Someone who saw my promotion posts on X left a comment showing interest in reading the book so I asked him to share his thoughts on the story if he got a copy. So far, he’s read the first three chapters and I find his candid thoughts very interesting.
“Hi! I am currently in the middle of chapter 3. Feel free to take my opinions with a grain of salt, by the way.
The first two scenes were excellent. I felt completely drawn into the action, and it was easy to visualize. This is Jeffrey Haskell level of quality, which is a high bar.
Once they get on the plane, however, it feels like an information dump, and the dialog becomes stilted. There are a couple of reasons for this. None of the revelations about Connor have been foreshadowed, so they feel as if they were drawn out of thin air. You don’t have to foreshadow everything, but it helps if you foreshadow something so that the reader feels connected to the exposition.
More important, there is very little feeling behind the information dump. Connor considers himself in debt to Bogey, but the rescue was incidental to Bogey’s job. There was nothing personal about it. As a result, it doesn’t seem worth a potentially $10 million gift.
The third chapter has a more serious problem. We are learning a lot about Connor’s business, but we have no idea why. To pull a reader in, you need to have some idea of what the reader is hoping to see and give a sense we are moving in that direction. Reading chapter 3, all I feel is I want the action to begin again. There is no compelling reason for me to pay attention to Connor’s business plan, since I have no idea how it fits into the story.
In any case, I thought I should give you my impressions while they are still fresh in my mind. I am hoping the action starts again soon, as you are very good at that.”
So, what I’m hearing is that the information dumps are an impediment to enjoying the story as an action story. What I’m taking away is that stories in the various action genres have a short window between the kinetic parts of the story. Now that is interesting because it means the author has to balance providing background information with keeping the reader’s interest. For me that’s tricky. With a science fiction story bringing the audience into the technical details of the “world” are sort of important. But the reviewer has made his point. If I put him to sleep or even lose his interest in the world-building then he’s not going to finish the book. Now I did start the book with two scenes he really liked but both of those scenes are remote in time from the “present” action (one is years before and one is a year or so after the triggering event of the main plot). So, in a way I paying for some of my sins against continuity.
Well, now I’m really interested in his ideas about Chapter 4. It’s got action but it’s of a singularly depressing type.