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bolido_sentimental  1yr ago (text post)   3349 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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Merry Christmas, everyone. So, what are you reading?

I'm starting Balaji Srinivasan's The Network State. From skimming it, it looks like it touches on lots of contemporary things.

I'm attempting The Wandering Inn, currently a few chapters into the first arc.

So far, comparing it to other web fiction such as Wildbow I've read... not terribly impressed. It feels like a generic isekai-with-an-RPG-interface, 1D protagonist and forced le funnies included. If the writing gets noticeably better, let me know.

On the whole, I'd say the first book is very good, but every book afterwards is better. Also, the scope of the first book is mostly Liscor and some nearby places, but much more of the broader world is introduced in the second book.

One of the things pirateaba does well might be called "character development from the audience's perspective." You're often introduced to a character and develop the usual first impressions, but your opinion of him may change quite a bit over time for various reasons--you get a second perspective on the character from a different person; you get a part of a chapter from his viewpoint, showing how he thinks; or he makes an unexpected decision that clarifies his priorities. Everyone is complicated on their own terms; it's just that you aren't introduced to all the layers at once.

Erin is no exception to this pattern--the first view you get of her is heavily impacted by the fact that she's trying to cope with being isekai'd, and it's hard. Once she finds her feet a bit, different aspects of her character come to the fore. Much much later, another character from the first book describes Erin as "a puddle that you stepped into and began drowning in." She's got some excellent qualities, and other things she's bad at, but she makes some mistakes even where she's strongest, and her limitations really do constrain her options. Erin does use humor as a coping mechanism sometimes, but both she and especially the series as a whole have a surprisingly large emotional range.

It's hard to give much detail without hitting significant spoilers; there are a subreddit and a wiki that are very good, but you'll run into spoilers pretty much immediately, so I would stay away for now. If you've got any particular questions, I'd be happy to respond.

1D protagonist and generic isn't what I remember about it at all, so I'm sure you won't regret sticking with it for a little longer. However it was incredibly long and the author evidently didn't care about any pace other than her own, so I never actually finished it. It switches from intensely emotional stretches to lulls as if there's no difference between the two in the author's mind.

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