Jon Lincicum wrote: > Saying /Agyar/ is about [...] falls into the same category. It may be a > very slight giveaway, but I have trouble believing anyone who's read > very much of this list would be surprised by it. The book is 13 years > old, for goodness sake. This "spoiler" also in no way detracts from the > more important character developments and "twists" that make that book a > very good read. I'm pretty sure I'm not the stupidest person who's ever read /Agyar/, or for that matter, who's seen /Sixth Sense/. I wasn't sure what the nature of the story or the characters in /Agyar/ was until very near the end. (The story about the Irish cottage, I think, was the capstone. Or very near there.) (Is that a spoiler? I don't _think_ so.) And I didn't suss out /Sixth Sense/ at all. I needed the exposition at the very end. The revelation was emotionally and dramatically satisfying. I'm glad I didn't figure it out early. I'm a little unusual in reference to spoilers. What I like best about stories is watching them fall into place in the order that the author intends. I don't anticipate, or try to figure things out in advance. It does mean that I look stupid to other people, sometimes. It also means that I can get the kind experience that, say, Connie Willis intended in /Domesday Book/, while most of my friends had the first twist figured out well in advance. Because of this preference of mine, I do truly, truly hate spoilers, even very little ones. A friend called a friend who I was living with. She got the answering machine, and my friend reported that the message was, "You won't believe it! Luke and Leia are --" at which point my friend said that she'd hit the off button because she didn't want any spoilers. Unfortunately, I was in my rational mind, rather than my "story" mind, so I instantly filled out the rest. Oh, and it's a device I truly hate. So, another reason I hate even small spoilers is that I am too good extrapolating on little data. I'm not always right, but that doesn't fix the loss of suspense while experiencing the story. The person who was best at describing a book usefully without any spoilers was Scott Imes. Gods, I miss him.