Reading roundup: SPECTR and things

[hamsterwoman]

13. Jordan L. Hawk, Master of Ghouls (SPECTR #2)
14. Jordan L. Hawk, Reaper of Souls (SPECTR #3)
15. Jordan L. Hawk, Eater of Lives (SPECTR #4)
16. Jordan L. Hawk, Destroyer of Worlds (SPECTR #5) -- sooo, yeah, I kind of mainlined most of the first series of SPECTR, even though I thought I was going to be reading other things. There's actually a

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

Heh, yeah, Gray is oddly sweet, which I also hadn't expected. And he's sweet in that combination of very powerful + pretty clueless way that is apparently a character kink of mine. He is not unlike an AI trying to live among and coming to care about humans, which is a trope I've loved since I was a kid. Anyway, I'm hoping he will continue to work as well for me now that he'll be taking a more directly active part in things.

Mocker of Ravens has one instance that feels like conflict chucked in for conflict but other than that the series is pretty decent about it.

That's too bad about Mocker of Ravens, but on the whole, yeah, I agree. They are pretty good at talking through things, and acknowledging their biases/motivations when called on them by the other person. I like it!

Whyborne might be - what, twenty seven? twenty eight? - at the beginning of the series but emotionally he's definitely not operating on that level. Which makes sense for the character but gets grating after a bit.

Twenty eight, as I recall, when the series starts. And, yeah, I do understand why he's got the emotional maturity of a teenager -- he's been holding himself in isolation and essentially stasis since Leander died, and even before then he had a rough time growing up, and that's the entire point of the first book, just about. And it would be unrealistic to expect him to just leapfrog to full emotional maturity in the space of a year. But, gahh, reading about it gets old. As does Whyborne's "but I'm so ugly, how could anyone want me :(((" thing.

I'm pleased/intrigued to hear about getting Griffin's POV. I knew there were some short stories from his POV, but not that the later books incorporated it. I'm looking forward to that. I think the books have done a good job so far with showing Griffin's different perceptions even while confined to Whyborne's POV, but I'm curious to see his thoughts directly.

I like that too, and talking during sex is a nice addition because while it's certainly something people do you almost never see it in fiction.

Yeah; that was my favorite example, but there were lots of others I highlighted as I read and was just too lazy to mention in my write-up, stuff like Caleb telling John he can pull his braid harder, sharing clean bills of health, and even Gray and John talking during sex, Gray saying "fangs make it difficult" and so on. Not unlike the veggie cooking and helping move stuff above, it feels both mundane and mature, and I like that. I feel like 'negotiating consent' in fiction is a fine line -- there was something I read recently, can't remember if it was pro or fanfic, where the author was clearly paying a lot of attention to that, but it came across as "look at us negotiating consent!" and totally distracted me, not just from the scene, but from the in-universe immersion -- it felt too much like a PSA. Here it feels very natural, partly probably because they do get it wrong sometimes/misunderstand each other's cues, like above, but also because it's done in an in-character way -- John is always solicitous of Caleb, not just in the bedroom, and Caleb continues to be snarky even in bed, and Gray is both uncertain and protective as he always is. Good character work!