Let me make myself plain, if I am jarred out of a book, it’s very hard to get back into the flow of the narrative. Leaving aside copy editing, beautiful scene descriptions, gripping drama or the choice turn of words, the best bon mot are not enough to carry a story if the story or the writing or both ejects me out of the book. And seamlessness, for me, is the most important part of good writing. Believability is a major component of a great character. Novelty is only a small portion of what makes a great story. I am interested in good writing, great characters and even better stories. I am interested in science, math and engineering. Having said that, I am not interested in literary criticism. Mandel got a mid-six-figure advance for Station Eleven. Patrick Rothfuss sold 10 million copies of The Name of the Wind. And anyone who sells a million copies is to be congratulated, fêted and lauded. Anyone who gets there novel publish, is to be fêted. So, anyone who writes a novel is to be congratulated. However, smaller, boutique publishing companies are sprouting up like mushrooms. And since the advent of it has become harder still to get a book published because the major publishing houses are merging or going bankrupt. It’s very difficult to write a book and even harder to get it published unless you are self publishing. I chose these two books for this post because they are brother and sister to each other. So, that leaves me with talking about the stories and about the writing. All in all The Name of the Wind has more rubber science or rather magic in it than Station Eleven. John Mandel mentions some small medical science but doesn’t go beyond the concept stage, for example, mutated swine flu virus. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is a fantasy story but mentions basic sciences, chemistry, physics, as well as alchemical studies, sympathy, alchemy, will-power, and naming. So, this post won’t be an analysis of the science or math. Neither of these two books contains science or math, not even rudimentarily.
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