On Mar 24, 10:45=A0am, Howard <rayc_...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> I just finished Brotherton's "Spider Star" the other day, and have
> been thinking about it a bit.
>
> I picked up his first novel, "Star Dragon" in a used copy last year.
> I thought it was interesting; really cool alien life form, no FTL...If
> I had a problem with it, it was that I couldn't really get into any of
> the characters...they seemed a bit too distant too me. =A0I certainly
> likedit well enough that I wanted to try his second novel....
>
> "Spider Star" seems like a big jump forward. =A0It again has some
> interesting aliens, and a cool BDO, which I'm normally a sucker for.
> Where the book works much better for me is in the characters, most of
> whom I understood their backstories and motivations.
>
> My question is, am I not being demanding enough in my fiction. =A0I
> liked "Spider Star" a lot, and the characters and society seems not
> that different than today, whereas the society in "Star Dragon" was an
> attempt to show a different society...humanity was changing in that
> future, while they don't seem so different in the newer book.
>
> This is sort of the issue I had with Peter Watts' "Blindsight" also.
> I couldn't quite get a hold on the characters, since they seemed so
> different (note that I still had "Blindsight" as one of the best
> novels I read that year...it just fell short in my listing of what I
> thought was "the best").
>
> So am I puni****ng writers for been too ambitious?
No, at least I hope not.
I found the characterization in _Star Dragon_ kind of flat as well,
and some of the conflicts rather contrived --- even granting the idea
that only unstable personalities would sign up for a 500 year
roundtrip. I was also disappointed to not see what the world liked
like on their return and how the new biotechnology affected the world
and how the baby dragon would be affected by the solitude of being
totally separated from its kith and kin (they only got one egg,
right?) --- perhaps a sequel is in order where they take the baby
back?
I'd like to view the better characterization in the new novel as a
sign of Mike Brotherton's maturing as a writer --- though I'd hate if
it were a sign of that maturity that he was backing away from distant
futures of altered humanity 'cause they're hard to characterize ---
anyone have any examples of well-realized examples of such? _Elegy for
Angels and Dogs_ and _The Graveyard Heart_ comes to mind, though in
many ways it's a set of stories about that distancing from a
comfortable perspective.
William
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