Thread:Sakaros/@comment-29301-20180903145046/@comment-29301-20190121205024

Okay, I've gotten through ITS, and customarily I share what thoughts I have.

This is a weird installment, and despite the character of my initial comments, that turned out to be a good thing overall. To be honest, the end of part three and the course of part four rather blindsided me. Previously the narrative sets up the conflict, shows us all our familiar main characters - and then we're solemnly assured that none of them will be involved in finding and ganking Darth Vandak, and instead these eight other people who we've never met or heard of before. Attending this was a few drawbacks, at least for me, as I read. Aside from my not finding them as interesting as the A-Cast (not that any of them were un-interesting, far from it), I kept getting mixed up about who was who, who was what species, and what each species were, so I had to keep glancing away from the story to remind myself so that I could properly visualize what was happening as I read on.

But of course, this narrative decision of yours had its advantages, which more than made up for the disadvantages. Most of all was the effective way that it facilitated some high octane suspense - in a way, I add, that was sorely needed this far into such a long-running series. To illustrate it crassly, starting at part four and continuing well into part six, there was almost nothing I could think other than, "Vandak is gonna fuck these guys so hard." Meaning I was excited because nobody on the good team had any visible Plot Armor. I honestly expected that Vandak would kill them all, perhaps kicking the bucket himself at the same time, and the story's end would be our A-Cast's various reactions to the news. But that wasn't anything better than a guess - which makes all the difference.

So bravo, it worked.