Just read Dragonlord.
Aug. 16th, 2012 12:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusJust read Dragonlord (SGA/Pern fusion, John/Rodney, R-NC-17 rating).
Well. Actually, listening to the soundtrack for Dragonlord lured me into reading the fic. Enough time has passed for me to see it as a reader.
Mostly.
It takes years for a writer to have enough distance to see their own work.
At first I still had trouble getting into it, seeing so many things that I wanted to edit. I hate exposition and there's more of it than I usually do (though exposition is true to the McCaffrey spirit!). One scene I wanted to cut completely (enname said I should, I didn't listen, and now, eh, I should've).
The looming threat of Thread loomed a lot less than I imagined. The story works anyway, but ... as a reader I would have missed the edge of threat. I mean, there's subtle, and then there's downright cryptic. I think a beta mentioned this and I defended it, insisting that the dragonriders weren't supposed to notice. (Note to self: betas are always right.) The story would have been much tighter if I'd made the foreshadowing explicit. As a reader, if I didn't already know that the acrid tang in the air and the dragonriders' complaints of dust storms was Thread, I could not have spotted the foreshadowing. Did anyone catch this? There's foreshadowing of the Thread as early as the end of chapter two when the dragonriders complain about dust storms, more when J'ohn sees clouds at the Gather in chapter three, still more at Nerat in chapter four. No, really. It's there.
The knife fight and the scene where J'ohn Impresses won me over. Loved the descriptions of Benden. God, from the opening scene I wanted to go there. I didn't like Lorne much in this story, and while I loved J'ohn in the fight and with his dragon, I disliked him when he was playing politics. (As I intended, so I'm glad it worked -- I meant to show John was headed in a bad direction, that this Lord Holder business brought out an ugly side to him.)
Correct, all of you: there really isn't enough Rodney, er, R'ney. Though I can't see how I'd have added more without bogging the story down. Believe it or not, there's more there than in the original draft.
The feral left me with pure love. That dragon embodied the selfless fighter. He earned the respect off all dragonkind and their riders. J'ohn may have been the protagonist, but Fred became the true hero of the story.
I also found I liked both Nara and J'ohn's father. Nara, smart, strong, able to force J'ohn to see his unrealistic hopes. And J'ohn's father... I didn't mean for him to be likeable, but everyone acknowledges he's done a good job at Benden and no one appreciates him.
The ending truly got me. I wanted so much more. More Pern, more dragons, more Rodney, more feral, more with J'ohn and his father -- all of it.
*nods* It's a good story. And my fingers twitch to make certain changes.
Well. Actually, listening to the soundtrack for Dragonlord lured me into reading the fic. Enough time has passed for me to see it as a reader.
Mostly.
It takes years for a writer to have enough distance to see their own work.
At first I still had trouble getting into it, seeing so many things that I wanted to edit. I hate exposition and there's more of it than I usually do (though exposition is true to the McCaffrey spirit!). One scene I wanted to cut completely (
enname said I should, I didn't listen, and now, eh, I should've).The looming threat of Thread loomed a lot less than I imagined. The story works anyway, but ... as a reader I would have missed the edge of threat. I mean, there's subtle, and then there's downright cryptic. I think a beta mentioned this and I defended it, insisting that the dragonriders weren't supposed to notice. (Note to self: betas are always right.) The story would have been much tighter if I'd made the foreshadowing explicit. As a reader, if I didn't already know that the acrid tang in the air and the dragonriders' complaints of dust storms was Thread, I could not have spotted the foreshadowing. Did anyone catch this? There's foreshadowing of the Thread as early as the end of chapter two when the dragonriders complain about dust storms, more when J'ohn sees clouds at the Gather in chapter three, still more at Nerat in chapter four. No, really. It's there.
The knife fight and the scene where J'ohn Impresses won me over. Loved the descriptions of Benden. God, from the opening scene I wanted to go there. I didn't like Lorne much in this story, and while I loved J'ohn in the fight and with his dragon, I disliked him when he was playing politics. (As I intended, so I'm glad it worked -- I meant to show John was headed in a bad direction, that this Lord Holder business brought out an ugly side to him.)
Correct, all of you: there really isn't enough Rodney, er, R'ney. Though I can't see how I'd have added more without bogging the story down. Believe it or not, there's more there than in the original draft.
The feral left me with pure love. That dragon embodied the selfless fighter. He earned the respect off all dragonkind and their riders. J'ohn may have been the protagonist, but Fred became the true hero of the story.
I also found I liked both Nara and J'ohn's father. Nara, smart, strong, able to force J'ohn to see his unrealistic hopes. And J'ohn's father... I didn't mean for him to be likeable, but everyone acknowledges he's done a good job at Benden and no one appreciates him.
The ending truly got me. I wanted so much more. More Pern, more dragons, more Rodney, more feral, more with J'ohn and his father -- all of it.
*nods* It's a good story. And my fingers twitch to make certain changes.
