What did you think of that very late, clumsy stabbing attempt? I wasn't so impressed by it.
When you call it clumsy, is that a critique directed at the would-be assassin or at the author?
I think I would say that Addison invests a lot of time over the course of the book establishing that Tethimar was both brutish and crude. I did not find it particularly surprising that he would attempt to kill Maia, and I do not find it particularly surprising that he would fail. In that regard, I think it contrasts quite sharply with the attempted coup, which is the sort of effort that has quite often succeeded in Earthly courts and could quite possibly have succeeded in this case had it not been for Maia's nephew.
On the other hand, I did feel that the timing of it as compared to the timing of the airship crash investigation was rather neat- there was no clear sign that I saw of what forced Tethimar's hand.
Hm. Maia was trying to figure out how government worked, but his personal network felt, to me, far too fragile to be called 'friends'.
Hmm... Well, I think there's a lot of the fact that we're seeing this tightly from Maia's perspective. In my judgement, there's a lot of evidence of the affection the people in his personal network feel for him long before he starts to realize it at the end of the book. I would also flip your first statement and suggest that Maia also teaches his personal network a lot about government. Addison uses a repeated motif early in the novel where Maia asks pretty basic questions about government and Csevet and crew are unable to even understand the question. She uses that device a lot less as the book moves on- partly this is because Maia becomes better at asking good questions, but partly it's also because Maia has taught his friends new ways of thinking about government, so that they start to understand his questions.
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Date: 2015-05-17 01:03 am (UTC)When you call it clumsy, is that a critique directed at the would-be assassin or at the author?
I think I would say that Addison invests a lot of time over the course of the book establishing that Tethimar was both brutish and crude. I did not find it particularly surprising that he would attempt to kill Maia, and I do not find it particularly surprising that he would fail. In that regard, I think it contrasts quite sharply with the attempted coup, which is the sort of effort that has quite often succeeded in Earthly courts and could quite possibly have succeeded in this case had it not been for Maia's nephew.
On the other hand, I did feel that the timing of it as compared to the timing of the airship crash investigation was rather neat- there was no clear sign that I saw of what forced Tethimar's hand.
Hm. Maia was trying to figure out how government worked, but his personal network felt, to me, far too fragile to be called 'friends'.
Hmm... Well, I think there's a lot of the fact that we're seeing this tightly from Maia's perspective. In my judgement, there's a lot of evidence of the affection the people in his personal network feel for him long before he starts to realize it at the end of the book. I would also flip your first statement and suggest that Maia also teaches his personal network a lot about government. Addison uses a repeated motif early in the novel where Maia asks pretty basic questions about government and Csevet and crew are unable to even understand the question. She uses that device a lot less as the book moves on- partly this is because Maia becomes better at asking good questions, but partly it's also because Maia has taught his friends new ways of thinking about government, so that they start to understand his questions.