Jun 2012: Lore Dumping Dichotomy - I Want a Happy Medium! (KD & DotB)

[Vicky]

One of my biggest issues with Kushiel's Dart was the massive lore dump at the beginning of the book. It was so dense that it was difficult to get through, I felt like I had to pay attention to everything or I would miss something important.

Now I'm reading DotB, I'm about 100 pages in and I have so many unanswered questions about the world. There are so many nouns as proper nouns (Witch, Other, Guardian to name a few) that aren't explained fully, some are hinted at and you can somewhat infer their meaning but other's I'm still lost on. I have a list of ranks at the front of my omnibus edition, but it seems like some are still a bit off from what they're explaining in the book. Any why do I feel like 80% of the characters are part of the SaDiablo family and 80% of those characters have no discernible relation to each other at the moment? I'm sure there are answers coming (and I want to keep this thread spoiler free, so I'm not looking for answers!), but it's frustrating me quite a bit at the moment. It reminds me a bit of The Iron Duke where they dropped "Frenzy" into a casual conversation and didn't explain it fully for quite a while after - at least then it was only one word!

All that said, I like books where lore is revealed more naturally than it has been in either of these two books. Not to say I didn't enjoy them - well, I enjoyed Kushiel's Dart and the jury is still mostly out on Daughter of the Blood (though I think it's a bit over the top) - but it's definitely a con for both books.

[Helga]

In KD we get a data dump because the main character does. They do explain in more detlein much lore later even in other books but ya for you to understand where there sesiaty is and why what she is training for is normal we need the dump. But she is getting the dump at the same time.

[Vicky]

Robert wrote: "In KD we get a data dump because the main character does. They do explain in more detlein much lore later even in other books but ya for you to understand where there sesiaty is and why what she i..."

Yes Phedre does get a bit of a crash course in Terre d'Ange politics - but I'm not so much talking about that as I am the world building dump.

The Eluine Cycle, basic Terre d'Ange geography, the territory's founding companions, the scions of each territory, the Night Court, the 13 houses, the Tsingano and the dromonde, Marques, Adepts, the worship of Naamah - these are all things that Phedre knows about because they are part of her culture - she grows up in that and it's part of who she is. To the reader, she has to explain how these things works - that's the lore dump I'm talking about.