runsforcelery wrote:You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion. In fact, as a reader, yours is the only opinion that matters when it comes to the decisions you make and the places you invest your interest and your reading time. There are books which have been highly recommended to me that simply don’t work for me as a reader, and there are books readers I respect have slammed that worked very well for me. Writing — and reading — is probably about the most subjective form of communication ever invented.
It’s also true that anyone — and writers are no different from anyone else in this regard — learns more from criticism than from praise. Praise comes from people who already think you’re doing a pretty good job; criticism comes from people who think you could be doing a better one.
Having said that, I’m telling the story the way I think it needs to be told. That may not be the story that you want to read, and that’s a totally appropriate decision for you to make. I do disagree with you that the narrative has “gone to hell,” but that may reflect our different viewpoints on what the story is and what it’s about at this point. [...]
Hello RFC
Thanks for the reply.
One minor point to clear up any confusion, I didn’t say the narrative has ‘gone to hell’. I was talking about the narrative structure, but I realize I might have been not entirely clear on this. Probably a language thing.
The story is still fun and exciting, plot, setting, all that is – IMO - still superior to pretty much all of the other stuff I read.
Sure, there are some minor issues, but it would be rather dull if we had nothing to argue about.
What I like less is how you put the whole thing together in the end. All this jumping around, backtracking, filling in, retelling, copypasting – I just think it would be so much better if I could read the story the way it actually happens. Or have really separate books in which I don’t read stuff (I already know) about Cachat when the main plot is about whats going on in 10th Fleet.
I could write more, but I’m off to reading now (sorry ). And I’m certain I will enjoy it – just like I enjoyed every Honorverse book to date, even if I would wish for some things to be done differently. I wouldn’t hang out around here otherwise.
Thank you for your efforts