oyceter. Neuce, Jus

(this is me being paranoid, but... does anyone still read the book entries?)

Small press ARC that I got a hold of. Nocturne's technically about an explosion on the planet Nocturne and how the subsequent reactions of assorted politicians and citizens illustrate the deep divide between Kaettegut and Prime, two portions of Nocturne society that are at odds. I say technically because I got all that from the back of the book.

I was so bored by this. I couldn't tell any of the characters apart. There's Kellan and Graham, two Kaettegutans who now live and work in Prime, due to the explosion. They may or may not be in love with each other (I thought they were, but I seem to be reading slash into everything these days). There's Jenning, an important politician in Prime, and Chauncey, an important politician in Kaettegut. Then there are assorted other characters who come and go. Sadly, if you asked me right now, I couldn't think of anything describing the personalities of any of the characters, save that Jenning and Chauncey are jockeying for political power. That's how I could tell them apart from Kellan and Graham.

The book's done so that each chapter has several POV characters in it; the POV would switch once every two or three pages. Once in a while it'd stick with the same character for five or six, which made me very happy because I got so confused by the POV switches. I think this technique would have been ok if there had been distinctive voices for the characters, but there weren't. I actually had to flip to the beginning of the POV segments very frequently just so I could figure out who the POV character was.

I think Neuce was trying to portray a complex society and event through many viewpoints, each partial and incomplete. And I do think this is a good way to go (Witness Traffic and Syriana for social issues, or just all of the Altman movies). The problem (besides that of the indistinct voices) was that each segment was so short that it left me with no real piece of the puzzle.

The style actually felt a lot like fanfic to me. I'm not saying this to look down on fic, because I love it, but it felt a lot like some of the short, introspective pieces of fic. Only lots of them. Strung together, ostensibly with a plot. Every time the book switched POVs, I'd land in the head of another character thinking about his or her situation, without any background or social context or anything, which seems to be rather deadly in a book that's supposed to explore complex social and political issues. I never would have figured out the history behind the rivalry between Kaettegut and Prime if I hadn't read the back of the book, the introductory poem/quote snippet, or the appendix, none of which are acceptable places to do essential world-building (note the "essential." I am ok with supplemental world-building there, with the exception of the back of the book).

And then to add insult to injury, there was some italicized on every single page of the book. Not a book title or italics to indicate thoughts. Italics for emphasis. All the time. So I felt the author was forcing me to read a certain way. Which was very annoying. (I take this chance to inflict my irritation on everyone.) It honestly got to the point where I started flipping through the book to see if the excessive italics would continue, and I ended up flipping through two or three chapters and found at least one word italicized on every page. I stopped flipping after that and kept slogging through.

Anyhow. I thought the idea had promise, but it just fails so badly in the execution. I wasn't angry at the book; the gender roles seemed intriguing, I liked the female politicians in theory, and I wanted to know more about Graham and Kellan's love lives, but I kept stumbling over the italics and the POV confusion and the indistinct character voices and the lack of worldbuilding. Wargh.

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Posted by

jonquil.livejournal.com

"Kaettegut"?

She lost me right there. It sounds like a German endearment. ("Kaethe" + "gut") So if the planet's Germanic, the character names shouldn't be English.

Posted by

jinian.livejournal.com

Knowing considerably less about German, I'm unable to get past the word's similarity to "catgut". Clearly not a great name choice either way.

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Neuce, Jus - Nocturne

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