SPFBO Observations, Reviews in General
To illustrate this point, I'll use the story that sunk Beneath the Lanterns in the contest; Deceit by Sharon Rivest. It was chosen as a semi-finalist by Liis over my entry. The blog has to narrow down their selection to just one book, so the other members of the blog's reviewing team read and share their own views on each semi-finalist for their blog. You can read their entire reviews; here. But here is a sample of what everyone thought of Liis' chosen story.
Liis said of Deceit:
Sometimes,and it doesn’t happen often, you start reading a book and it justworks. Everything is exactly the way you like. The story flows, thewriting is smooth, the pacing is perfectly unhealthy for your heartrate but this is what we want! Every word, every bit of dialogue,every scene has captured you and before you know it, the book isfinished. Deceit wasthat book for me. I read a page and I just knew I was going to enjoythis. And I did, all the way to the end...
Deceit isstructured to follow the main character in two timelines, the presentand the past. This structure is imperative for a story as grim andbrutal as this. This!… is the perfect example of what I want mymain character to do to me – sink his teeth in me so deep that it’sas if I live through every disaster and tragedy right there with him.The character development – the internal conflict and guilt (man, Ido love a bit of guilt!) strike me as the perfect tools to make anystory interesting.
Whatit did incredibly well, for my tastes, was the mental anguish, thetorment of regrets, the heaviness that lies upon the soul of thatvery one character. If the author has managed to put that on paper,in written word? Magnificent!
Then we have Bjorn who only read half of the book before DNFing it:
Thebook begins in the future, with a battle where the best men have beenschooled by Mace personally. In the second chapter – one ofthe strongest, but completely confusing to me (I didn’t know therewould be multiple timelines) little Mace is sold by hisfather, who’s mostly concerned about whether the pouch of coin hereceives contains as much coin as he was promised. It’s too latefor me to be heartbroken, though, because I already know Mace will doquite well for himself. In chapter three, we return to the futurefrom the first chapter, while in chapter four we move to earlierfuture than the later future from the chapter before. When I amstarting to develop interest in someone, I have to re-shuffle mybrain to the other timeline, and by the time I’m back I eitherforgot why I cared for the character, or they left. Also, it’spossible for a character to die a dramatic death, only to reappear,younger and in perfect health, five pages later.
Thingis – Deceit isnot a bad book at all. It’s a semifinalist, because it was one ofthe judges’ favourite, after all. It just doesn’t work for me... Butthe real reason for my low score is that I could never forget I wasreading a book. I was not in the author’s world, neither did Iidentify with any of the characters. I was very much readinga book andthe ever-changing timelines sometimes made it feel like work.
Everychapter of the future builds into a mystery that somewhat plays offthe past...The past chapters let us understand Mace’s early life –where he was sold as a boy to apprentice in one of the houses,working its way up to the reasons behind his exile and finally –his need for revenge...Every chapter in the past was like watching atrain wreck happen in slow motion. Seriously, in my notes for him Iwrote, “Dammit!Why does his every decision make me dread finishing the chapter?”
Olivia read 40% of the book, and her take away was:
Iwould probably describe Deceit asa low fantasy grimdark road trip novel… Road trip novels are, bytheir nature, incredibly difficult to pull off; because charactersare often coming and going, an author needs a really deft hand inorder to flesh out those new characters in a hurry, over andover...As a grimdark book, Deceit neverreally managed to gut-punch me, and I spent more than a little bitwondering why this was. For a while, I wondered if I’m just jadedby several years of grimdark stories one-upping each other on thegritty violence scale—but I think this problem also comes down tothe road trip formula. Because the book never allows characters tolinger on-screen for more than a chapter or two, I’m not veryattached to them as a reader by the time bad things happen to them.
Paul's take after having read the entire book:
Basedon the synopsis alone, Deceit isa book that I expected to really enjoy. It promises a large amount ofgrimness, an intriguing revenge plot, and casts a grizzled oldermercenary as its main character. Sadly, though, the promised elementsthemselves didn’t quite come together, and it just wasn’tsomething that I could entirely connect with...As a character, Macewasn’t one I ever found myself engaged with. All of his problemsstem from his constant bad decisions, so it was hard to sympathize with him to any degree, and we don’t actually see him activelydevelop (physically, skillfully, or emotionally), he just becomes thegreatest warrior off-screen. There aren’t really any solidcharacters outside of Mace, so I found myself meandering through thestory rather than being pulled. One point I would have to mention,given that I have mentioned it with other books, is surprisingly poorhandling of the female characters. From what I can recall, therewasn’t a female character who wasn’t beaten, murdered, raped, orthreatened with rape (sometimes multiple times).
And finally we have Timmy's reaction, having read 52% of the story:
I’mgoing to be upfront and say right out that Deceit isnot a book I would have picked up for myself if I had the choice.Simply because it’s not my jam. I’m not a huge fan of epicfantasy, and I don’t have much interest in books centered aroundfighting and traveling. I fully expected to dislike Deceit,and I think I was the most surprised by the fact that I didn’t. Iactually think it’s pretty good all things considered, and I cansee it finding its audience. So why, could you ask, did I not finishreading it? I just wasn’t invested in the story enough tocontinue... I found young Mace’s timeline more interestingpersonally, despite the many training/fighting scenes. But then adultMace has enough fighting so there is that too. If you ask me, thereis way too much fighting and not enough character-building for mytastes. Either way, Mace’s background story was at leastinteresting, if a bit way too gloomy. Poor man rarely had any joy inhis life – far as I could tell, that is. Too bad the plot in thepresent timeline was dragging. By the 50% mark, I really couldn’ttell where it all was going.
So there you have it. Four takes on one book. I should also note that all the reviewers for the contest make a point to cut your throat as positively and politely as possible; balancing the positive with the negative, and pointing out that what doesn't work for them might work for another reader.
Next week, some more thoughts on what I learned from the contest, and Liil's review.
