YA
About 60% into The Winds of Altair and I’m still reading for the ideas more than the people, which is not always a problem, but it does matter.
The setup has enough friction to keep me moving, and I do like a book that has a bit of moral tension baked in. Still waiting for the characters to feel like more than pieces being moved around the board. If that balance lands, it could end up being a much better book than it first looks. If not, well, at least it isn’t dull.
The setup has enough friction to keep me moving, and I do like a book that has a bit of moral tension baked in. Still waiting for the characters to feel like more than pieces being moved around the board. If that balance lands, it could end up being a much better book than it first looks. If not, well, at least it isn’t dull.
That trade-off can work, but only up to a point. Ideas will carry me for a while in a YA or juvenile SF setup, especially if the moral tension is doing some actual work. Once the people start feeling like tokens in a debate, I usually stop caring how clever the premise is. A book can be intellectually neat and still oddly flat.