"Dunnett, especially, is such a specific sort of readership..."
Haha - a handful of adjectives did come to mind. It seriously made me so happy that there's at least one person out there who loves both. I've wanted to bring it up a couple times in Dunnett discussion groups (Marzipan emails, etc.) and even recommended Queen's Thief to one or two other Dunnett fans, but never had much success. I think because it's scaled to a YA readership it's easier to miss that there are still many similarly nuanced scenes or layers of story and the authors both explore a lot of themes, play with POV, and subvert the 'what makes a hero' traditional trope.
I love the way you put it - they do both trust the reader: Megan in an 'I'm not telling' way, and Dunnett in an 'it's in there' way. I think that's another reason why it's a "specific sort of readership" as you said - the readers have to be willing to be 'trusted', and to be willing to plow through a good deal of 'why would you do that?' to get to those moments of intense satisfaction as a reader.
Now I feel like I need to read KoA again, as this last read-through I was more focused on close-up parallels rather than broad themes like POV and reader stand-ins like Will/Costis.
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Date: 7/2/17 05:44 am (UTC)Haha - a handful of adjectives did come to mind. It seriously made me so happy that there's at least one person out there who loves both. I've wanted to bring it up a couple times in Dunnett discussion groups (Marzipan emails, etc.) and even recommended Queen's Thief to one or two other Dunnett fans, but never had much success. I think because it's scaled to a YA readership it's easier to miss that there are still many similarly nuanced scenes or layers of story and the authors both explore a lot of themes, play with POV, and subvert the 'what makes a hero' traditional trope.
I love the way you put it - they do both trust the reader: Megan in an 'I'm not telling' way, and Dunnett in an 'it's in there' way. I think that's another reason why it's a "specific sort of readership" as you said - the readers have to be willing to be 'trusted', and to be willing to plow through a good deal of 'why would you do that?' to get to those moments of intense satisfaction as a reader.
Now I feel like I need to read KoA again, as this last read-through I was more focused on close-up parallels rather than broad themes like POV and reader stand-ins like Will/Costis.