mistressofmuses (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistressofmuses) wrote2022-12-04 09:25 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2022-12-04 09:25 pm
Not yet wowed by this book...
So glad it's my weekend again. I kinda hate being That Person, (who drags through the whole week waiting for the weekend, where I do very little of interest) but ugh.
I did start a book last night, one on my too long TBR list.
This one is A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland.
Queer m/m fantasy, promising a bodyguard/prince romance and political intrigue. I've seen lots of good reviews of it, a lot of which are praising the complex relationships, and it seems like the sort of thing that's very up my alley. I've followed the author on tumblr, from before I knew they WERE an author, and I tend to like their posts as well. (They also wrote A Conspiracy of Truths, which is ALSO on my TBR list, and I've heard many great things about.)
I'm only a chapter in, and... I'm not completely sold. :/
I'm not UNsold, either - it's not going into the DNF pile at this point or anything.
I don't LOVE that I'm this way, but continuity is maybe one of THE things that I get hung up on the most. Not even necessarily BIG continuity things; even small ones can easily frustrate me if they're wonky. Both of my biggest complaints about the first chapter fall into "minor continuity gripes" that... I probably shouldn't be bothered by, but I NOTICED them and it BOTHERS me.
First:
Context: The MC's sister is the ruler of the country. She has just given birth to her first child. The child's father and the MC don't get along. The MC's sister organizes a hunt as an opportunity for them to get out and do things, hopefully relieving some tension.
When the MC (Kadou) arrives for the hunt, he's surprised to see his sister, remarking on how he didn't expect she'd be there, since she's recovering from childbirth. She tells him she's not participating.
They talk for a few pages, and then he asks her why, if she's not participating, she asked them to come out there.
Except... he showed up not expecting her to be there at all! He fully anticipated doing the hunt, with her not present... and now he wonders why they're doing the hunt if she's not going on it. It feels super inconsistent, even if it's a small detail.
The second:
During a span of narration, Kadou thinks back about how he and one of his guards went on a private walk together around a laundry pond discussing something. I remember noting the description as a laundry pond because it was kind of an interesting detail!
Then, during later conversation, his sister says something about his guard and him having been seen taking a walk past the laundry pond (implying it was a flirtatious excursion, and teasing him about it being a slightly silly location for such things.) Kadou has an anxiety attack, thinking she's accusing him of political maneuvering... and thinks something along the lines of "yeah, there was a pond, but he hadn't noticed anything about it, it could have been a laundry pond" which... damnit, you JUST remarked on what type of pond it was in your internal narration about the event!
Both of those are STUPID tiny details to get worked up over, but having two in the first chapter makes it feel like it needed an extra editing pass, and worries me slightly for the rest of the book.
Otherwise, I'm enjoying the worldbuilding - while the first chapter does provide a lot of background info, it doesn't feel overly expositiony to me. I like that there's a very matter-of-fact inclusion of at least a third gender marker (the author is nonbinary, as well.) It launches right in with the conflict, while teasing some additional unknowns that I do want to find out more about. (What was in the shipbuilder's guild that's so secret!?)
The only introduction of the world's magic system so far is that Kadou can "touch-taste" metal, and the way that works is pretty cool. I like the sensory and memory descriptions of what the different metals "feel" like to him.
I like the main character well enough, though some of his mingled anxiety and naivete are already getting to be a bit much... but to be fair, it's not like it's unrealistic. It's almost a bit #too real in the sense of anxiety making you anticipate people thinking the worst of you, but trying desperately to excuse other people's actions.
A silly side-note: I realize that I made a comment in one of the writing comms on here a week or two ago that COULD have sounded like I was vagueing about this book, BUT I WASN'T. I was talking about bad worldbuilding advice, and used an example from a frustrating worksheet I'd seen that insisted on knowing EVERY. SINGLE. POSSIBLE. DETAIL. about your fictional world before even beginning to write a story.
I commented about how getting bogged down in figuring out every single detail of a currency system, from the date of its implementation, to who regulates it, to exact weights and measures, to the penalties for counterfeiting, to the location of the mines the metals came from, etc. could be unnecessary depending on the story you were telling... and then this book launches in with quite a bit of that. Except in this case it is relevant! And that's great! I wasn't throwing shade at this book with that comment, dammit!
I probably won't pseudo-liveblog the whole book or anything, but those are my feelings a chapter in. I HOPE that the issues of this chapter don't persist through the whole thing, because that will make for a disappointing read.
[I was SUPPOSED to be reading A Memory Called Empire next, and was very hype to do so... except Taylor REALLY wanted to read it together, which means I'm stuck getting that one a chapter or few at a time whenever we get together, lol.]
I did start a book last night, one on my too long TBR list.
This one is A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland.
Queer m/m fantasy, promising a bodyguard/prince romance and political intrigue. I've seen lots of good reviews of it, a lot of which are praising the complex relationships, and it seems like the sort of thing that's very up my alley. I've followed the author on tumblr, from before I knew they WERE an author, and I tend to like their posts as well. (They also wrote A Conspiracy of Truths, which is ALSO on my TBR list, and I've heard many great things about.)
I'm only a chapter in, and... I'm not completely sold. :/
I'm not UNsold, either - it's not going into the DNF pile at this point or anything.
