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A Slow Burn
Jan. 19th, 2016 10:36 amLast night, I finished reading Lawrence Schoen's new novel Barsk. It was very good, and a classic example of a "slow burn."
When I write SF, my characters are just as likely to shoot you as to shake your hand. Perhaps as a result, the bullets start flying very early on. Barsk opens very differently, with an alien getting on a boat to go to wherever his species goes to die. The alien gets diverted from his trip, which is where things get exciting, but it takes a while.
Now, don't get me wrong - getting to the exciting part is interesting, in part because some of these aliens can talk to the dead - but the story does not start like a typical action story. Towards the end, the stakes become very high indeed - genocide, to be specific - but it's a slow burn.
Highly recommended.
When I write SF, my characters are just as likely to shoot you as to shake your hand. Perhaps as a result, the bullets start flying very early on. Barsk opens very differently, with an alien getting on a boat to go to wherever his species goes to die. The alien gets diverted from his trip, which is where things get exciting, but it takes a while.
Now, don't get me wrong - getting to the exciting part is interesting, in part because some of these aliens can talk to the dead - but the story does not start like a typical action story. Towards the end, the stakes become very high indeed - genocide, to be specific - but it's a slow burn.
Highly recommended.
