Reading Wednesday

[sabotabby]

 Just finished: Return of the Trickster by Eden Robinson

To the tune of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," where have all the editors gone?

Friends, I have been hotly anticipating the third and final book in Robinson's Trickster series forever—the second ended on such a cliffhanger, and her writing is general incredible. And there's a lot that's great in this one too. It's got fantastic characters, imaginative fantasy, visceral body horror, weirdly, some pretty useful vegan recipes, and even a Sasquatch. But like 90% of the genre books I've read lately, it fails to live up to the sum of its parts, which I chalk up to rushed publication.

The good news is it's bonkers; the bad news is it's bonkers.

Two main problems, really: 1) there are too many characters, even with a George R.R. Martin-esque slaughter of the cast, and 2) Jared isn't active enough in his own story. He starts the story barely holding himself together (literally) and isn't in much better shape by the end, meaning that he pretty much has to be saved by everyone else. Which is kind of a cool concept, in that addiction is fairly central to the plot, but the problem is that he's also the only viewpoint character, and that makes things structurally awkward. A lot of the action happens around him, and Robinson resorts to short, italicized chapters from other characters' POV so that we know what's happening at all. 

Also I'm going to come out and say it: The epilogue is bad. Not what happens in it—that's rad—but how what happens is told. It's just an abrupt ending that doesn't honour the story.

I read an interview with her after that said that at first she wrote a draft where everyone just talked out their problems, and it made sense and was boring, and another draft, after the pandemic had begun (and I imagine, after the show and Michelle Latimer fucking her over) that was really dark and everyone died. Somewhere in between was the right call, and this version almost gets there, but it needed another editorial pass.

Currently reading: Nothing right now—will look and see what I've got to read tonight.

Comments

[frandroid]

> Jared isn't active enough in his own story

I'm told that's a problem for the whole Harry Potter series, and that didn't stop JKR from turning into a billionaire, so... :P

[sabotabby]

It's true, and Trickster is a vastly better series. But that was something that was obviously annoying with Harry Potter—so much of the interesting stuff was told to him because it happened outside of his POV.

[lapinlunaire]

Yeah and it didn't really work on so many levels. For example, Dumbledore being gay. I thought it was pretty obvious that he and magic!Hitler were boning when they were young but apparently it wasn't obvious to anyone else? Including Harry? At least she could have made him smarter.

[sabotabby]

This is the problem with an average, relatable protagonist. Like Baru Cormorant is largely one POV, but she's smart and observant. And even with that, towards the end of the first book and definitely by the second, he needs to expand to other POVs to show events that she's not there to observe. It's a bit clumsy and I think he picks the wrong ones but it's way less awkward than having everyone explain things to Harry.

[lapinlunaire]

Ugh I was a huge HP fan and feel like I grew up with the series, and this was a major issue I had with it and why I ultimately lost interest. :/ I feel like at some point 99% of my obsession with it was about the other characters, places, etc. we don't get to see as much as opposed to Harry and what he might or might not do.

[sabotabby]

For me it worked in the first three books because we got a child's eye perspective, and especially in the third book where the information Harry is told is wrong, and it's part of the plot. But the bigger the world gets, the more it's obvious that he's among the more boring characters in it.

[lapinlunaire]

Ok I need to know about this trilogy and what happened with the show? Is the show not good? Is this the same show you recommended a while ago? I feel like I'm so out of the loop.

It's got fantastic characters, imaginative fantasy, visceral body horror, weirdly, some pretty useful vegan recipes, and even a Sasquatch.

This concept is AWESOME. It's a shame the writing doesn't live up to it :( I feel like it happens a lot in YA, definitely.

[sabotabby]

Oh god. So. Yeah. The show is also awesome (though it deviates wildly from the book). And it's also cancelled.

Short version is that the director, Michelle Latimer, was passing herself off as Indigenous from a specific community, and that community was like, "who are you? we don't know you or your family" and turns out she's almost certainly a white lady trying to pass as Indigenous. Right down to the haircut, eye makeup, and clothing. She dug in and slapped everyone with a libel suit while insisting that she was getting DNA tested. It's pretty bad. She owns the rights to the story so basically all the Indigenous cast, designers, musicians, etc., involved lost their jobs because of her. Also poor Eden Robinson was devastated and is donating all the proceeds from the show now. And Latimer was also working on an adaptation of The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King, which I also love, and was interviewing all of these folks for it who trusted her.

This is pretty good coverage of the story, with interviews with some of the people directly involved.

This concept is AWESOME. It's a shame the writing doesn't live up to it :( I feel like it happens a lot in YA, definitely.

In this case, I think it's more a depression issue than a YA issue. The writing of the first two, and this one as well, is far more sophisticated than you normally get in YA. It's just clear she wasn't in the headspace to finish it and was probably under pressure from the publisher.