Ninefox Gambit was super exciting and I devoured it in a few days. I bought the second book in the trilogy, Raven Stratagem, right away. But it has been a lot slower read. Of course it's impossible to repeat the pleasurable feeling of being dropped in a whole unknown new world at page one and slowly discovering how it works and why, with a second book set in the same universe. Even taking that into account something has been bugging me.

The characters are too relatable. Each and every one of them has lovable quirks and endearing traits. It's like the author has a tiny crush on all the people he has imagined into existence. I'm definitely not looking for black and white evil, but I somehow resist being dragged into adoring even the murderers and tyrants...

Talking with different authors, the way they relate to their own characters varies wildly. Some create them deliberately, crafting personality traits and worldview into a coherent whole. For some they appear before any hunch of a story and kind of sit in the author's brain, until they can be released into text. I just recently read a book, which was all about the characters, their psychology and thoughts, as if the reader was slithering inside their brains and eyeballs. It made me feel slightly but distinctly awkward, like even imaginary people deserve some margin of privacy.

For me, the characters appear where the plot forces intersect. The characters are shaped by the story and thus fit perfectly in the plot, downside being that they are not stand-alone personalities. None of them have so far returned to demand a sequel for their story. Coming up with names is a struggle, and I know how they look only if it's relevant to the story. Sometimes figuring out the gender is infuriating. TBH sometimes I'd be delighted to skip characters completely, but only in exceptional cases it's possible to write a compelling story without human(-passing) characters.