Theswerd wrote:HerrDerSchatten wrote:Runsforcelery, I am not concerned about the issue regarding the exact mode of splitting. I am concerend about two problems:
1. Does the next book advance the story? The last books suffered from a "80% percent of the time the story did not advance at all, than all interesting thinks happened in a hurry and finished in a cliffhanger"-feeling. I refuse to buy a book which does not expand the story at all.
2. Di you ameliorate the meeting room feeling? The last books felt like reading the protocols of our staff meeting. Necessary, but booring as hell. To be fair: I like politics and politic maneuvring - but you concentrated to far on "what if" strategy discussions and not enough on showing.
I knew critic is always hard to swallow but I criticize you because I really like your work and often think of the late books of unpolished gems. The safehold books (except #2) have way better story progression and therefore I read them more, and that is sad, because the honorverse is much more interesting.
Wait... these were problems? Part of what I enjoy so much from Weber is the wondering that end up leading nowhere. I mean, really, our hero is going to only thing about the concerns that will actually happen? Of course not, they will wonder and worry and plan against all KINDS of possible enemy actions (political, military, or otherwise), and still get surprised. Most authors seem to just cut out the boring ones and only deal with contingencies for what will actually happen. MWW has stretched my mind in how I view the world, in most every aspect, because everything *must* be considered for even simple actions.
Does politics get a little long in the tooth, or sometimes make for dry reading? Meh, somewhat, but only because the readers of the genre tend towards wanting action scenes. Readers of political fiction would be at home, and wonder why MWW insists on blowing things up in a perfectly good political novel!
Critique his grammar, sure. Spelling, yeah. Maybe note inconsistencies in his math. *cough* But the content is purely his choice, and I am firmly of the camp that if you don't like it, that's your problem, not the authors.
Ahem. I'll step down off my soap box now and wait eagerly for my next Harrington fix.
I agree that the boss has the right to split, plot, and otherwise design his work in any way he so desires. If how he wrote was too affected by what people thought of it, then it would lose the essence of what makes it the work we all know and love.
That being said, I think its fair for HerrDerSchatten to express his...reservations. Perhaps a little more boldly than I might to the man himself.
I will honestly admit that A Rising Thunder was one of the...less satisfying Honorverse books I have read (perhaps even the least to be perfectly frank). I haven't been able to fully put my finger on why but I'll give it a shot.
As one who is fond of analogies, I'll start out by saying that ART sort of felt like...like getting served course after course of dainty appetizers at a fancy dinner only to be informed at the end of it all that unfortunately there was a technical problem in the kitchen and the entree would not be coming for some time (that metaphorically being the moment when I clicked "next page" on my kindle only to be smacked upside the head by my arch-nemesis named "Cast of Characters" bu...buuuttt its only 94%! but I digress...). It seemed to me that perhaps a bit too much of the book was spent setting up something much bigger and beyond the scope of the book, and not enough to the actual plot to be concluded in the book itself. Don't get me wrong, I am a big big fan of HUGE plot arcs, which is one of the reasons I like his work. But I still need, you know, a modest entree.
To be fair, he really doesn't have to take my critique too seriously since I will beyond any doubt be buying everything he produces (and asking for the signed hard covers I can't really afford for Christmas presents :) until one of us becomes incapacitated.
On a more introspective note, I suspect that my perspective on ART might be a little biased by the way I came to the Honorverse. At All Costs was already in paperback by the time I picked up OBS for the first time. I discovered the honorverse while on one of my wikipedia binges (hyperlink...read...hyperlink), this one about speculative space technology. I ended up picking up OBS, then Honor of the Queen. Then...since I was laid up from surgery, I got a rather large box from Amazon which I proceeded to read in about 3 weeks. Looking back I can identify several books which might have been equally as frustrating as ART had I not been able to reach down into my handy-dandy amazon box and keep going (the one that comes immediately to mind is the 2-3 books that compose the Hell story arc).
Given that I've now read through the entire series 3 times since then, I have no problem taking the man's word when he says its all going to be worth it in the end. He hasn't let me down before :)
On a personal note, thanks to RFC for turning that narcotic fogged, external fixator clad leg perpetually elevated on a couple of pillows period of my life into a fair approximation of...bliss :)
