[Nic_C]

Hi, Caitlin, and thanks for visiting Alexandria with your comments on my review! (I was actually planning to come over here with a link, but I guess it wasn't necessary :) ).

Obviously, there was a fair bit I couldn't say on the blog - I didn't want too many spoilers, I didn't want to go on, like, forever... So I thought I'd come here for a few more specific comments. In no particular order:



1) Interesting what you say about Baldhron - and, actually, I did like where he ended up at the end, with Lanara, it seemed to bring the theme of lies/truth/messy compromise full circle. And he was certainly creepy in his final scene with Ladhra. I think my problem lay in his plotting, and his leadership of his little cabal - just didn't quite ring authentic. I wasn't fond of Lanara, but she did make some fascinating choices towards the end.

2) Leish and Nellyn were wonderful characters. (Fie upon reviewers who condemn them for not being Conans!). Nellyn, in particular, was so perfectly understated - in his helpless love for Lanara, in his inner conflict, in his impulses towards Alea and her child, he has a quiet strength mixed with emotional turmoil that never tips over into angst. Really interesting look at the world through shonyn eyes.

3) The trajectories of the characters' relationships were really well drawn. This is something I remember noticing very much when I re-read Telling, and it's also evident here: nearly everyone falls for the 'wrong' person, for the wrong reasons, and then spends most of the book trying desperately to make the relationship work anyway, in love with that first image of what could have been (and aware of how much has been given up specifically for that now-failing relationship), rather than seeing the reality. This felt all too plausible... I was definitely rooting for Nellyn and Alea!

4) So many horrible (but great) ironies! (You really like twisting the knife, don't you? ;) ). Like Ladhra not being killed by the selkesh at all, or Galha's famed curse actually being Aldhron's... I loved that.

[Caitlin]

Hi, Caitlin, and thanks for visiting Alexandria with your comments on my review! (I was actually planning to come over here with a link, but I guess it wasn't necessary :) ).
Did I use the word "obsessive" at all, when I mentioned checking Alexandria? (I was actually appalled by the number I times I used the o-word, in that first paragraph. Apparently when I'm excitable I'm also incapable of proof-reading.)

Interesting what you say about Baldhron - and, actually, I did like where he ended up at the end, with Lanara, it seemed to bring the theme of lies/truth/messy compromise full circle. And he was certainly creepy in his final scene with Ladhra. I think my problem lay in his plotting, and his leadership of his little cabal - just didn't quite ring authentic. I wasn't fond of Lanara, but she did make some fascinating choices towards the end.
I came up with the Baldhron ending in the shower (which is where most of my plot epiphanies come). I stood there, thinking, "Could I really...?" and wasting vast amounts of hot water. But it fit. Felt entirely appropriate, for both him and Lanara.

As for Lanara: I started out really, really liking her, and expected to like her even more by the end. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum...I use her as an example of why I now believe authors who say, "The characters took on a life of their own; I had no control." I used to find this coy and somehow disingenuous - but not anymore. Lanara became her own person, during the course of the story - and not the person I'd expected her to be. Up until very late in the process of writing I thought she'd still end up with Nellyn. Your "I was definitely rooting for Nellyn and Alea!" made me smile, because I wasn't aware of how much I was doing so, too, until the book was nearly done. "Lanara doesn't deserve Nellyn!" was that particular epiphany. And I had no doubt about who did.

Leish and Nellyn were wonderful characters. (Fie upon reviewers who condemn them for not being Conans!).
Ah, so you saw that review...:rolleyes:

Nellyn, in particular, was so perfectly understated - in his helpless love for Lanara, in his inner conflict, in his impulses towards Alea and her child, he has a quiet strength mixed with emotional turmoil that never tips over into angst. Really interesting look at the world through shonyn eyes.
I'm so glad Nellyn and Leish appealed to you. The male characters in this book have drawn various criticisms - the Conan one, which is fairly easy to dismiss, but also the "they're all just ciphers" one, which was levelled at me by a female reader. She insisted (albeit apologetically) that none of them had any depth, that all were unbelievable in a variety of ways. So yes - I'm gratified that your only male-character criticism was directed at Baldhron!

The trajectories of the characters' relationships were really well drawn. This is something I remember noticing very much when I re-read Telling, and it's also evident here: nearly everyone falls for the 'wrong' person, for the wrong reasons, and then spends most of the book trying desperately to make the relationship work anyway, in love with that first image of what could have been (and aware of how much has been given up specifically for that now-failing relationship), rather than seeing the reality. This felt all too plausible...
Yes, well, I'm a sucker for the all-too-plausible love story...I really am. It was one of the reasons I wrote Telling in the first place: to try to tell a difficult, "real" love story within a fantasy context. Apparently I just don't do effortless happily-ever-afters.

So many horrible (but great) ironies! (You really like twisting the knife, don't you? ;) ).
:D

Like Ladhra not being killed by the selkesh at all, or Galha's famed curse actually being Aldhron's... I loved that.
Good!
As I've said elsewhere, I never intended to follow Telling up with anything. No sequel, no prequel - it was a stand-alone. Part of what ended up seducing me into writing Silences was how much room I'd left in Telling - room to revisit and expand and transform. When I started mulling over Galha's curse, and what I could do with it (because I knew immediately that she couldn't actually have worked this magic), the idea of an Alilan role struck me instantly, and powerfully. So I'm very happy that you enjoyed this particular irony.