I remember that we had a big discussion years ago on the Diana Wynne Jones list about whether or not MWT was cheating or not by not clearly revealing clues in a first person POV. (too lazy to go hunt through the archives right now but shall endeavour to at some stage). But although some of us were greatly surprised at the end (including me) there were people who weren't. So even though lots of us love it even more the second time around, it's not impossible to figure out what's going on the first time.
I love the sudden widening of the story at the end to include the political matters and so on - it's such a clever way to tell the story, rather than just being a straightforward political drama from the start. And it's not like the myths didn't clue you in that this wasn't just a simple story about a few people. But I guess some readers don't like being surprised by changes in story telling techniques.
Finally, I never got the impresssion MWT was trying to set up a replica of Earth past that had to be accurate - I wonder why the reviewer did?
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Date: 6/3/06 01:53 am (UTC)I love the sudden widening of the story at the end to include the political matters and so on - it's such a clever way to tell the story, rather than just being a straightforward political drama from the start. And it's not like the myths didn't clue you in that this wasn't just a simple story about a few people. But I guess some readers don't like being surprised by changes in story telling techniques.
Finally, I never got the impresssion MWT was trying to set up a replica of Earth past that had to be accurate - I wonder why the reviewer did?