Reading roundup: Inda

[hamsterwoman]

3. Sherwood Smith*, Inda -- which I started reading on egelantier's rec, after having been curious about it for a couple of years. When I was about two thirds through the book, I placed the sequel on hold at the library. When I finished it Saturday morning and my hold was still processing, which meant I wouldn't get it till Monday at the earliest, I went on

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

let me just tell you: love the ships. embrace the ships. ships are about 80% fun and games time with tactics and swashbuckling

LOL, I'm trying! And it's not the I'm opposed to ships -- ships are fine! I liked Pirates of the Caribbean (that's about as deep as my interest in ships goes, admittedly) -- it's just that there's all this stuff happening parallel to the ships that's much more my speed -- royal family dynamics! bonds of military training! magical research! -- and because of the omniscient POV and huge scope, we get just enough of that to make me yearn for more. But the ship stuff is interesting, too. At least Tau is still around, even if Kodl and Dun, the other characters I liked from Inda's marine band, no longer are.

when the action goes back to the land, there will be WOE AND TRAGEDY AND DID I MENTION WOE.

That is very encouraging XD No, but thanks for the warning -- I've kind of already gotten the feel that even though lots of things about Inda remind me of fantasy Barrayar, the body count and likelihood of happy outcome is much more reminiscent of ASOIAF than Vorkosigan Saga...

miles and kenshin's lovechild, that's how i put it

I'm not familiar with Kenshin, so that was lost on me. The mild autism -- with tactics on the savant side -- does kind of make sense, in that he seems to not only lack ambition himself but not even really understand ambition.

i'm with you in being heartbroken over tanrid

I was so impressed with Tanrid's development, considering he was firmly a secondary character, the way you can see him growing into his own from conversation to conversation, and the mutual respect he and Evred come to. I'm actually happy I got spoiled for him dying in this book, because if I hadn't expected it (so soon, anyway), I would have been so angry!

his struggle for identity and integrity is one of my most favorite parts of the story, and one of the most heartbreaking and nerve-wracking, too

I can definitely see that building with the part that separates him from the other academy boys, with his first command. I kept drawing Vorkosiverse parallels all over the place, but your paragraph on Evred made me realize that Evred reminds me of Gregor a fair bit, actually (which, considering Gregor is one of my favorite Vorkosiverse characters, is a very good thing).

I've started book 2 but am only on like chapter 2, but I expect I will be progressing at a similar clip, if work permits.

it's so unashamedly epic and deals with things on such a grand scale, but NEVER forgets that it's centered around lives and decisions of individual people

I've noticed this already (though, of course, I take your word that the scope and scale keeps growing) and I like that a lot. I guess that's what omniscient is good for, when done well, and I'm glad Smith decided to go with that, despite omniscient being out of favor with modern novels (it does give the book a somewhat dated feel -- I keep having to remind myself that apparently it was only published in 2006, 'cos mentally I keep wanting to stash it with, like, 90s fat fantasy books...

[egelantier]

hah, well. it never got me asoiaf's "everybody is awful, nobody is safe" feel, and it's generally a more justly organized universe, of sorts, but, yes. higher stakes, higher bodycount, more last stands. and inda can't be mostly everywhere, and save mostly everybody, unlike miles, despite all his brilliance.

and re: secondary characters development: and it's a such neat worldbuilding trick, too! from time to time she does it with tertiary characters - just several pages here and there, and yet they make such an impression.

[hamsterwoman]

it never got me asoiaf's "everybody is awful, nobody is safe" feel,

I would agree that this universe seems to contain fewer randomly terrible / "mad dog" types than ASOIAF, which is quite nice. I do appreciate ASOIAF's complexity when it comes to shades of gray (and I think some of the more interesting villains -- Tywin, Littlefinger -- do have some of the same things going on that Inda's antagonists do -- you can see what's made them the way they are, even though it doesn't excuse the terrible things they do).

and inda can't be mostly everywhere, and save mostly everybody, unlike miles, despite all his brilliance.

That is a very good point! Miles has such enormous hang-ups over the few he couldn't manage to save, it's rather sobering to think of how many more are on Inda's list, even at his much younger age, starting with Dogpiss...

from time to time she does it with tertiary characters - just several pages here and there, and yet they make such an impression

Yes, that's where it's been most effective for me, actually. I think Queen Wisthia so far has been the most striking example (though possibly she becomes less tertiary in the later books, but so far there have been maybe two pages from her POV, and they've been all really striking, the way she thinks about the Marlovan culture, and her sons). But even just glances into the heads of characters who are just there for a paragraph or two, like during Evred's search for the person who gave the order to kill the !bandits who had attacked Tanrid -- it's very effective, and there's really no way to do it other than omniscient (I mean GRRM tries, with the prologues and epilogues, and it does have some of the same effect, but it's much more limited/constrained).