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Res's Reviews > Wintersmith
Wintersmith (Discworld, #35; Tiffany Aching, #3)
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The third book involving Tiffany Aching and the Nac Mac Feegles -- the one where Tiffany dances with the Wintersmith and gets herself into the middle of the ancient romance of summer and winter.
I love the witches, and I love the Feegles, and I love Tiffany, and it's always a pleasure to spend time with them. And yay for Roland growing up. And I loved the subplot involving Miss Treason and the slight improvement in Annagramma.
Having said that, I had serious problems with this book.
The most critical problem I have is that I didn't understand Tiffany getting involved in the dance in the first place. It was wildly out of character for her to do something like that, five minutes after someone has told her not to, without asking any questions; I couldn't see why she would *want* to; it wasn't well supported; I didn't believe it. And of course all the action of the book depends on that one act.
The second problem is the way he's pulled the climax out of the book and used it as a prologue. When I encountered it for the first time, it was confusing and pointless; it didn't really increase suspense, because I couldn't tell what was going on. And then when I began to approach its right place in the book, it messed up the pacing; once Tiffany went back to the Chalk, I figured she would be fighting the big storm any minute, and so when she sat down to make a watercolor painting, I went, What? Doesn't she have something urgent to do?
The Summer Lady hardly made an appearance until the last two chapters, which seemed odd -- and he never explained how she came to be imprisoned in the underworld in the first place, which made her rescue seem a little less a part of the story.
The eight-year-old has read it, and she thinks it's hilarious.
(2007 Locus poll: #1 YA SFF)
I love the witches, and I love the Feegles, and I love Tiffany, and it's always a pleasure to spend time with them. And yay for Roland growing up. And I loved the subplot involving Miss Treason and the slight improvement in Annagramma.
Having said that, I had serious problems with this book.
The most critical problem I have is that I didn't understand Tiffany getting involved in the dance in the first place. It was wildly out of character for her to do something like that, five minutes after someone has told her not to, without asking any questions; I couldn't see why she would *want* to; it wasn't well supported; I didn't believe it. And of course all the action of the book depends on that one act.
The second problem is the way he's pulled the climax out of the book and used it as a prologue. When I encountered it for the first time, it was confusing and pointless; it didn't really increase suspense, because I couldn't tell what was going on. And then when I began to approach its right place in the book, it messed up the pacing; once Tiffany went back to the Chalk, I figured she would be fighting the big storm any minute, and so when she sat down to make a watercolor painting, I went, What? Doesn't she have something urgent to do?
The Summer Lady hardly made an appearance until the last two chapters, which seemed odd -- and he never explained how she came to be imprisoned in the underworld in the first place, which made her rescue seem a little less a part of the story.
The eight-year-old has read it, and she thinks it's hilarious.
(2007 Locus poll: #1 YA SFF)
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
May 1, 2007
–
Finished Reading
May 19, 2007
– Shelved
May 25, 2007
– Shelved as:
sff
June 6, 2007
– Shelved as:
kidlets-favorites
August 14, 2007
– Shelved as:
locus_poll
Comments Showing 1-5 of 5 (5 new)
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by
Glauber
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rated it 3 stars
Feb 09, 2015 08:30PM
Agreed. I couldn't figure out where the beginning fits in the story.
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She said her feet did it, right? She didn't mean to or want to.
She is a young girl with newly emerging hormones which perfectly explains to me why she would do something "wildly out of character".
I agree with your second and third points, but Terry does give an answer for the first. He said that it was because her power is tied to the land and the Dance is Magic which is acting upon the land. The land was following the music and responding to it, so Tiffany felt that urge as well.@Glauber, Chapter 1 should be Chapter 12 if they were in the right order. It is the second to; last chapter of the book and it really did destroy the pacing to read it first. I've seen that trick done well but I don't think it worked for this book.
Otter wrote: "She is a young girl with newly emerging hormones which perfectly explains to me why she would do something "wildly out of character"."Mm, no. I've been one of those, and I still didn't buy it.
