We have an unlikely heroine/hero pair to be our main characters - Sara and Harlan. Sara (our 1st person POV) is recovering from the shock of her alien abduction (which I didn’t find cliche because of the way McCaffrey starts the story), and somehow is learning language, and Harlan is the drugged Regent. They are both trapped in an asylum of sorts. What did you think of how McCaffrey starts the story, developing what happened to Sara very quickly, from broad opener to the tight focus that then opens up as she recovers and discovers her circumstances? Did you find Sara’s and Harlan’s actions and personalities believable? What about their interactions? Did McCaffrey succeed in writing a female character that was “better” than the absurd and unrealistic women of early sf? How?
McCaffrey doesn’t hold back with secondary characters either - there are many, with varying levels of development. Did any stand out to you? I particularly liked Maxil - he truly seemed young and vulnerable, yet proud, strong, and smart. I believed him.
The author offers more than one antagonist for Sara and Harlan. How did you like the development of the Mil? We never meet them, and at points they are to be feared while at others they should no longer be feared. Then there is Monsorlit, and Gorlot, with different motivations and situations and endings. Did you feel the antagonists were sufficiently challenging to believe as threats?
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I keep wondering how it was that Sara learned the language so easily and completely. For the impromptu education she had in the language, she never seem to have questions of syntax, only of cultural unfamiliarity. It really bugged me. I also still don’t really understand her complete willingness to involve herself in the Lotharian’s troubles. Her dedication seemed more that of a patriot rather than an outsider with a vested interest in general survival because she’d accidentally ended up there. Sara also seemed to have a overly convenient skill set, especially in the beginning, which was exactly whatever they critically needed at the time (The sailing in particular – it just sort of popped out of her background without, to me, reason).
Everyone seemed particularly "Can Do!" in attitude. This is a distinctive tone found in most McCaffrey, but seemed particularly heavy handed in this novel, and somehow in this story, didn’t work for me. I think it again relates to me not understanding Sara’s very passionate commitment to Lotharian struggles. Perhaps if I had bought into the romance between her and Harlan more, that would have provided the needed motivation.
The opening was a pretty good hook. It certainly made me curious as to what she was going to do with that setup. And I thought she handled the transition smoothly from the narrator being in a terrorized stupor to being aware once more.
I had a terrible time with the names. Two G’s, Two S’s, Three J’s, at least two F’s – one would be important, the other(s) more secondary, and the names themselves would be of similar length and form, and be linked to characters that were thrown together frequently, or were related storywise somehow. I had to really pay attention to be sure I had the right one, and didn’t always remember at first since some of the characters I felt were a bit thinly established. I thought she used a lot of sweeping stereotypes, something I had not noticed (or certainly not so strongly) in McCaffrey’s later work.
The Mil worked for me as antagonists. History had shown them to be something to be feared. Gorlot I could not get a sense of, and really couldn’t connect with him as a threat, even if he had done some terrible things. They were done at too great a distance from the characters (in time if nothing else), even if, like his drugging Harlan, the actions affected them directly. Monsorlit (who being another M, I keep getting a bit confused with the Mil at first, thinking for the longest time they were both connected) was more intriguing. I rather liked the twist on his role at the end – how he thought Sara was a failure because she scored so low on his sanity tests, but it was only because she was from Earth, not Lorthar.
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First - thank you for reading and posting! I'm guessing this club didn't work out - but people have lives, and can't keep up with everything. Oh well.
I too liked the twist with Monsorlit at the end - it was logical, and we were prepared for it, but didn't see it coming. When the threat went away, I had a true sense of relief for Sara.
I felt comfortable with Sara's grasp of the language. There are many bits throughout that refer to Sara's odd accent, or not seeming to understand things people say (Maxil comments on this pointedly) - enough to remind us it is an issue. Basically, Sara was in an immersion program, but it took time for her subconscious mind and conscious mind to get together on the issue. McCaffrey has a languages background, so I think this may have been on purpose.
Also, while there are maybe 1/2 a million words in English, we only use a few thousand constantly, and our day-to-day usage is smaller (yes, you may have specialized career vocab, but do you use it with your kids or your grandma?). So I believed Sara could get by on what she had - better than some "translator" that gets made up to explain why everyone speaks/understand English! I'm not sure we could get away with it today though. I don't think I would try
McCaffrey is an upbeat writer most of the time - but I like it (I prefer Disney endings too!). She writes what is appropriate to the situation I think. Yeah, the sailing was a bit too convenient, but I grew up sailing - it really isn't hard to figure out - so I forgave her that bit. I think Sara is more committed to helping Harlan (and through him, Lothar), who she needs to go to extremes to help, and in turn helps her - he is her first guy, so falling hard made sense for her. For him - he's not had any real relationships, and hardship breeds closeness, and in this case passion. He already has an interest in finding new worlds - and here is an offworlder he can actually have a relationship with - perfect for him too!
I didn't have issues with the names, but I know writing teachers/books do suggest trying to vary names to make it easy on the reader. McCaffrey does it in other books (like the Pern series) but there are always reasons (F'lar and F'nor have the same father, but different mothers).
I think many beginning novelists tend to use stereotypes - it is in our head, as OSC says, and hard to get away from. That is a good lesson to learn from.
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Sorry for posting this so late but I've been busy and haven't had all that much time for reading recently and when I did finish the book about a week ago, not much time for posting. Looks like the club didn't work out but thought I'd post anyway since I had read the book.
GZ, I have to disagree with you about the start. The opening very nearly turned me off of the book straight away. I can see what McCaffrey was trying to do but for me it was such nonsensical, meaningless babble, with so many obscure references that I just couldn't get into it. I forced myself through it however and it did improve.
As for the characters, I didn't feel they were developed as they could have been and like you, Punahougirl, my favourite was Maxil. The others just seemed kind of wooden and two-dimensional to me, as if they were there more to serve the plot than as real people.
Like, GZ, I was surprised at Sara's devotion to the Lotharian cause considering her experiences on the planet and the short amount of time she had been consciously alive as it were. I was also unconvinced by her relationship with Harlan, which also lacked development and seemed to come from nowhere.
Harlan, well I don't really know what to make of Harlan. He was consistent, and McCaffrey was very insistent about showing his devotion to Sara and his love of exploration but that was about it. I didn't really feel for him as a character.
Monsorlit, yes his role was a nice touch but again he was too distant to be kept real. I knew he ran the asylum and was considered the planet's greatest doctor but I wasn't shown enough of him as a person to understand fully why Harlan and Ferril (sorry, my copy of the book is 300 miles away so I may have got the ex-warlord's name wrong here) would still trust him after everything he had done.
As for Gorlot and the Mil, neither worked particularly well for me as antagonists. They were both kept pretty much at a distance so I never really identified with them as such. McCaffrey probably came closer to achieving this with the Mil but even so, it wasn't really there.
On a whole, I felt her characters could probably have been better developed.
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