Comments on: J’s Take on Warriors of Alavna

By: k

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 07:39:33 +0000

While the list of place names with nothing to truly distinguish them is a bit annoying, it’s sort of a staple of this genre though, isn’t it? Fantasy almost always has YOUR LOCATION and then EAST OF YOUR LOCATION and WEST OF YOUR LOCATION and NORTH OF YOUR LOCATION and THE SEA OR RIVER NEARBY and HOSTILE NEIGHBORING KINGDOM. Sometimes the authors go back and flesh them out, but a lot of time they’re just there for color, to give you a sense that yes, we’re focused on this tiny area, but the world itself is much bigger.

By: J

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 06:23:59 +0000

Wasn’t solely about character names, I mean. There were still plenty of those in that paragraph too.

By: J

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 06:23:19 +0000

That one egregious paragraph wasn’t even about character names. There were place names and groups of people names. I don’t think it even had the dog and the sword in that paragraph, which two I kept getting mixed up.

Re: Alavna. Yea, it was like.. they destroyed this village, that the main characters have no attachment to whatsoever. Hey, did that scene even have the stereotypical slightly-charred and/or soggy hand-made doll?

By: k

Sat, 04 Dec 2010 04:08:48 +0000

Well, I have to say I didn’t notice anything like you did about the length of paragraphs. Or the surfeit of character names. In actuality, I didn’t find the number of named characters in the book too overwhelming; everyone was neatly slotted into a position as they were introduced, even if that position was held by several persons at once. (ie, muscly minion)

I did notice that the point of view, carefully controlled and written for the first couple of chapters, sort of disintegrated after that with shifts coming whenever it seemed convenient for the author. Frankly, if the beginning -hadn’t- seemed so carefully structured to me, it would have been less noticeable, since hopping between the viewpoints of two or even three main characters in a sort of third person omniscient god-like presence is pretty common. At least in books I read.

And finally, yes. The Alavna thing was really… brief. And inconsequential to the narrative considering its supposed import. It certainly didn’t seem to have any lasting effect on binding the group together. The ones who ended up friends probably would have ended up that way anyway.