@dehautdesert replied to your post “@dehautdesert replied to your post “@tajmutthall...”:
your last paragraph makes me think that you took my comment as me being critical of your stance and saying that you're unfamiliar with the genre, but that wasn't really my intention, I just love dissecting writing and watching other people do it as well haha. Dunnett isn't in the same genre as Pacat, not really being either romance or fantasy. She writes historicals and has a very ornate, almost melodramatic style full of sensory details and weird word choices that's just super specific and recognizable as her own. And I know Pacat has been influenced by her and is aiming for a similar style, so I'm incapable of judging his writing separate from what I know was the benchmark in his head. So that's why I was curious to see what someone sees without that framework in their heads! I totally agree with you that we shouldn't avoid judging genre fiction against more "highbrow" works because we're automatically expecting it to be bad. For me genre fiction vs. literary should be more a reflection of what each aims to express, not a signifier of quality. admittedly it's been a while since I read CaPri, but I don't remember the prose being particularly bad on a craft level. I even remember finding it better than the average fantasy novel with similar themes/length (IMHO Holly Black writes worse than Pacat, and so does Ellen Kushner). So I was curious about what I missed. Honestly it's the uneven tone and pacing that I had issues with, mostly because of the way it jumped from one genre's conventions to another's a bit too clumsily for me, so you would get a very melodramatic trauma porn scene and then it would jump to a cutesy tropey fanficcy scene in the next paragraph. And also the whole structure of book 3 I guess.
"your last paragraph makes me think that you took my comment as me being critical of your stance and saying that you're unfamiliar with the genre" oh i wasn't at all, don't worry!! sorry, i forget that tone doesn't quite come through on the internet but i'm glad we both seem to having a conversation in good faith lol
ah that's so interesting re: dunnett, i really should check out her work then! i do admit i have a preference for fantasy/fiction authors published before 1990s lol because i prefer that style of written english, now you're making me want to read her work then go back to CaPri to observe said benchmark.
re: craft in CaPri, it's not particularly bad but it's definitely middling (i'll see if i can get around to making a post w examples and i'll tag you if/when i do!), i have a friend who said he only made it 2 chapters before he put it down bc the writing style wasn't his thing. i haven't read any black or kushner or really much else for fantasy (went through a 5-year fiction reading drought that only just broke last year)...i think overall the CaPri writing style is YA-esque (despite the topics being mature/explicit etc) and you can see that fanfic influence come through (unsure if Pacat has said he's written fanfic before but i would hazard yes). i've only just started rereading book 2 so i might post more about it later on.
also if you have any recs for the fanfic that does it better I'm totally open lmfao
hmm i'll have to dig into my ao3 bookmarks but i do have one off the top of my head! it's Immovable, unbreakable by Cards_Slash (rated E, 137k words). It's an Assassin's Creed fic but imo you don't need any AC knowledge to enjoy the fic (i didn't have any/wasn't from the fandom).
It's of course not an exact match to CaPri, but it does the m/m enemies-to-lovers, dubious consent/captivity, slowly trusting each other/revealing of secrets, and working together to defeat a larger enemy really well. it's the fic I think of the most when reading the more ehh parts of CaPri. It's set in omegaverse, which i know some people dislike from the get-go for various reasons, but i'd still recommend giving it a try even if you're not an a/b/o fan. i think it's done really well in this fic with solid worldbuilding and doesn't shy away from the inherent dubcon/gender fuckery that comes with omegaverse. The writing is solid, confident, and beautiful, and I enjoy the style. hope it's to your liking!
