Reading/Writing Reflection #5

Reading Reflection:

Book: Retribution Falls

Author: Chris Wooding

Pages Read: 180 – 249

            This book has won me over. Completely. I had a few hours of reading time over the long weekend, and I couldn’t have spent it with a better book. It’s really hard to express why I enjoy this book so much, the one thing that keeps coming to mind is; “THAT JUST HAPPENED!?” . Retribution Falls specializes in jaw dropping moments, whether it be through insane character twists, nail-biting action sequences, or even just really good poker analogies. I’m constantly on edge, and not the “Okay, let’s get this over with” on edge I experienced in Metro 2033, but one where I am legitimately curious to see how things pan out. Wooding is really good at making me care.

            What I care most about has to be the characters. Wooding does a usually awesome, sometimes disorienting, constant POV movement between all the characters aboard the Ketty Jay. You get insight into everyone, so it doesn’t feel like someone is ‘just there’; they’re all there for their own separate reasons, each with their own motivations. The POV switches are usually quite fluid, but there was one firefight that had 4+ POV switches in the span of a couple pages. That was a little disorienting. This can be forgiven though, because if Wooding feels the need to switch to a character mid head scratch there’s often a good reason. I suppose the writing style adds to the hectic nature of the plot, I just wish my head could keep up with my hands; it’s a real page turner.

Writing Reflection:

            Writing’s been very ehh lately. I’m getting some serious ‘Moment’ fatigue, and I’m ready for something new. Am I ready for fan fiction? Maybe not; I don’t have very positive connotations with the genre. Speaking personally here, fan fiction brings to mind preteen girls writing slash-fic about Harry and Ron, a very basic, kind of gross writing format. I’d rather write my own stories than work off someone else’s. Sure, I could probably write a few pages about Brienne of Tarth’s schooling misadventures, but I’d just be doing the original author an injustice, soiling Martin’s beautiful universe with my own undeveloped writing, a crime I’m not willing to commit.