(no subject)

[sideways]

I keep telling myself to give up on trying to pick up new reads from Goodreads, because it's such an unreliable experience, but then every now and then I run into something that blows me away and would not have crossed my path otherwise, and I'm back to curiously shuffling through titles in hopes of the next big winner.

Unfortunately I don't think City of Stairs is going to be it.

It's a shame, because the world-building is so much up my alley! The gods were real enough to be slaughtered in a war, and the consequences were eldritch and terrible. There is a murder that must be solved in a fraught political situation. The protagonist is a woman, and the cultures based on anything but medieval England. It should at least carry my interest through to the end...

It does not.

At least I can put my finger on the crux of what is troubling me about this one (it's annoying when I can't articulate an annoyance, because I'm forever left wondering if it's justified): it has been written for a visual medium, not a textual one. A decoy first chapter before the true protagonist enters the screen by stepping off a train; a wavering third-person omniscient narrative voice that is generous with exposition and general sights but adds little personal colour or feeling; a lead character who conveniently only really thinks about what is immediately relevant to the story, which hides her secrets nicely but leaves me with only small amounts of personality to connect to at any given time. I can picture this book as a TV show very easily, and perhaps I would like it better then, but as it is I feel little curiosity or affection for anything or anyone.

I don't know what the moral of the story is here, besides "seriously, stop just picking random titles off Goodreads because the blurb is well-spun". Probably simply that execution is more important than concept.

Comments

[notasupervillain]

Also - if we divide books into three components (plot, character, world), I've learned that I read basically only for character. Books are a way to spend time with a fictional set of friends. And it sounds like this author put all their energy into world, without much concern for character at all. Which works for some readers, but not for me. And maybe not for you.

[sideways]

I used to think that character was the only thing that mattered for me, but then over the years I've run into books where I don't feel great affection for the characters yet still enjoyed the story because the plot and worldbuild carried me through. Alistair Reynolds, for example - I couldn't even name a character off the top of my head and I don't tend to re-read his stories, but I find them a compelling one-time romp. And, to be fair, the characters are still decent. If they were outright blandly Bad it might be a different case.

With City of Stairs, I think the writer both put all their energy into the world AND neglected to actually let the world thrive off its own energy. Details are pushed at the reader whether they're really relevant to the scene or not and it's like - props to your hard work but I'm here to read a story, not a Wikipedia article, yanno? There's an art to introducing people to a worldbuild, which I am aware of because it's something I struggle with myself.