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Monday, April 18, 2016

Review: The Laputan Factor




Tristan Black Wolf’s The Laputan Factor is a fine story, containing generally well-written characters. Granted, there are elements that seemed to be missing, and their lack was something that I found telling in my overall enjoyment of the tale. But if I were a publishing house, I would definitely call the author with a contract in mind.

The Laputan Factor begins with the protagonist awakening. I’ve read that some people will advise against such an opening, but in this instance it actually suits the piece perfectly. The overall story takes place within a personal mystery, with the protagonist desperately trying to discern fantasy from reality, and determine how he can become truly awake, if such a thing is even possible. I’m not giving anything away when I say that there are two lives that are experienced within the narration, and one of the several challenges that our hero must face is discerning what is reality, and what is illusion. And no matter which life is real… if he is so delusional that he can’t easily tell, what does that say about him?

Another satisfying point in the story’s favour is a lack of pointlessly idiotic characters. I have long held that if a story requires a character to be a moron, especially if they’re normally intelligent, then you need to step back, set it all on fire, and come up with a better story. In The Laputan Factor, morons need not apply. Yes, there are mistakes made under stress, but at no time does a character suddenly and inexplicably turn brain-dead just to keep the plot moving, or to shoe-horn in a particular scene.

That being said, the tale is not without its problems. My copy is 141 pages long, counting the illustrations, and the author cites its word count at around 47,000 words. Unfortunately, instead of a short novella, the story reads like a draft for a novel. There are questions left unanswered, especially at the end, and places where the dialogue feels more like a recital than people interacting.

The main hero is a good-natured fellow, and an incorrigible flirt. This is fine, and he is a genuinely nice enough guy that in some scenes it even adds to his charm. But the narration also picks up this trend, more so in the beginning than later on in the book, and the parenthetical wink-wink-nudge-nudge is frankly a distraction when it happens. The shift in narrative style through the story feels like a lack of editing more than a narrative choice, but I may be missing something through being overcritical.

That said, some of the descriptions are themselves distracting. For example: the characters are all essentially a race (races?) of anthropomorphic animals, like Larry Niven’s Kzinti and C.J. Cherryh’s Hani. Their manipulative digits are referred to as “paws,” but they use technology that would seem to require thumbs to operate. This seriously messed with my visualization. If the characters are fully humanoid, then by physiological definition wouldn’t they have hands and feet? Are their “hands” actually like monkey paws, lacking a proper saddle-joint and therefore not truly formed hands? Or do they have true hands, but refer to hands and feet as “forepaws” and “hindpaws” as a cultural statement? If so, where are the “normal” humans they would be distinguishing themselves from, for such a statement to be needed? I am reminded of Watterson’s early strips of Calvin and Hobbes, where Hobbes started out with paw pads on his hands. It is worth noting that Watterson later dropped the pads as being too cluttered and distracting.

But most damning of all is probably the world-building, and the characterization of the supporting cast. Please don’t misunderstand, I actually found myself liking the characters a great deal. By the time I was on the last chapter, I was emotionally involved with their well-being, rooting for all of them, even though I knew there was no way all of them could make it out the other side. But there is so much telling instead of showing, with the cast and the worlds both. I kept wanting to go back in time and say to the author, “No, it’s okay, take your time! No good novel is actually finished in a month. It’s obvious you love these characters and their culture. Don’t just tell us why, show us.”

I would love to have seen more of the society on board the Heartwielder. Much more than that, I want to see the crew interact more, and have their merits and flaws demonstrated throughout the story, not explained in a descriptive introduction. I would love to see more of the main character’s lover, Donovan, so that I can care about him more. In fact, I would love to have seen more of every character shown through their actions, rather than described, and not have all their descriptions lumped into their opening shot. And since this all takes place in different worlds than our own, finding out more little things about the cultures throughout the story would have been beautiful. But again: show, don’t tell.

In an author’s interview he granted me a short time ago, Tristan Black Wolf said he finished the tale in 22 days. When I read that, my first thought was, “Oh, that explains it.” Not because it’s a bad yarn; it isn’t. But it feels rushed. It feels incomplete.

Ultimately, I give The Laputan Factor three and a half stars out of five. I feel that it isn’t finished enough to get a four or five, but it’s better than a three even in its current state. As I have said before, if I were a publisher, I would call Mr. Black Wolf with an offer. But one of my caveats would be that he take however many months he needed to tweak, smooth, and fill out the story until it was the novel – long or short – that it seems to want to be. As it is, it’s fun. But it has the potential to be wonderful. The characters are engaging, the story is good, and the concept is intriguing and well-handled. I just kept wishing that was more smoothly written, that it went deeper, and that there was more to it. That being said, it is ultimately no terrible thing to look at any work of art and find yourself longing for more.


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