On Mar 17, 2004, at 17:29 , wamydia wrote: > > --- Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> wrote: > >> spoilers, obviously. > <snip Raymond Chandler discussion> > I wasn't as happy with Issola as I wanted to be. I > did enjoy it more than Orca or Athyra -- mainly > because some of my favorite characters got more page > time. That said, my biggest issue wasn't so much a > "want vs. need" problem as it was a consistent > characterization problem. As I mentioned to Philip in a private reply, I thought in particular that Vlad seemed to be a lot more on-edge in Issola than in previous books. I kinda wonder how much of the characterization problems that I had and, from your description, you had in Issola were just because of the massive amounts of stress that the characters are under in this story. For example, I wasn't as happy with Vlad's treatment of Loiosh, for example; there seemed to be less of a bantering tone than of a rougher, more angry tone (when he tells Loiosh to "shut up" for example, I thought it was more of a snappish kind of thing when generally it was always a more playful thing). So, maybe all of the character flaws "come out" more in this book because they are all really, really stressed? And, of course, to be more of a foil to Teldra, who never seems to lose her cool in this story. > I loved Dragon. If only as an excuse to see V > miserable and L having a great time ribbing him, it > was a fun read. It also answered alot of questions > and gave some more insight into V's ties with his > dragonlord friends, which are things that I always > look forward to in these books. I also loved Dragon. Some good character depth building and Napper is just great. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com