Chinese Singaporean immigrant in the UK. Writer. Nintendo enthusiast. SF Giants fan. Ailuromaniac. (Other animals are πŸ’–.) Bibliophile. Anime-niac. See the link for my TTRPGs out on http://itch.io


A break from talking about games to talk about books. I'm into the third volume of Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire trilogy (Ninefox Gambit, Raven Strategem, Revenant Gun.) This is the kind of space opera where a bunch of incomprehensible tech/math concepts whizz by over my head while I mostly focus on enjoying the characterisation and other aspects of world-building. πŸ˜‚

This is to say there's a pretty high learning curve to begin with, as you have to pull together information that you've inferred from being dropped into the world without any preamble. I have a limited amount of energy for this type of writing; I have to be in the right mood to try to figure out what on earth a "threshold winnower" is (3 books in, and I still only have a rough idea of how it's an atrocity-level weapon of mass destruction), why the calendar is so important (still don't really understand how that works, but it seems to affect military maneouvres, and every aspect of socio-cultural life), what "formations" are and how they are affected by calendars (they seem to be... Regular military formations but with "exotic effects"? IDK. Don't ask me. πŸ˜…)

So what's kept me going for 3 books, sometimes reading late into the night when I can't sleep? There's more easily relatable details about the characters. A main character who loves watching soap operas and is one of the few people who pays real attention to the droids (servitors) that seem to populate most ships and structures in this world. Another main character who has a mysterious and murderous past - what's going on with that one? I'm curious enough to keep reading.

Another character is steeped in power, but also has a green onion desk plant to care for, and a great love of sweets. That last trait is both important to the plot at one point, and also a bit of a relief because it's something mundane and enjoyable to focus on while all the characters yell about the calendar and political intrigue.

This is to say that if you make your characters sympathetic, relatable or interesting in some way, and if you offer up a decent plot, I will put up with not being able to understand a large amount of what else is going on. πŸ˜‚ Just give me those toeholds and make them enjoyable enough, and then you can also inflict on me concepts I can barely keep track off in your complex worldbuilding. I can really appreciate that a lot of thought has gone into that, by the way. I am impressed, despite not being able to understand a lot of the details. It feels coherent even if I can't completely understand it, and the social impact of forcing entire populations to adhere to the same calendar (on pain of bloody torture and death) is both a chilling and interesting concept.

At the end of the day these books are also about rebellion against systems that can be inhumane, and which render individual lives cheap and disposable. In that context, it's even more important to have characters who you will grow attached to, because that's one way to make the high stakes feel personal to the reader. Give me details about the soap operas and the sweet confectionary and the green onion plant and the droids, and how the characters relate emotionally to all those things, and I will care about them, and their world, even if I can't fully understand it.


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