Snowflake Challenge 14 + Ocean's Echo

[got_quiet]

 

In your own space, do the Fandom Wrap Challenge.

This is actually tough because I'm about as far from Fandom as I've ever been.
 

What were your top 5 fandoms for 2022 based on the amount of time you interacted with them?
1. Overwatch League
2. Nu:Carnival
3. Visual Novels? Are they a fandom?
4. Video Games generally?

What were your top 5 fandom spaces (Discord, Twitter, etc.) you experienced fandom in terms of time spent?
1. Twitter (boo)
2. Tumblr
3. Dreamwidth
4. Reddit
5. Twitch

What are the top 5 things you did to contribute to fandom in terms of time? Did you write? Comment? Send positive energy into the universe? Create art?
1. Shitposted on Reddit
2. Posted here on my blog
3. Liked a whole lot of art on twitter

What were your top 5 most appreciated fandom contributions? (i.e. in terms of likes, kudos, reblogs, comments, etc.)
1. Pretty much nothing I do creates engagement or interaction lol. I guess some people upvote my dumb takes on Reddit sometimes.

Have a Top 5 List you'd like to share?? By all means!

Top 5 Games of the year?

1. Valheim
2. Deep Rock Galactic
3. Hades
4. Rhythm Doctor
5. Overwatch I guess.

Ocean's Echo

I just finished reading Ocean's Echo a couple of days ago. It's an m/m space opera with mind powers and political conspiracy.  I enjoyed it a lot for about 3/4ths of the book and then the ending got messy and the momentum and conclusions felt like it just sort of fizzled away. I'm still a big fan of the author's first story, and I say story because it was modified heavily from its first draft, which I read in serial form a long time ago now, and once it was published as Winter's Orbit there had been added a lot of political maneuvering, worldbuilding exposition, and a new layer of galactic bureaucracy (fuck this word btw fucking French) that I felt didn't add anything to the core of the story and the removal of important scenes that made the character arcs not make as much sense.

Ocean's Echo does basically the same sort of story. They are very similar books and the author clearly has a narrative type, with a flippant guy with serious self-esteem issues and talent he doesn't acknowledge + an stoic and hyper competent other guy, forced connections, (Marriage for Winter's Orbit and a Mind Meld for Ocean's Echo) extremely scary and powerful elder women, and shitty militaries that commit war crimes. She's also clearly a big fan of assassination attempts. The second Tennal got called off a shuttle I was like oooh I've seen this before.

The books still read differently despite the similarities, and some of the traits and circumstances of the main characters get scrambled up. In Ocean's Echo Tennal, who is roughly the Kiem of this book, is the guy put in the shit position, and Surit is, at least for the first half of the book, the one who's in something resembling control.

I liked this pairing, both the characters individually and their relationship, a lot. I definitely hit that point somewhere in the middle of the book where I was stupid smiling over them becoming more and more fond of each other and starting to experience character growth. The tail end was weak mostly because I feel like the climax was primed only 2 thirds in and after that passed the back part started hitting repetitious scenes where characters were doing the same shit over and over again. Especially when a major point of the book is that a sync cannot be broken without it being fatal, to have it break twice and not even in a way that to me indicated any extreme circumstances and without major consequences strained my credulousness.

I still think it was a good book and a worthwhile read. My frustration stems mainly from the fact that I thought the new worldbuilding that entered Winter's Orbit was to that story's detriment, and it was continued on in Ocean's Echo, making me wonder if there was a stronger, tighter manuscript out there somewhere similar to what "Arranged marriage space royalty origfic" had at first been. I say this rarely, but perhaps the book could have done without an editor.

 

Comments

[flamingsword]

Visual novels and video games are absolutely a fandom! If there is a type of media that you love enough to tell someone about it, that is a fandom, because that impulse toward sharing what you love is what fandom is made of! Even if something is a fandom of only one person, it is still a fandom! It counts!

Thank you for shitposting on Reddit about the things you love! You have probably prompted some folks to go check out your video games and visual novels, and drawn some more folks into your fandoms. >:D

[hamsterwoman]

Stopping by from Snowflake, and while I don't have much to say re: your top 5, it turns out I still have a lot to say about Ocean's Echo, lol

I had similar thought on Ocean's Echo -- I liked the leads and the relationship a lot, but ended up liking the first part of the book a lot more than the resolution which is all stuff happening in their minds and/or political and galactic plot stuff. I also did not find the whole Remnants storyline a necessary addition to Winter's Orbit (I had also read and loved it as Course of Honor on AO3), and was not interested in the large chunk of the plot devoted to them here, either.

making me wonder if there was a stronger, tighter manuscript out there somewhere similar to what "Arranged marriage space royalty origfic" had at first been. I say this rarely, but perhaps the book could have done without an editor.

Heh. I also wondered where the balance of plot/telepathy stuff vs tropey Tennal/Surit had come from -- like, would Everina Maxwell prefer to write space adventure that's lighter on romance and Course of Honor was skewed towards romance because she was posting it on AO3 and tropey romance is what AO3 is for? Or is it external influence / pursuit of legitimacy that is skewing this book so heavily towards plot? (I'm certainly OK with books having plot and having less or no romance! But I do feel like Maxwell's strengths are in writing fun character dynamics and romance, and the Remnants stuff is just diluting that.)

[got_quiet]

Yeah I've talked to a few people about Winter's Orbit and there seems to be a mild consensus with our reactions. It would be interesting to know what the process was behind the changes. When the first book came out I thought part of the issue was that I just liked the fic I read first better but with the second I think it's clearer that it's not just an question of familiarity.

Interestingly we have a second draft in the form of the serialized story before it went to Ao3, and she did make some edits between that and "A Course of Honor". The only big change I can recall was that she removed some worldbuilding exposition about Kiem and Jainan using face disguising tech before they went skiing. I'm sure I'm reading too into things but that's why I wonder how much editorial influence pushed things in the other direction.

I hope Maxwell keeps writing books. I think she has some interesting ideas and obviously she has a good grasp on character and relationships so she can find a better balance she can probably put out a real banger.

[hamsterwoman]

Oh interesting, I didn't realize there was a pre-AO3 version of Course of Honor, or how it differed. But actually, if she removed some worldbuilding for the AO3 version that might suggest that she enjoys writing wb but didn't think AO3 would be interested in being distracted from the romance. I mean, it's all reading tea leaves, but still, a very interesting data point!

I hope Maxwell keeps writing books. I think she has some interesting ideas and obviously she has a good grasp on character and relationships so she can find a better balance she can probably put out a real banger.

Oh, for sure! And I, too, hope she find that balance, or maybe figures out a way to make the worldbuilding more grounded in character so it doesn't feel like a distraction from the character work, which is indeed excellent.

I'm still going to eagerly read her new books, because even the one I liked less had a lot of fun character stuff in it, and I hope they only improve as a whole from here.

[autumndaze]

There's definitely lots of folks who are into visual novels generally! I've only really finished... one I think, Dramatical Murder. Maybe a second I'm forgetting... But I have a friend whose partner reviews them regularly.

[got_quiet]

I should probably seek out more people who play them. My usual gamer friends are more the FPS sort so I sometimes feel on an island when it comes to VNs.

[autumndaze]

I wish I had suggestions. It's one of those "I know they're out there but it's not a community I've sought out so I don't know the details". Like I know big VN-based fandoms like Hakuouki, Dramatical Murder, Type Moon, a variety of anime that were VN adaptations... Maybe browsing for visual novel twitter or dreamwidth or discord or reddit or even tumblr would help? tumblr was how I found DMMM, and I know Hakuouki was big on there for a bit. And Type Moon still is.