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Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!xmission!usenet.csail.mit.edu!.POSTED.hergotha.csail.mit.edu!not-for-mail From: wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Re: Martha Wells, WITCH KING Date: Thu, 8 May 2025 15:51:09 -0000 (UTC) Organization: MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab Message-ID: <vvijtd$29r7$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu> References: <vv2v6h$2qt6$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu> Injection-Date: Thu, 8 May 2025 15:51:09 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: usenet.csail.mit.edu; posting-host="hergotha.csail.mit.edu:207.180.169.34"; logging-data="75623"; mail-complaints-to="security@csail.mit.edu" X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010) Originator: wollman@hergotha.csail.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Bytes: 3173 Lines: 43 In article <vv2v6h$2qt6$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>, I wrote: >When reading an unfamiliar novel, I find that I often have to stop >reading for a while (sometimes days) before I can work though an >action scene, and I still find that I often miss things as my eyes >skim over the more uncomfortable details along with sometimes >necessary narration. I went back and reread it over the past week, and of course I did find things that I missed the first, much slower, time through. I also took a little while to look at the Goodreads reviews, and, ummm, even ignoring the people who (to put it charitably) bounced off, there are some *favorable* reviews where the reviewer clearly missed some very important sequence-of-events details. (I often get the impression that the people who "do" reviews -- no offense intended to present company -- are so pressed for time that they miss as much as they notice. Some of the Goodreads reviews that credit the publisher for providing an ARC left me with the feeling that all they read was the publisher's marketing material. There's "no spoilers" and there's "you've misunderstood how long the MC spent dead in a tomb".) One of the things that's bugging me after the second read-through is this bit near the end where the MC observes that most of the soldiers guarding a nobleman are male, and in that culture, soldiers are usually female, so these guards are probably conscripts and unhappy to be there.[1] That's ... ummm ... not unprecedented, certainly in fantasy settings if not real life, but it does leave me wondering what Wells is imagining in the background of this culture that would give rise to that. Perhaps the sequel will clarify more of the backstory. (It's already clear that there's an entire war that has been elided, about which we know little except that the characters in this book survived and occupy positions of some power.) -GAWollman [1] Now it's my turn to find out that I've misread something important. -- Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can, wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together." my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)