During the school year I am usually able to fly through audiobooks and pick slowly and print. This year I've started listening to Christopher Ruocchio's "Sun Eater" series and, despite finding some of it slow (everyone told me the first book was slow-paced, but as I enjoyed that one alright I then expected the second to be a rocket in comparison… and it really wasn't) I have enjoyed it quite a bit.
But one thing that's stood out to me is how little facts get repeated in a way that I've only ever run into before in works that were once serialized online novels. We find out about a bit of a character's past, and a chapter or so later it's brought up again in almost the same wording as if the character is talking about something that perhaps hadn't ever been mentioned at all.
As a more specific example, he keeps bringing up a particular scar and its shape and how he got it, which I would expect maybe at the beginning of a new book to make sure the readers remembered it… but I think it's come up four times in this book and he mentions how he got it three of those times.
Just now I noted him very briefly summarizing a few things that had happened at the start of a previous chapter (and not in a, "I the character thought back to that moment" way, which feels more natural).
Is this intentional, meant to tell us something about how the POV character's mind works as he recounts his tale? Or is it just a structural choice to make sure readers can follow along more easily?
Again, it's not a complaint so much as something I'm curious about and (as I know the series has some big fans, which is part of why I picked it up) figured some folks might have answers.
by TestProctor