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lightreadsAt the Feet of the Sun
4/5. Sequel to The Hands of the Emperor. Cliopher is an ase spectrum disaster for another 300,000 plus words, either you’re into it or you’re not.
I thought when reading Hands that this excessive, under-edited length is just how her brain works. Turns out it’s not – she can produce a tidy 100,000 word novel or a tight novella. No, apparently this is just how Cliopher books work. Which I guess follows since he can’t stop thinking to save his own life. Literally. I balanced on a knife’s edge through these many, many words. There’s going to be a third book, so quite probably over a million words of Cliopher’s particular brand of bullshit. And I simultaneously think that’s delightful in the wallowing in a million words of fanfic part of my brain, and also that it is a war crime because for the love of God, we would not need all these words if he would just learn to communicate JFC.
So yeah. It’s 300,000 words of Cliopher falling into his particular giant mental blind spots over and over and over again, punctuated by that luminous, grown-up folktale magic that she does so well.
And, I will admit to being wrong. I was pretty sure she was not going to let the queerplatonic relationship go anywhere, and she really does. Is it a satisfying place? To me, really no. I’m still unpacking that some because I’m not sure if my dissatisfaction is because they basically commit to a life partnership without ever once talking about some really important things, like how one of them is on the ase spectrum and one of them is not. Or is it that we get this whole thing from Cliopher’s perspective, and he is so thuddingly oblivious to sexual tension that his POV erases it entirely from the narrative? The first one is Cliopher not being a very good partner, which is on the book and on him, and the second one is me rarely finding ase narratives compelling, which is on me. The third book will tell. But if it takes another 300,000 words for Cliopher to work up to using some feeling words like a three-year-old, I might lose it.
4/5. Sequel to The Hands of the Emperor. Cliopher is an ase spectrum disaster for another 300,000 plus words, either you’re into it or you’re not.
I thought when reading Hands that this excessive, under-edited length is just how her brain works. Turns out it’s not – she can produce a tidy 100,000 word novel or a tight novella. No, apparently this is just how Cliopher books work. Which I guess follows since he can’t stop thinking to save his own life. Literally. I balanced on a knife’s edge through these many, many words. There’s going to be a third book, so quite probably over a million words of Cliopher’s particular brand of bullshit. And I simultaneously think that’s delightful in the wallowing in a million words of fanfic part of my brain, and also that it is a war crime because for the love of God, we would not need all these words if he would just learn to communicate JFC.
So yeah. It’s 300,000 words of Cliopher falling into his particular giant mental blind spots over and over and over again, punctuated by that luminous, grown-up folktale magic that she does so well.
And, I will admit to being wrong. I was pretty sure she was not going to let the queerplatonic relationship go anywhere, and she really does. Is it a satisfying place? To me, really no. I’m still unpacking that some because I’m not sure if my dissatisfaction is because they basically commit to a life partnership without ever once talking about some really important things, like how one of them is on the ase spectrum and one of them is not. Or is it that we get this whole thing from Cliopher’s perspective, and he is so thuddingly oblivious to sexual tension that his POV erases it entirely from the narrative? The first one is Cliopher not being a very good partner, which is on the book and on him, and the second one is me rarely finding ase narratives compelling, which is on me. The third book will tell. But if it takes another 300,000 words for Cliopher to work up to using some feeling words like a three-year-old, I might lose it.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-29 06:27 pm (UTC)*We find out that Artorin is not quite right, but possibly not quite wrong in another book, Til Human Voices Wake Us, which is very...First Novel.
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Date: 2023-06-29 06:51 pm (UTC)Yeah...don't get me started on the time magic stuff. It makes my brain hurt in the not fun way. Differing time streams in different places I will buy. This casual assertion that Cliopher worked for 1,000 years but doesn't really rmember it as such and certainly didn't age and die as such, and also his friends/family on the other side of the world didn't time slip away from him . . . wait . . .
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Date: 2023-06-30 01:32 pm (UTC)Hm, Narnian chronology but not quite. I will keep that in mind.