On Wed, 17 Mar 2004, wamydia wrote: > 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. I think Loiosh doesn't get a lot to do. > That said, my biggest issue wasn't so much a "want vs. need" problem as > it was a consistent characterization problem. Throughout the entire > book, I felt like M and A had been lumped into a single character -- > DRAGONLORD (read like government cheese labeled "CHEESE" in big black > letters). I think they are a bit undistinguished at first, but later we see M saying "Good work" to Vlad; A saying "juicy trellanstone"; some differences in their interactions with Verra; A saying "shut up" to M; A weeping at the end. I've never been entirely happy with Morrolan's use of language, but I think that's Vlad's fault. I certainly wasn't happy with M asking V if he'd ever been imprisoned outside the Empire - Lesson 5 of _Phoenix_ isn't that long ago. > The other major character that bothered me in Issola was Sethra. She > somehow moved from the zone of "vaguely condescending most of the time > and occassionally bitchy when not in a good mood" to "outright bitch > most of the time." I never got that impression from Sethra before > Issola. I thought "damn you" from the data dump was a bit off. I didn't find her that bitchy otherwise. > And what about Vlad? He spends a good amount of page time in Issola > debating whether or not he even really like M & Co. as friends or just > considers them nothing more than people he owes honor debts to. It > seems to me that wasn't even in question when he high-tailed it out into > the wilderness in the first place. He hadn't communicated with them in years. It seems to me that he's a bit reluctant at first but comes around when he sees them.