Re: Martha Wells, WITCH KING

In article <vv2v6h$2qt6$1@usenet.csail.mit.edu>, I wrote:

When reading an unfamiliar novel, I find that I often have to stop
reading for a while (sometimes days) before I can work though an
action scene, and I still find that I often miss things as my eyes
skim over the more uncomfortable details along with sometimes
necessary narration.

I went back and reread it over the past week, and of course I did find
things that I missed the first, much slower, time through.  I also
took a little while to look at the Goodreads reviews, and, ummm, even
ignoring the people who (to put it charitably) bounced off, there are
some *favorable* reviews where the reviewer clearly missed some very
important sequence-of-events details.

(I often get the impression that the people who "do" reviews -- no
offense intended to present company -- are so pressed for time that
they miss as much as they notice.  Some of the Goodreads reviews that
credit the publisher for providing an ARC left me with the feeling
that all they read was the publisher's marketing material.  There's
"no spoilers" and there's "you've misunderstood how long the MC spent
dead in a tomb".)

One of the things that's bugging me after the second read-through is
this bit near the end where the MC observes that most of the soldiers
guarding a nobleman are male, and in that culture, soldiers are
usually female, so these guards are probably conscripts and unhappy to
be there.[1]  That's ... ummm ... not unprecedented, certainly in
fantasy settings if not real life, but it does leave me wondering what
Wells is imagining in the background of this culture that would give
rise to that.  Perhaps the sequel will clarify more of the backstory.
(It's already clear that there's an entire war that has been elided,
about which we know little except that the characters in this book
survived and occupy positions of some power.)

-GAWollman

[1] Now it's my turn to find out that I've misread something
important.
--
Garrett A. Wollman    | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future.  This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers.         | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)