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[ksmith]

Signs of Spring!

1) Robin sightings!
2) My eyes and throat itch! Allergies!
3) Muddy puppy paws!

No love form the latest SFBC review of the Code/Rules/Law omnibus. I am not a goddess in this reader's pantheon. He expected a story with a female protag written by a female author to be a gripping read. He was ungripped. He hopes my storytelling improves, though, because I apparently have an interesting interpersonal relationship style for my character's interactions.

Comments

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the good word. The books just don't work for some folks, though, and that's just the way it is.

One thing that did crop up in those reviews was the mention of Code's slow start. I asked a writer friend about it, since she had mentioned it, too, and she said that there was so much stuff in the first chapter--new words and a new world and the idomeni and Jani herself--that it was hard to adjust to everything all at once. She advised patience with the first chapter or so as well.

I'm assuming that's what folks meant by slow.

[(Anonymous)]

It's really hard to know what to put into that first chapter. With SF&F you have so much world building to do, that it's almost inevitably going to start out slow by comparison to someone like Harlan Coben, who can devote all of his first chapter to capturing your attention with questions, high tension stakes, and action because his world is modern day Chicago. Personally, I didn't find _Code_ slow. I'm getting crotchety in my old age and impatient with needlessly long books. Your books always hit me like being swept into a hurricane.

Adrianne