The Sword and Laser discussion

36% in, I find this books slightly confounding. It's not that the story, such that it is, is complicated or difficult to understand. On the contrary, the tangled timelines aside it's seems to be a pretty straight forward tale of rivalry gradually turning to friendship. However, with the way the series of short vignettes are structured, I find it difficult to hold on to any clear conception of either when, who or why.. Well, no attempt is even made so far to explain the why or the how of the grand scheme of it, so that can be disregarded entirely.

Nevertheless, I remain fascinated, and with a furrowed brow, I read on.

Yes I had pretty much the same experience.

With only two charters it should not be that hard to keep them apart, especially with the alternating structure of letters but I found myself at times losing track of who was who almost like listening to the beginning an big audiobook with lots of characters where you cant go back an forth checking the names. But I found that like in those cases just keep going will lead to more o less clarity sooner(hopefully) or later.

I have no idea which character is which when I'm reading.

This may have been a book better in audio where you can have 2 distinct voices.

You know it's interesting. When I was driving, I couldn't tell the difference between the two narrator's voices. I finished the book with my eyes, so maybe it would have been different when not driving around. I actually think for me it worked better in print because it was easier to not let my mind drift (the language was beautiful but I really needed more actual plot, especially once I figured out what was going on).

Having the same struggle...but do enjoy the story, just have to stop look back and see where I am.

So the audio book has two different narrators? Interesting. I don't usually listen to audio books, but that could help making it easier to keep the two strands straight...

After a while I learned to identify the narrator by the color-related terms of endearment they each use. Although, I had to use a dictionary for some of the terms.

The colours tell who's who while I'm reading the Chapter, but if you showed me a chapter I've already read (with the colour name removed) I couldn't tell you who's POV it's from.

They do a bad job of giving each character a distinct character.

I could read this again and have the POV character's colour alternated or random and I wouldn't notice.

It may have helped if they'd had a male and female alternating POV or had one of the females with a more distinct personality.

Tassie Dave wrote: "I have no idea which character is which when I'm reading.

This may have been a book better in audio where you can have 2 distinct voices."

There’s no distinction in the audiobook that I noticed. A missed opportunity to add something with the audio if you ask me.

I think the lack of distinction is one of the points of the story, namely that the two sides weren’t that different.

It's, probably, not for me. I'll finish it. I do want to see how it ends, but it's more style than substance.

On the point of the characters not being distinct - I thought for most of the book that (view spoiler)[ the two characters would turn out to be the same person jumping around between timelines but never quite meeting. (hide spoiler)]

AndrewP wrote: "On the point of the characters not being distinct - I thought for most of the book that [spoilers removed]"

That would actually have made a great story, I'd really like to read that book.

William wrote: "AndrewP wrote: "On the point of the characters not being distinct - I thought for most of the book that [spoilers removed]"

That would actually have made a great story, I'd really like to read tha..."

Try All You Zombies.

I listened to the audio book, if it's not because of the different narrators I would not have known the difference. One of the narrators happens to be one of my fave audio narrator too (made it even easier for me); she did the Poppy War books.

William wrote: "AndrewP wrote: "On the point of the characters not being distinct - I thought for most of the book that [spoilers removed]"

That would actually have made a great story, I'd really like to read tha..."

Seconded

Tassie Dave wrote: "I have no idea which character is which when I'm reading."

This is what surprised me most considering that apparently each author voiced a separate character. Not only are the characters different people, but they come from cultures with entirely views of the universe. I remember hearing Tom (I think) in the intro podcast saying he could easily pick out the character written by one of the authors. I figured that I just didn't remember the book that well since it's been a few months since I read it, but I'm glad to hear I'm not alone. In my memory Red and Blue don't really retain any individuality.

Seth wrote: "Tassie Dave wrote: "I have no idea which character is which when I'm reading."
This is what surprised me most considering that apparently each author voiced a separate character. Not only are the characters different people, but they come from cultures with entirely views of the universe.
First, reading this story is strangely dream-like. While reading, I am aware of the differences in background and perspective between the two, but it's hard to hold on to after I've put the kindle down.
Also, I'm wondering if part of the issue has to do with the personal nature of the correspondance; that they (both the characters and the authors) are writing more for and to each other, referring to and building upon their shared history of previous correspondence, than for the benefit of an outside observer.

It, probably, doesn't help that I've been reading this since March 31 and 14 days later I'm still only 80% done.

I just don't feel compelled to read more than a chapter or 2 a day.

Yea, much the same here.

I think the book focused a lot on the writing, but did not really flesh out the characters well. They did a bit of personal bites, but not a deeper who am I painting of each. I think Red was more well developed, in that I know she was a gung ho supporter of the red side, but became disenchanted with the war over time, so that she would listen to Blue. The writing was imaginative and beautiful, and with a bit more personal information and background story, I would have liked it a lot more.

Trike wrote: "Try All You Zombies."

I have recommended this one recently. So good!
Maybe try to wait until you forget why All You Zombies was recommended before you read it, since the twist is completely spoiled now. Not judging you, Trike. You couldn't really recommend it in this situation without spoiling it & it's a perfect recommendation.

Alright, I've finished!

That was beautiful.

And clever.

And .. frustrating. Because for all that it came together in the end, my initial observations stand. I consistently had trouble getting a grasp of the characters until well over half way through the story.

Fredrik wrote: "I consistently had trouble getting a grasp of the characters until well over half way through the story."

I have to wonder if the slow drip of information about the characters was intentional in the way that truly getting to know someone on an intimate level is a long and winding journey. Alternatively, I may just be grasping for additional meaning.

Not sure if it has been mentioned in one of the threads here or not, but Amal El-Mohtar linked to a most entertaining fan-fic by Scott Lynch in the answer to a question here: https://www.goodreads.com/questions/1...

I really enjoyed that as a followup and mentioned it in my review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Aaron wrote: "Amal El-Mohtar linked to a most entertaining fan-fic by Scott Lynch in the answer to a question here: https://www.goodreads.com/questions/1... ..."

That is brilliant! Thanks for sharing!

William wrote: "Aaron wrote: "Amal El-Mohtar linked to a most entertaining fan-fic by Scott Lynch in the answer to a question here: https://www.goodreads.com/questions/1... ..."

That is brilliant! Thanks for shar..."

Seconded. V. funny indeed.

Haha! 😁

Maybe if the text was printed in two different colors like The Neverending Story...

Jan wrote: "Maybe if the text was printed in two different colors like The Neverending Story..."

First, this highlights my shortcoming in having not actually read The Neverending Story.

Second, I really like the idea of doing interesting things with the typography (I am probably misusing that word) in books and this, in particular, strikes me as a very cool use case. I would, unfortunately, have completely missed it if they had (in fact maybe they did) since I was reading the novella on my Kindle Paperwhite in colorless e-ink :(