beccaelizabeth (
beccaelizabeth) wrote2024-10-14 03:34 am
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Entry tags:
October Daye series latest
I have read both Sleep no More and The Innocent Sleep.
Then I stalled for a couple of days trying to figure out my reaction.
Two things, both technically spoilers:
Well more than two, but:
Sleep no More proceeded at the usual breakneck pace, pausing mostly while characters were unconscious, otherwise rattling along while the protagonist found things out and did something about them.
And that was cool and made me read it all in a row.
But one of the things she finds out is it has been four months since the previous book. So I wanted to see how that played out for Tybalt in the book from his point of view.
And to start with it was urgent and fast and divided between logistical problems and trying to find some way to solve things with great violence. I liked the bit where they had to figure out how to feed all the cats. But I didn't like how the non royal characters were put into a holding pattern of not exactly existing? Their minds were made for them, The End. And like, okay, the story is playing elsewhere today, but that's a lot of people to unpeople.
But after the initial urgent problems it just... stopped?
Because a prophet said so.
And it's fine and logical in universe, I realise that, there are Seers and they are powerful and one way we can see how important they are is that Tybalt goes from suicidally urgent to holding pattern just at their bare word... but I can't feel that. Even if this was a time travel story where someone had literally done this before I would imagine people doing many more things before they just give up and wait.
But there's a whole short story about, in part, how these immortal characters don't perceive time the same way, so if they have to wait a hundred years they just get on with their chores and focus on the immediate present and wait.
And that's... very lockdown of them I guess, but also, cannot relate, do not grok, if I look back at a stretch of time that felt like that I figure I was ill.
... it is possible they are all ill? there's enough trauma to go around...
So I stalled when the story did, because I can see the internal story logic of it, but I can't feel it.
And the other thing is... I think I found Tybalt's anger kind of upseting? And his inital feelings that drove him to jump off a cliff even worse. He nearly died and got told off for it, this wasn't a case of supernatural durability, this was about him being near suicidally dumbass because his wife is in danger. And that's hard to read? And then he spends the book *so* *angry*, which is fair because I don't know what kind of anger would be sufficient for this level and scale of death of personality but it seems like the range of Volcanic might be close.
But then I went all quiet and avoidy for a bit?
And if I think about it as a heroic story where he saves the day, well, he did barely any violence, he dealt with his anger appropriately by walking it off, so what's the problem?
But if I apply our world people logic rather than 'cats do different', he does lash out at his allies and do damage, and that's a problem.
So I think his particular brand of emotional rollercoaster resulted in me being quiet and avoidy for a bit.
So now I don't know how I feel about the books?
It's like, the characters were majorly retconned in universe, but the whole plot hinges on the story fact that their basic emotions and the way they're inclined to treat people wasn't changed to plan. They love people who love them, they love their family, even if said family has been chosen for them.
And several children were turned into versions of adults, but the story was very clear that they didn't do anything romantic or sexual in those forms, so whatever lines they had to parrot, they weren't forced to go there. So there's maybe things they wouldn't do? Maybe.
And if so there's stuff to be learned about the regular characters, partly by seeing how fast their original reactions pop through when they're pressured.
But now some of them have memories of a world based on killing off entire bloodlines and enslaving mixed race kids, and they know how they were rewritten to react to that.
... which is reminding me of the Arrowverse xover where the nazi alternate universe invaded with all the evil versions of most people. I did not like that. I'm not sure that 'look you'd be a racist if you were an experientially completely different person' is, like, useful?
It's like, while I was reading it, it was engaging stuff where anything could happen, but the longer after it stopped, the more I feel like... it was such a sweeping huge elseworlds that everyone got stretched a bit thin maybe?
And I'm not thinking of many incidents to point to as interest or awesome.
Especially once 'doing things because a prophet said to' became a serious motive.
I felt like these books covered some very rough emotional territory but used it to speed run some emotional bonds and show characters under stress. But I possibly found bits too stressful to quite like these books.
I don't know though, my reaction seems to be evolving.
also, staying up very very late to finish the first one did no favors to my reading comprehension or retention I'm sure.
I kind of feel like apologising to the books. Like, big ambitious story, told how it set out to, effective and emotional in many places
and I just went grumpy and avoidy.
Don't know if that's the books at fault.
