Trying to get back in the habit of recording what I'm learning from reading.
Currently reading The Raven Tower (Leckie) and Eve of Destruction | Solar War 1 (Aaron & Cooper). (Turns out there are a LOT of Eve of Destruction titles).
Reading these two side by side (I'm literally reading a chapter of each before I go to bed at night) might not be in the best service of either. But it has been excellent practice for highlighting pacing and mood.
"Eve" is a danger-laced Bourne-like thriller set in deep space, an explosively life-threatening (literally) blitz through several worlds. I'm halfway through, and every chapter the protag has been in so far, she's been in danger and has risked her life, from surrendering to repeatedly escaping.The authors show over and over again she's highly competent, skilled and tough as nails, willing to ask for help when she needs it, but only accepting it on her terms until other people's lives are at stake. And sometimes even then. It's a vastly complicated political world that I'm having difficulty keeping straight, but Aaron and Cooper are definitely keeping my interest.
"Raven" is a moody, mysterious fantasy about a son denied his rightful "throne," by an uncle, and his refusal to believe his father -- for whom no funeral was held -- has fled, but the focus is on his mysterious aide, Eolo. Eolo's actions, as seen through the narrator's eyes, slowly build a picture of who Eolo -- competent, curious, smart and evasive. Raven is a slow grim build filled with foreshadowing and foreboding in an evocative world I want to know more about. I'm about a quarter of the way through, and I have enough of a shape to start making guesses about where the story is going. I'm missing descriptive flourishes I expect from fantasy, but I'm loving the mythology of this world, which is going to be crucial to solving the several mysteries baked into the narrative. Quiet but threatening events translate to a sense of a cold and brutal society that so far has required me to care more about the world than any one character -- because Eolo is a bit of a mystery, his boss is a small bit of a dick (less of a dick than some other characters, but that's not saying much) and the narrator is an unnamed god/goddess who talks only to Eolo. It's a lovely writerly challenge and Leckie is pulling it off masterfully.
The pacing of the two books could not be more different; and yet both have the those shifts in tempo, breather chapters, which are used for similar purposes--to fill in gaps, to explain, and to enrich the readers' understanding of how this world works.
Eve's breather chapters come in the POV of a male hacker working from a safe room with his sweet cat. As the protag's hectic flight slows -- I stopped last night at the point where she's essentially arrested by her supporters (it's complicated) I expect his life is about to become MUCH more challenging.
Raven's breathers are the god/goddess talking about how they came to be, came to understand their power, how they got tied up with and began to care about humans. Those are by necessity very quiet, nature-evocative snippet that I found thoroughly enjoyable. Hopefully one of those asides will soon explain how they came to be where they are NOW, because that's the next story question that's burning a hole in my mind!
Anyway. That's what I got from what I'm reading so far.
