I just finished reading a science fiction novel by one of the eminent writers in the field.   I enjoyed the book (sort of), and I'll probably read more in the series because now I have a sense of what's at stake and what's going on, but it's maybe not the best structure model when I finally know what's going on and what's at stake around page 320 in a 423 page novel.

The author also made an interesting structural choice in the beginning of the book.   While I applauded the desire to move events forward quickly -- I really don't want to read a book where each day feels like a journal entry, -- got up, ate gruel, killed some orcs, travelled -- something for which I gather Jordan was notorious, I also need to get moored in the story by bonding with a character(s) fairly early in a book.

The novel in question opens with something going terribly, terribly wrong aboard a starship, and they end up way past their destination with no real way home because they're lost.  They find an earth-like world and go into orbit.  So, for the first twenty or so pages I thought the story was about this navigator. 

But then we jump, and it's 122 years later, and we have the first contact between the humans who have finally risked going down to the planet and the aliens.  This runs about 40 pages, and I think, okay, this book is about Ian and the alien building bridges between the two races.

But no.  The next section starts and it's now 500 years after the opening scene, and now I meet the protagonist.

Again, I don't necessarily think the impulse was wrong.  Obviously the story the author wanted to tell wasn't about the first 500 years, but I keep wondering if there was a better way to execute this, and get me committed to the hero earlier on in the process.

The other problem is with the protagonist.  He is absolutely passive throughout this book.  He's like left luggage, and not in the interesting way of Pratchett's Luggage.  People just keep picking him up and taking him places, where he gets put upon by events.  He reads a lot and drinks a lot of tea, and rides alien horses.  The only thing he actually does is refuse to implicate someone when he's being tortured.

Again, I'm not asking that every hero be the omni-competent protagonist of a Heinlein novel.  I fact I find that kind of hero boring in the extreme.  But you can end up going too far in the other direction with a character who is only reacting and never actually driving the action.  I almost fell into that trap with Richard, the protagonist of my EDGE books, but fortunately my writer's group pulled me back from the brink.

To be fair there is one place that worked.  It was in the first Indiana Jones movie where, as Marv Wolfman pointed out, Indy never actually accomplishes anything.  he runs around a lot, but the only thing he does of any import is say, "Close you eyes, Marion."  

So, now I'm going to go back to work on my two novel projects and make sure that both Richard and Linnet protag like crazy.

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I spent the weekend at Leprecon.  (Yes, it was in Phoenix, and I hated top give Arizona my money, but I didn't see any point in punishing the fans who were chairing and attending this convention.  _They_ didn't pass the Draconian "papers please" bill.)  But back on topic.  I flew which meant I had over an hour at the airport, and an hour on the airplane so I got to read.

I had devoured the first two Stieg Larsson books while visiting the Cassutts in CA, and now I had THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST in my hot little hands.  It was a big book, longer than the other two, and fascinating because it features a crusading journalist as the hero which is something different from the usual lawyer, cop, politician, soldier protagonist.  I know nothing about being an investigative journalist, but now I want to run out and become one.  The behind the scenes look at the magazine business was interesting and educational.

These books also feature one of the most interesting heroines in fiction.  Lisbeth is not soft, not kind, never accommodating, and Larsson has the courage to let her be all spikes and angles.

My biggest quibble with the book was the second ending after the resolution at the trial.  I didn't need to have the loose end of her brother cleared up.  I know that seems like a violation of writing rules, but I could buy the idea that he got away.  Criminals do get away, and it seemed to dilute the conclusion.

It also made me take a hard look at the third EDGE book and realize that I really couldn't write it completely in first person from my protagonist Richard's point of view.  I need to have at least one other set of eyes on events.  I've been wrestling with which set of eyes to use since Saturday.

I was good and I wrote while I was at the con.  I kept waking up at 6:15, doing a hard work out, eating breakfast at 7:30 and then returning to the room to write.  I also wrote at breakfast one morning.  I'm beginning to think that Connie is right, and having a place away from home to work might increase my production.  I've never faced this before.  I have always written at home, and have loved to work from home, but I seem to be constantly pulled away.  Going someplace where there is nothing to do buy write might work better.

Back to the reading though.  I finished the Larsson book on Saturday afternoon, and I had to have another book so I picked up Emma Bull's TERRITORY, and I love it.  The idea of magic in Tombstone AZ in 1881 is just amazing.  I haven't finished it yet because I'm back home, and there are dishes to wash, and meals to cook, and laundry, and a horse to ride, and I have to work out, and write on my own books, and get disturbed by Gozer who is whining at me even as I type.

I hope I don't have to wait for the airplane ride to Conquest in order to finish another book.

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