TIG: Getting started

[Vance]

I thought of coffee for a few reasons. It's hot, it sounds like Java, and if it was alcoholic, you wouldn't need to "lace" it with anything. And espresso in Italy is a big deal.

[Tamahome]

Tigana!

I'm in the middle of chapter 5.

[September]

JC wrote: "I am encouraged by all the comments about a slow confusing start. Starting to think my brain was going.

It was starting to get a little tedious with all the fine details in the first couple of cha..."

As you've experienced things coming together in the following chapters, so the book does as a whole come the ending. :) It's excellent! So keep on, keeping on. :D

[Renee]

I agree that the book is slow up through the first two chapters. However, I felt that was a lot of set up and world building. You know, introducing characters and setting a mood.

It seems to me that there are essentially two ways to start a book. You can do the slow set up, as this one seems to be doing (I'm only in chapter 3), or you can jump into a fully developed world (I think of Neil Gaiman.) I prefer the second approach, simply because there are no slow and tedious chapters to slog through at the beginning. However, I fully plan on staying with this book. From what everyone has said, I think it will be worth my time.

[Starstorm]

I just stared reading this a few days ago. I just finished part two (Dionara).

I don't mind the pacing of the book, I think it intensifies the dramatic scenes that do occur. The pacing works for the story so far and I find the politics of the world fascinating (which isn't the case with every book I read).

I'm more intrigued Dionara's situation than Devin's so far. Devin's story so far just seems to fall more in line with previous fantasy stories I've read. Dionara's situation is a bit more atypical for me in terms of it being a focus of the book.

I'm eager to start on part three soon and finish the book so I can join the actual discussion,

[Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth]

I'm reading chapter 3 now, and currently wondering where the story is. I hear chapter 5 changes things, so I'll be patient, but so far I'm a little irritated, and not feeling much desire to read. That whole 'I'm cursed with a good memory' thing annoys me for some reason, and I currently have no love or interest in any of the character, bar from the prologue, which was a little more interesting but has vanished off the face off the earth for now.

But like I say, it's early days yet, so I will see how I feel about it once I get a little further.

[Nimrod]

@Ruth Chapter 4 really is where things start to fall into place, by Chapter 5 you should understand what's going on and know if you want to keep reading.

[thecmancan]

I really love the Saishan of Brandin and the way it relates to Ancient China. I'm Chinese myself and reading the passages about the castrates, the women, Scelto, etc. really reminded of all those Chinese TV dramas.

Typically in ancient China, that's exactly how it's done. The tributaries bring in the prettiest women to please the king. The king keeps them in his palace, plays favorites, pits the women against each other for fun, all while the castrates vie for power and attention of king's favorite!

[Joe Informatico]

Chad wrote: "One last comment: I knew GGK was Canadian, as am I, and I could not help trying to connect Tigana to Quebec. I have since found out that he is from Saskatchewan, but Quebec nationalism was at a peak at the time he wrote this. Idle thoughts maybe… but I would be curious as to his inspiration."

Maybe subconsciously? In most of the GGK interviews I've read about Tigana, he claims he was thinking about the end of the Cold War, and Eastern European nations finally regaining their cultural identities after decades of Soviet oppression. He was writing in Tuscany at the time, so he set it in a very appropriate Renaissance Italy-like setting.