I can only imagine how difficult I would have found reading this over a couple of weeks or a month. You can pass this off by claiming "you just need to pay attention" and yes, you do - but I was, and even then, I was having a hard time of it. Unfortunately, there were times when I was genuinely stuck asking myself 'Wait, who now?' 'Who are these people?' 'Am I supposed to know who they are?' Cultures, groups and in some cases individuals spring out of nowhere in a few cases and before you know it you're caught in a whirlwind with many different faces and names, only you're not entirely sure what their connection to the ongoing events or other characters is. Above all, that's job number one for any writer. Seth Dickinson can write very well, but he sometimes seems to enjoy flexing his literary muscles over making the story clear for the reader. Now, it's entirely possible that I'm dumb (probable, even) but I honestly struggled to connect many of the dots in The Monster. I read it in the space of four days and even in that short a time, I struggled to recall all of the events that had transpired and why what was going was going on. Having loved The Traitor, I really wanted to to love The Monster. I needed to get this out there and I'd love to hear other opinions because so far I haven't noticed many threads about this book yet on r/fantasy. For those not in the know, The Monster Baru Cormorant only got released a week ago in the UK on Kindle.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |