Monday "Review": Book vs. Book (Day 135)

Thanks to some book loans from friends and family, I was busy reading this week instead of watching Kdramas like I should have been. I completed the "Attolia/Thief" series (as I call it) by Megan Whalen Turner and started on the Winds of the Forelands series by David B. Coe. While I'm not very far (the first book) in the series, I am on page 237, so I think I know the writing style. Some things occurred to me.

Authors have a limited amount of characters they can realistically create. Some can make six characters, and some can make 30. Authors who write complex stories about political intrigue had better be able to write 30 plus characters. Otherwise their interesting plotline becomes dull and the characters become hard to relate to. This is actually a jab at David B. Coe. While he succeeds at being mysterious, the characters aren't differentiated enough so it feels like their names and roles are their primary identities. I actually preferred Megan Whalen Turner's method of speaking through one character and then revealing at the end how seemingly ordinary events were actually strategic moves of political power. Her characters were differentiated and likable, so you cared who won.

Like all genres, fantasy authors write various levels of sex/sexual references. Some, like Megan Whalen Turner, have almost zero reference to sex. Others, like David B. Coe, can't seem to go three chapters without a sexual reference/naked person.

In addition, men and women write differently about sex. Or rather, different authors give different opinions on sex. Kristen Britain makes plently of sexual references in her latest Green Rider series book, but the characters always care about each other and have a prior existing relationship. In the Winds of the Forelands though, it seems that all the characters are ready to jump into bed with any mildly attractive person they meet. Only one of the sexual relationships any character has had was with a person that they had known for more than a week. What is that?

Thus far, David B. Coe has not impressed me. Generally we like people the more we learn about them. Not so in his book. His characters become likeable or unlikeable by millimeters and centimeters, so it's hard to tell who you want to win. The characters are a little messier than normal, and therefore "real", but they still feel like they are just making the storyline happen. Also, for my taste, the sexual references he makes are gratuitous. We all know that people do things, but the books' attitude toward and sheer number of sexual relationship ruin the storyline. I want to enjoy the book, because I borrowed it from a friend, but can political intrigue make reading it worth it?

On the other hand, Megan Whalen Turner's Thief series also had issues. I suppose all media does. Some books felt like they went on for too long. Others focused on characters I didn't like too much. Most of my issues with her writing were to due with my personal prefences on which characters were interesting, but it was the Thief series, so I shouldn't have been surprised that they focused on the thief character and not on the lonely queen (who rocks). Overall, I am much more pleased at having read Megan Whalen Turner than at trying to read David B. Coe. Much more pleased.