The Sword and Laser discussion

After I started to listen to the audiobook I realized something:

I thoroughly enjoy being thrown into the deep end like this. I enjoy this confusion about the world and what people do and say and then slowly over the course of the novel realize what the hell is going on piece by piece. I enjoy coming to realizations and then recontextualizing or reimagining scenes from earlier with the new knowledge I have. It's a bit like the realization one might have at the end of the Sixth Sense, although on a much smaller scale...

Does anyone else here feel the same?

I don’t mind it if it’s well done, and I think it is here. Sometimes it’s really aggravating, but in those books I find the problem is that the author doesn’t explain things clearly enough. *They* know what the intent is but they have a hard time communicating it.

In this one Reynolds is pacing out the reveals a bit at a time. The best example is the idea of hyperpigs. It’s a weird word and he’s clearly playing with the notion that police are referred to as pigs, but the casual reveal in the cafeteria about the background of hyperpigs adds a lot of flavor. (view spoiler)[Specially-bred Dr. Moreau-types created “for sinister purposes”. (hide spoiler)] Interestingly, he only hints at their background, so I suspect there will be further revelations to come. This method is tantalizing rather than aggravating.

Yeah, most of the time I go into a new book head first without really knowing what awaits. However it depends on how well the author is able to execute the world building. I do not have problems with being thrown in and having to deduce certain things in the course of the story. However the author's job is to guide me and make sure that while a little confusion is okay, things need to get clearer in time.

I'm only about 10 percent in with AR, so we'll see how it goes, but from what I have read to so far I'm not dissatisfied.

I tend to prefer cold opens, and letting the consumer of the media figure stuff out. This is much better then the spoon feeding that gets done sometimes. Like has been said, in both cases if the creator does a good enough job, either can work. I just prefer when they assume the audience is smart, and will figure it out, then when they are told to assume the audience is dumb.

I agree with Trike. If it's well done it can be a great reading experience. Reynolds and Sanderson are both masters of this, they gradually fill you in as they go along but hold enough back to keep you hooked. Then, when you think you know what's going on, they add more on top of that.

It depends with me. I don't like if it's too much like work, but I like mystery. I think Heinlein invented making up terms on the fly that you could easily figure out without too much explanation. There's also a certain level of detail I like, not too much, but not too little, like a goldilocks amount. If only there were a radio dial on the kindle to adjust the level of detail. I've heard Alastair say in his later books he tries to move them along faster (especially the Revenger series). He also wants all the books to work standalone in a "mosaic", not a series. Peter F. Hamilton has an above average amount of detail.

Like others have said, if it's done well I don't mind not having everything spoon fed to me.

I think Reynolds did an excellent job of giving the reader just enough world building to set the scene without sacrificing plot momentum.

Tamahome wrote: "Peter F. Hamilton has an above average amount of detail."

Tamahome with the best understatement of the month. 😂

Other hot takes:

“Sequoias are above average height trees.”

“Centipedes have an above average number of legs.”

Jumping into the middle can be fun, but here there were several times I was convinced I'd missed a storyline or person from earlier only to dig back to review and learn that nope, only a previous passing reference or nothing at all. That frustrated me more in this book for some reason. Still rated a 4 but that's rounded up from 3.5 for this very reason.

The first time I watched the TV series Charlie Jade (early 00s SF series set in South Africa, but there are multiple parallel realities that people move between), I missed the pilot episode that explained everything and I actually kind of liked it that way -- made my journey a little closer to the protagonist's, since he didn't know what was going on either.

Project Hail Mary definitely throws you in the deep end.

TV shows frequently give characters lines that explain what's going on so the audience isn't lost, but it's so unrealistic!

Ian (RebelGeek) wrote: "TV shows frequently give characters lines that explain what's going on so the audience isn't lost, but it's so unrealistic!"

"As your older brother I have to say..."

"We've been friends for 11 1/2 years, so..."

"Repeat our plan word for word, so I know you understand..."

They do that once in Shang-Chi (“We’ve been friends for 10 years”) which kicks me right out of the flow. I hate when writers do dumb stuff like that; not every relationship needs to be explicitly stated.

Which is different from infodumps. People do those in real life all the time.

Jan wrote: "Ian (RebelGeek) wrote: "TV shows frequently give characters lines that explain what's going on so the audience isn't lost, but it's so unrealistic!"

"As your older brother I have to say..."

"We'v..."

Your forgetting - "Before I kill you Mr Bond." :)

After listening to the podcast live this week it got me thinking about this concept and the book Elysium. While the stories are completely different there are some parallels, and where our current read seems to be fairly universally liked Elysium was much more decisive. I liked how far we were thrown in the deep end on that one, and how we had to be more of the detective trying to figure out what was going on instead of just following one. But I understood why many were more put off by this story telling technique. Just got me thinking.

What makes me like or dislike either technique is when I feel as if the author is intruding too much. I don't like when it feels like an author is with-holding something that it would be natural to tell us - but in this case it doesn't feel like that, but more as if the action has just started and we're along for the ride. On the other hand, sometimes the infodump feels almost natural, and sometimes it feels as if the author couldn't think of a better way to introduce the world and instead just got nervous and decided to pump out 4 pages of background.

As a writer, I've been trying to put my finger on exactly what this is for me from a craft angle. I love the complexity. I love the world. I feel like it's something I want to dive into and really get to know. However, I also feel like there's something missing, less so in his Revelation Space but moreso here. It's something to do with character and something to do with the complexity of the world. I do love it, but it also kind of feels like one of those litfic books that expects you to come more than halfway and really work to understand the world (like the Modernist poets or Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.) (And I say this as someone who also writes litfic.) I found myself just accepting the fact that there is a bunch of it I won't understand till later. Sort of that old iceberg theory of writing - a bunch of it submerged. Can't really articulate it. But this kind of reading experience has its own rewards!! (Blech. I feel like I'm not saying very well.)

PS People upthread have said it much better. :-p