I feel like I should give them high stars for doing what they set out to do but that my reaction to them is mixed.
Then I stalled for a couple of days trying to figure out my reaction.
Two things, both technically spoilers:
Well more than two, but:
Sleep no More proceeded at the usual breakneck pace, pausing mostly while characters were unconscious, otherwise rattling along while the protagonist found things out and did something about them.
And that was cool and made me read it all in a row.
But one of the things she finds out is it has been four months since the previous book. So I wanted to see how that played out for Tybalt in the book from his point of view.
And to start with it was urgent and fast and divided between logistical problems and trying to find some way to solve things with great violence. I liked the bit where they had to figure out how to feed all the cats. But I didn't like how the non royal characters were put into a holding pattern of not exactly existing? Their minds were made for them, The End. And like, okay, the story is playing elsewhere today, but that's a lot of people to unpeople.
But after the initial urgent problems it just... stopped?
Because a prophet said so.
And it's fine and logical in universe, I realise that, there are Seers and they are powerful and one way we can see how important they are is that Tybalt goes from suicidally urgent to holding pattern just at their bare word... but I can't feel that. Even if this was a time travel story where someone had literally done this before I would imagine people doing many more things before they just give up and wait.
But there's a whole short story about, in part, how these immortal characters don't perceive time the same way, so if they have to wait a hundred years they just get on with their chores and focus on the immediate present and wait.
And that's... very lockdown of them I guess, but also, cannot relate, do not grok, if I look back at a stretch of time that felt like that I figure I was ill.
... it is possible they are all ill? there's enough trauma to go around...
So I stalled when the story did, because I can see the internal story logic of it, but I can't feel it.
And the other thing is... I think I found Tybalt's anger kind of upseting? And his inital feelings that drove him to jump off a cliff even worse. He nearly died and got told off for it, this wasn't a case of supernatural durability, this was about him being near suicidally dumbass because his wife is in danger. And that's hard to read? And then he spends the book *so* *angry*, which is fair because I don't know what kind of anger would be sufficient for this level and scale of death of personality but it seems like the range of Volcanic might be close.
But then I went all quiet and avoidy for a bit?
And if I think about it as a heroic story where he saves the day, well, he did barely any violence, he dealt with his anger appropriately by walking it off, so what's the problem?
But if I apply our world people logic rather than 'cats do different', he does lash out at his allies and do damage, and that's a problem.
So I think his particular brand of emotional rollercoaster resulted in me being quiet and avoidy for a bit.
So now I don't know how I feel about the books?
It's like, the characters were majorly retconned in universe, but the whole plot hinges on the story fact that their basic emotions and the way they're inclined to treat people wasn't changed to plan. They love people who love them, they love their family, even if said family has been chosen for them.
And several children were turned into versions of adults, but the story was very clear that they didn't do anything romantic or sexual in those forms, so whatever lines they had to parrot, they weren't forced to go there. So there's maybe things they wouldn't do? Maybe.
And if so there's stuff to be learned about the regular characters, partly by seeing how fast their original reactions pop through when they're pressured.
But now some of them have memories of a world based on killing off entire bloodlines and enslaving mixed race kids, and they know how they were rewritten to react to that.
... which is reminding me of the Arrowverse xover where the nazi alternate universe invaded with all the evil versions of most people. I did not like that. I'm not sure that 'look you'd be a racist if you were an experientially completely different person' is, like, useful?
It's like, while I was reading it, it was engaging stuff where anything could happen, but the longer after it stopped, the more I feel like... it was such a sweeping huge elseworlds that everyone got stretched a bit thin maybe?
And I'm not thinking of many incidents to point to as interest or awesome.
Especially once 'doing things because a prophet said to' became a serious motive.
I felt like these books covered some very rough emotional territory but used it to speed run some emotional bonds and show characters under stress. But I possibly found bits too stressful to quite like these books.
I don't know though, my reaction seems to be evolving.
also, staying up very very late to finish the first one did no favors to my reading comprehension or retention I'm sure.
I kind of feel like apologising to the books. Like, big ambitious story, told how it set out to, effective and emotional in many places
and I just went grumpy and avoidy.
Don't know if that's the books at fault.
I feel like I should give them high stars for doing what they set out to do but that my reaction to them is mixed.