[LMB] QOTD #6: Sharing Knife expectations

[Thomas Vinson]

William A. Wenrich wrote:
> My major expectations were that the characters be rounded and
> that there be no "stupid" mistakes.

I think that holds true for me as well.  What gets me _re_reading
a book is usually the characters.  I think Fawn and Dag both start
out as stereotypes and become more real and rounded as the
story progresses.  Lois's writing style presents a story much like
a drama (without soliloquies).  The setting for these books is
so familiar in many ways that it was quite easy to put the characters
into their boxes, until they started breaking out during the course of
the first book.  But they did break out and become more real.

I realise that familiarity of setting for WGW is not common to
many on the list.  I grew up less than a mile from a mid-
western river (the Missouri, not the Ohio), so Lois didn't have
to work that hard to make the world vivid to me; my memories
filled in a lot of details.

Having said all that, I wouldn't recommend these books as
an introduction to Lois's writing unless I knew the other person
was comfortable with plot that meanders, gets stuck in the
occasional backwater, and generally acts like a large river.
For instance, I enjoyed the movie "My Father's Glory"
(http://movies.go.com/my-fathers-glory/d809969/foreign),
but just looking at the first link that pops up I see that it
gets an average of C-, just one half step above academic
probation.  But I've always known I was weird.

What I expect from the next volume is to learn more about
the malices.  I have a feeling Dag just might discover the
limits of Lakewalker knowledge about them.  I'm thinking
of Mark Twain's saying, "It ain't what you don't know that gets
you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

What I don't expect, but would like to see, is something about
Nattie's earlier life.

Tom

(Apologies in advance if the line breaks don't make it
through to the list)