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akjeThe Age of Scorpius keeps coming up in my feeds again...
I guess something new has happened in the story...? The only new thing I see is that some 2000 readers have pre-ordered the new version of the book, but I'm not on TikTok so maybe there's something else I'm not aware of. I still can't figure out why the previous 7000 bought it.
I mean, they couldn't have known the first version was unedited, but what exactly was the attraction in the first place? As I understand it, after five years of marketing on TT the only information the author gave them was that it was a zodiac-based magic system. Is that like catnip to fantasy lovers? I admit I'm not a die-hard fantasy fan. The zodiac just doesn't do it for me.
Okay, I did like the premise of the anime and manga Fruits Basket, but that had conflict and stakes built in. A family is cursed to turn into animals of the zodiac against their will whenever they're upset, and the introduction of the mc brings the possibility of ending the curse.
But what are the conflict and stakes in Winter's book? Specifically, what were her readers told? It sounds to me like they bought the book without actually knowing anything about it, just what the artwork looked like.
Which brings up another issue. I've never understood the need for some authors to shove their own personal conception of their characters, settings, etc. down a reader's throat instead of letting us create those images in our own minds.
I recently finished Orlando by Virginia Woolf, in which she includes paintings and photographs of her main character. Argh. I mean, the first image is okay. It's a detail from a painting of two boys from the 1600s. One is blond, the other is brunette. She uses the image of the blond boy in her book and then tells us continually the character has dark ringlets. No, he doesn't. The painting is in color and his hair is clearly blond. Why didn't she just use the image of the other boy instead?
She then repeatedly reminds us that this character is attractive, but uses images of progressively more hideous people throughout the book, so the reader has extra work to do erasing those images from our minds and replacing them with mental visuals of a character who's attractive. (>▂<)
Winter's book seems like that to me: a whole lot of art that cements the appearance of characters and settings, but none of it is what I'd want a character or setting to look like. I'd rather create my own visuals. So why are her fans so crazy about this book? Does she appeal mostly to readers who prefer that the aesthetics be spoonfed to them? I'd really love to know. ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
I guess something new has happened in the story...? The only new thing I see is that some 2000 readers have pre-ordered the new version of the book, but I'm not on TikTok so maybe there's something else I'm not aware of. I still can't figure out why the previous 7000 bought it.
I mean, they couldn't have known the first version was unedited, but what exactly was the attraction in the first place? As I understand it, after five years of marketing on TT the only information the author gave them was that it was a zodiac-based magic system. Is that like catnip to fantasy lovers? I admit I'm not a die-hard fantasy fan. The zodiac just doesn't do it for me.
Okay, I did like the premise of the anime and manga Fruits Basket, but that had conflict and stakes built in. A family is cursed to turn into animals of the zodiac against their will whenever they're upset, and the introduction of the mc brings the possibility of ending the curse.
But what are the conflict and stakes in Winter's book? Specifically, what were her readers told? It sounds to me like they bought the book without actually knowing anything about it, just what the artwork looked like.
Which brings up another issue. I've never understood the need for some authors to shove their own personal conception of their characters, settings, etc. down a reader's throat instead of letting us create those images in our own minds.
I recently finished Orlando by Virginia Woolf, in which she includes paintings and photographs of her main character. Argh. I mean, the first image is okay. It's a detail from a painting of two boys from the 1600s. One is blond, the other is brunette. She uses the image of the blond boy in her book and then tells us continually the character has dark ringlets. No, he doesn't. The painting is in color and his hair is clearly blond. Why didn't she just use the image of the other boy instead?
She then repeatedly reminds us that this character is attractive, but uses images of progressively more hideous people throughout the book, so the reader has extra work to do erasing those images from our minds and replacing them with mental visuals of a character who's attractive. (>▂<)
Winter's book seems like that to me: a whole lot of art that cements the appearance of characters and settings, but none of it is what I'd want a character or setting to look like. I'd rather create my own visuals. So why are her fans so crazy about this book? Does she appeal mostly to readers who prefer that the aesthetics be spoonfed to them? I'd really love to know. ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