Anyone else love The Red Wolf Conspiracy, by Robert V. S. Redick?

I've read this thing too, now. By the sea, as I had promised myself.

I can't say I'm very excited about this series any more. There simply seemed to be so little originality to it. Sure, lots and lots of concepts, but Redick doesn't do anything new. Why is the main concept a super-huge ship when the story could just as well have been played out on a normal-sized boat without you feeling any difference except for some background descriptions?

The awakened animal concept was interesting, like the way Felthrup's personality is developed. But nearly everything else was just a different flavour from things I've read earlier. And without any originality of plot and intrigue, I found it hard to appreciate the details. It seems Robert V.S. Redick has spent far too much time developing his universe and too little on thinking his plotting through. This is unfortunately a common tendency among debut writers, the underestimation of the importance of good storytelling over worldbuilding. The effect can easily be spending years on building a universe, only to discover that your universe is just marginally different from stuff that has been written before. I think writers should try to make themselves noticed as good plotters/storytellers/characterbuilders first, and worry about huge, comprehensive universes later.

Also, the realism (read: plausibility) was hurt by the too strong feeling of omnipotence in the main child characters. Children acting and achieving where all adults fail is one of the most common features of a Young Adult novel, but even YA doesn't have to do it so explicitly (just consider Philip Pullman or Terry Pratchett). And this is, beyond doubt, a YA novel.

But as a YA novel, it is too long. The story told is far too short for 462 pages - it could easily have been tightened down to 2/3 of the size, at least.
 
Thread resurrection!

Anyone else read Rats and the Ruling Sea yet? How do you think it compared to RWC? I thought it was stronger altogether, though there was one main element I thought rather contrived - and the existence of which seemed to help nudge it towards being a (long) YA novel rather than an adult one.

Does anyone know how these books were marketed in the US, in the end? In the UK there's nothing to distinguish them from adult fantasy. But they do have a YA feel, and I've been trying to think why. Partly it's the age of the main protagonists, and partly that some of the "magical" elements aren't very credible even in a world where magic exists, and seem to have been allowed in because they help the story (the "awakened animals" concept, the underwater breathing etc). Also, the horror and violence, of which there is quite a lot, feels rather muted. Overall, the story seems to place colour and imagination higher than grit or credibility. The lack of "genuine" swearing, and the guardedness of the sexual references, also tip the scales towards YA. But it is more crossover than most. I wonder how Redick himself saw it being placed?
 
In the stores around here the books have been in with the adult SFF instead of the YA, although I think the first one at least tips toward the YA end of the spectrum. I haven't read Rats and the Ruling Sea yet, but am most eager to do so. If I had the money for the hardback, I would have bought it the moment I saw it on the shelves, but I didn't and still don't.
 

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