busyTHERE WILL BE SPOILERS.
Seriously. If anyone comments here at all, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. So please don't read and then yell at me because you encountered spoilers. You were warned. (I will not reply to every comment; I call partial comment amnesty. But I may well join some of the discussion, or answer questions or whatnot.) I will be DELETING all comments containing spoilers which have been left on other posts. No one gets to spoil people here without a label.
You can also start a discussion at my website forums, with less need to be concerned that I will see everything you say! In case you wanted, you know, discussion free of authorial influence, since I always wind up getting involved in these things.
Have fun, and try not to bleed on the carpet.
March 10 2013, 21:36:23 UTC 4 years ago
Yes, there were a number of good parts. But unlike the books with Toby and Velveteen and Rose, both of the Verity books have left me feeling, well, off-balance. Not in the good "Oh, what a plot twist, didn't see that coming" way, but rather in the "Huh?!?" way.
In MBS, the biggest thing in this department was the big build-up and then the almost total disappearance of The Rescuers. Once Sarah has taken over the narrative, there is a lot of effort put into getting the various people (I include both humans and cryptids in that term) that like Verity into being a rescue team. The mice would scout, Uncle Mike could take care of the traps they found, Istas could provide carnage and so on. They would set aside their differences and all help. This had the feeling of a Very Important, Never-Seen-Before Alliance of many disparate types. And then... nothing.
Oh, I realize that it's Verity's book. I expected her to get more than half of the action in getting her out of her captivity. But after the buildup I expected The Rescuers to have a much larger part than they did. Maybe 70% Verity fighting her way out and 30% The Rescuers fighting their way in (perhaps Providing A Significant Offstage Distraction At A Crucial Moment for Verity to take advantage of). But having Verity fight hard and lose and then The Rescuers Are Suddenly Right There To Save Everything just left me off-balance. It felt like there were a couple of chapters that just went missing.
Now, maybe I'm just projecting about what I'd like to have seen. With the repeated mention of how well the Aeslin Mice could (and WOULD) scout, I have to admit that I was really anticipating that something would be done with that. Maybe another POV shift to the scouting team, or maybe have Sarah get Attuned to one of the Mice (more disparate-cryptids-cooperation!) and stay with her POV - but instead, there was nothing.
Then there's Uncle Mike, introduced early on as A Powerful Ally - he pretty much doesn't do anything in the whole book. Again, feeling off-balance. All the references to Istas on the carnage front (love for it and capability for it)? No carnage from her. Sarah and Istas Getting Help From The Dragons? A big build-up, but the payoff was what - a single line when they're in the aftermath? Something like that. Margaret showing up at Sarah's hotel while having an anti-telepath device? It works OK if Dominic DID tip off The Covenant - but since we later find out he DIDN'T, how does that work? Do we just assign both of those things to Margaret's "Healy Luck"? Verity's Big Decision about Dancing vs The Family Business? Well, DA was awash with how Dancing Was Such An Integral Part Of Her Life. MBS, however, had just the barest of mentions in a couple of places. It just didn't seem like Her Love Of Dancing was really a part of this book.
So - lots of good individual moments, but the book as a whole left me feeling off-balance.
March 11 2013, 18:28:40 UTC 4 years ago
I can never explain everything in a single volume. I don't do it in the Toby books, either; there are things from the first book that are only just now getting explained, in book ten. Some of your issues are in that category, where they will be explained by other things that happen later (or sooner, given that I'm also back-tracking through earlier generations). Others may never be explained to your satisfaction.
I will say that allowing Verity to be "saved" two books in a row was not going to happen, and neither was showing her "rescue" from another POV. I am willing to let other people be awesome. I won't do it at the expense of my protagonists. Not when there are so few female characters even in a female-dominant genre who get to take care of themselves.
Thank you for your point of view.