserted) or faking it (as Tom believed). I hadn't clicked that she was Christian's aunt, which I suppose makes the relationship with Tom hovering on the incestuous (depending who's sister she was, I guess).
Saby was Christian's mother's much younger sister, IIRC. Thus no relation to Tom.
My mistake! Saby is the NIECE of Christian's mother, and thus Christian's cousin. She is still no blood relation to Tom, however.
We certainly spend a lot of time inside the character's heads. There's very little that actually happens as concrete action, but characters certainly spend a lot of time mulling things over and second-guessing what they could or should do next.
Marie and Austin are both very damaged people, and their run-in at the sleepover didn't help either of them. It's pretty clear to me that Cherryh wanted both Tom and Christian to be people who had no chance to be decent, given their parents and the gossip that attached to them. But, I don't think Tom and Christian were really distinct. I think we were supposed to consider Christian more cocksure and short tempered, but both of them had hair triggers and over-reacted to anything they thought could be a slight.
Was Cherryh trying to show something about the two half-brothers being mirrors of each other? Nature vs nurture? I don't know. I'm not sure the attempt was successful.
I was able to keep all these characters apart and they were distinct enough to stand out in my mind. I'm not sure any were all that deep, which is a bit surprising in a novel of this length. I mean, in terms of actual events, there really wasn't all that much that happened in the first 200 pages, right? Which means there ought to have been room for more character development. I'm not really sure what we spent our time doing.
My thoughts on the characters:
Tom - generic protagonist teen hero.
Christian - even more generic petulant villain, almost a cookie cutter.
Marie - potentially the most interesting, but after making a strong initial impression, she kind of disappears. Some of the best lines in the book are written to describe her.
Mischa - mostly just an authority figure to foil Marie, not much depth.
Austin - I think more interesting that Misha because you're set up to believe he's this ogre, but in the end he has more going on that that - not just a black and white character.
Sabi - I thought she and Tink were interesting, but Tink kind of disappeared.
Capella - I could never really figure out this person's role. Kind of a dark horse.
Who the heck is Patrick? He just appeared out of nowhere near the end and seemed important, but I was like 'who is this guy and where did he come from?' I'm sure it was explained, but I missed his introduction and afterward could never place him properly.
Patrick is a spy for one faction of the Mazianni, the one time Earth Company navy shattered by the war, and now turned pirate. Signi Mallory's Norway works for Pell and is 'legitimated' as the Alliance Navy. The others are on the run or destroyed. Capella works for one faction of the Mazianni, Patrick for another, and she stirred him up while looking for Christian. Patrick wants to take Capella because she knows where her faction went and how to get there.
He did seem like a fairly artificial plot point that turned up to give some oomph to the book and mean there was actually a conclusion. Cherryh could have introduced the "rival Mazianni faction" element much sooner, perhaps when Tom was investigating the warehouse at the beginning.
I understand who he is and where he comes from, but he does feel artificial coming so late in the book without warning.
...but how else are we going to have a cool space battle?
I love Protector! Great concept! Yes, Niven is the grandfather of StarCluster if Cherryh is the the grandmother...