I don't LOVE that I'm this way, but continuity is maybe one of THE things that I get hung up on the most. Not even necessarily BIG continuity things; even small ones can easily frustrate me if they're wonky. Both of my biggest complaints about the first chapter fall into "minor continuity gripes" that... I probably shouldn't be bothered by, but I NOTICED them and it BOTHERS me.
First:
Context: The MC's sister is the ruler of the country. She has just given birth to her first child. The child's father and the MC don't get along. The MC's sister organizes a hunt as an opportunity for them to get out and do things, hopefully relieving some tension.
When the MC (Kadou) arrives for the hunt, he's surprised to see his sister, remarking on how he didn't expect she'd be there, since she's recovering from childbirth. She tells him she's not participating.
They talk for a few pages, and then he asks her why, if she's not participating, she asked them to come out there.
Except... he showed up not expecting her to be there at all! He fully anticipated doing the hunt, with her not present... and now he wonders why they're doing the hunt if she's not going on it. It feels super inconsistent, even if it's a small detail.
The second:
During a span of narration, Kadou thinks back about how he and one of his guards went on a private walk together around a laundry pond discussing something. I remember noting the description as a laundry pond because it was kind of an interesting detail!
Then, during later conversation, his sister says something about his guard and him having been seen taking a walk past the laundry pond (implying it was a flirtatious excursion, and teasing him about it being a slightly silly location for such things.) Kadou has an anxiety attack, thinking she's accusing him of political maneuvering... and thinks something along the lines of "yeah, there was a pond, but he hadn't noticed anything about it, it could have been a laundry pond" which... damnit, you JUST remarked on what type of pond it was in your internal narration about the event!
Both of those are STUPID tiny details to get worked up over, but having two in the first chapter makes it feel like it needed an extra editing pass, and worries me slightly for the rest of the book.
Otherwise, I'm enjoying the worldbuilding - while the first chapter does provide a lot of background info, it doesn't feel overly expositiony to me. I like that there's a very matter-of-fact inclusion of at least a third gender marker (the author is nonbinary, as well.) It launches right in with the conflict, while teasing some additional unknowns that I do want to find out more about. (What was in the shipbuilder's guild that's so secret!?)
The only introduction of the world's magic system so far is that Kadou can "touch-taste" metal, and the way that works is pretty cool. I like the sensory and memory descriptions of what the different metals "feel" like to him.
I like the main character well enough, though some of his mingled anxiety and naivete are already getting to be a bit much... but to be fair, it's not like it's unrealistic. It's almost a bit #too real in the sense of anxiety making you anticipate people thinking the worst of you, but trying desperately to excuse other people's actions.
A silly side-note: I realize that I made a comment in one of the writing comms on here a week or two ago that COULD have sounded like I was vagueing about this book, BUT I WASN'T. I was talking about bad worldbuilding advice, and used an example from a frustrating worksheet I'd seen that insisted on knowing EVERY. SINGLE. POSSIBLE. DETAIL. about your fictional world before even beginning to write a story.
I commented about how getting bogged down in figuring out every single detail of a currency system, from the date of its implementation, to who regulates it, to exact weights and measures, to the penalties for counterfeiting, to the location of the mines the metals came from, etc. could be unnecessary depending on the story you were telling... and then this book launches in with quite a bit of that. Except in this case it is relevant! And that's great! I wasn't throwing shade at this book with that comment, dammit!
I probably won't pseudo-liveblog the whole book or anything, but those are my feelings a chapter in. I HOPE that the issues of this chapter don't persist through the whole thing, because that will make for a disappointing read.
[I was SUPPOSED to be reading A Memory Called Empire next, and was very hype to do so... except Taylor REALLY wanted to read it together, which means I'm stuck getting that one a chapter or few at a time whenever we get together, lol.]
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I only skimmed your post. I'll see what I think when I read it :)
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I'm very much trying to read a few books this month - I didn't read nearly as much as I'd hoped this year, and there are so MANY books to be read!
I will say I'm enjoying the second chapter of this one much more, and I think it's handling differing perspectives well. (Like... knowing how character A feels about a thing or why they do something, but also utterly understanding why character B is interpreting it completely differently.)
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I hope something in my TBR pile really grabs me. I just started True Haunting because Jamie Bower is going to be in a film version soonish. But I want to read more things like what I want to write, plotty m/m. But, ugh, so much is bad or the author is awful or the series falls apart. The Nightrunner series went off the rails because the author discover yaoi and uber-woobified ukes... I know because I heard her squeeing about it in a panel she gave. (If you've never heard of the series there are only 3 books, anything that looks like a continuation is... just... idk but they don't exist)
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I do hope you can find something that super grabs you! That's what I'm hoping out of my TBR list, too. (Though I may just reread something I already know I love if need be.)
Bleh, series that fall apart are frustrating. I haven't heard of that series specifically, but I'm glad to know that there are only three books. Sure is a shame there weren't any more after that. Bummer.
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Why is it so hard? I can't just reread A Charm of Magpies forever.
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For real. :/ I have some things I would like to reread... but I would also like to find something new that I really, completely love!
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Far be it from me to ever tell an author what they can write, but I will DEFINITELY nope out from what I don't want to read.
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