FF: Expectations

Roary Has Great Expectations

This week, in part because of things that came up in interviews, I found myself thinking about how a reader’s expectations shape reactions to a story.  See below if you’re interested in more.  Meantime, hope to see some of you this weekend at P-con!

For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.  The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Completed:

The Spirit Ring by Lois McMaster Bujold.  This novel is not at all typical of the sort of work Bujold was writing at the time, not only in genre but in her approach to the conflicts, characters, and setting.  For this reason, I don’t think it was ever as popular as it might have been if readers had not come to it with expectations of what a Bujold novel “was.”  I suspect that fans of novels such as The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls would be much more receptive if the novel had been first published today.

In Progress:

The Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones.  Audiobook.  Another book where the title might cause readers to assume they “know” what it is going to be about.  Most would definitely be surprised.  A delightful twist on traditional fantasy.

Down and Out In Purgatory: The Collected Stories of Tim Powers.  I’m a huge Tim Powers fan, but I’d missed a lot of his shorter work.  I was very excited when I learned of this collection.

Also:

The new American Archeology.  In which, once again, expectations are definitely turned awry.