Info-dumping, a few thoughts

When I did my first snapshots post (reviewing a small number of SFF samples) one thing that struck me was the varying approach taken by the authors when it comes to the problem of informing the reader about necessary backstory, without splurging information in a wall of text (info-dumping).

The background is, as the name suggests, just there as a backdrop for the action, it shouldn’t be the mainstay of the story. There’s only so much information people can, or want to, take on board at once. If you throw constant references to past events and new character names, keeping track becomes difficult. And reading for relaxation shouldn’t be about trying to remember a splurge of information.

There’s also a trade-off with pace. Beginnings can work whether fast or slow, but the more backstory you include the slower the pace. If you have a dramatic fight scene right at the start, and keep banging on about the past events of the protagonist, you slow down the action and rob it of urgency, making something that should be fast into something turgid.

Fantasy and sci-fi often have a lot of backstory and putting it into context (after all, there’s usually a whole new world to try and get across to the reader, although this should be done where it informs the story not to flood them with irrelevant information) without erecting a wall of info-dumping can be tricky. Character interaction can help. As well as fleshing out individuals, if someone’s mocked for a certain accent, you introduce [without it being clunky] the differing nations. Instead of writing ‘she was a man-hater’ you could have a woman mock a chap as a ‘fallopian-deprived ape’. If someone has long sleeves, they can dip in a drink or the sauce/gravy of their meal.

In short: show don’t tell, where possible.

That’s easier said than done, of course. [I’ll be doing more snapshot reviews in the future. At the moment, I’ve got books to read, so it’ll be a little while].

Thaddeus

Samples Snapshot Review #1

On the 24^th of March I had a quick look at Amazon’s Kindle books, specifically the top 10 from new releases (30 and 90 days) and hot new releases. Disregarding things that looked really not my cup of tea and later entries in series, I noted a few down and gave the samples a quick going over. Here are my thoughts.

Thunder & Lightning, by Christopher G Nuttall and Leo Champion

I found this near(ish) future sci-fi easy to read, with multiple POVs and an interesting premise. A telescope on the Moon (now colonised) discovers alien ships heading to Earth. The telescope’s director announces it publicly, and the seven Great Powers have six months to decide how to react. There were a few small problems with typos (and clunky writing/repetition, one line describing two nations as firm allies, then the next saying one might be a slight ally to the other) but nothing that got in the way.

Blueshift, by Joshua Dalzelle

A small crew of humans have developed travelled, mostly in stasis, aboard a less than perfect ship to a different star, and come back. Due to dilation of time, just over eight years has passed for the crew, but nearly a thousand has for Earth. What will they find? Upon returning to the solar system, problems arise with the ship, and the only signal they can get is a repeating beacon from Mars. Can they decelerate to actually return to Earth? What’s the state of mankind? It’s possible the author deliberately curtailed the sample to avoid giving away whether or not, and how (if so), they get back to Earth. Very early on is there are quite a few character names thrown in at short order but that shakes itself out fairly soon, and the crew reactions to the difficult situation help to set them apart. I was left wondering how things pan out.

Sevenfold Sword (Champion), by Jonathan Moeller

NB I cheated with this one. The fifth and final book, lacking a subtitle, appeared on the list and I decided to check out the first.

Unusually for fiction, this uses blank lines rather than indented paragraphs. It doesn’t detract at all, just looks a bit unusual at first. The opening story follows Ridmark and his family as they attend a grand do. He and his wife Calliande recently lost their newborn daughter, and Calliande leaves the house for the first time in months to attend. All seems well, until an unexpected guest arrives. Interesting setting, which seems to be a mix of high fantasy and Roman/European history, but there is an awful lot of info-dumping (much of which appears unnecessary) that bogs down the earliest part of the story.

Embers of War, by Gareth L Powell

Told from multiple POVs, this sci-fi sample is intriguing but also a little frustrating. The story appears to cover the end of an interstellar war and a new conflict emerging afterwards, but the sample feels too small to get to grips with the premise. The writing style is well done and I enjoyed what I read, but there wasn’t enough text there for me to feel engaged with the story. It may well be a very good book, I just wish there was more in the sample to gauge whether it was my cup of tea or not.

Blood and Sand Trilogy Box set, by Jon Kiln

Told from the single perspective of Vekal, I really liked the sample of Blood and Sand. It’s set, as you might expect, in a fantasy desert location. Vekal’s a Sin Eater, a religious warrior-monk type of fellow who can remove the sins from others to ease their passing into the lovelier side of the afterlife, but who is nevertheless held in contempt by those who serves. His city’s been overrun by barbarians and his immediate task is to stop himself getting killed. Even in the sample there are some plot twists and I like the way things are going. The odd flashback helps add to Vekal’s character and break the otherwise continuous narrative of what he’s doing, and the action’s well told without being overdone. I may well buy this (and it doesn’t hurt that it’s just 99p for the equivalent of 520 pages).

Quite a lot of good stuff, and if I had to pick just one, it’d be Blood and Sand. Not only did I enjoy it the most, it’s very reasonably priced.

Thaddeus