If you know her personal history, you lean toward Nazgul rather than hobbit. But only for the very early years.
For those unfamiliar, she was convicted at age 16 (in New Zealand, I think) of murder (or whatever their equivelant is for accidental killing) when she and her friend took a prank too far. She was released 5 years later. At some point in her life she moved to the states and was baptized into the LDS church.
Tathea is very overt in the LDS doctrine spouting. Which I don't midn so much, even if it wasn't doctrine I believed in. However, there are numerous problems i'm having with this book. hearkening over to the "revealing things" subtopic of the current discussion in EUOL's forum, Tathea as a character is guilty of both extremes. She doesn't talk about things that she seems to have no motive for hiding, yet she takes everything as it is. in the first 50 pages she accepts invitations from 3 different people in towns she's never been to in her life, people that's she's only met seconds before, to sleep in their homes. Despite the fact that she's is a very important and hunted political refugee from the most power nation in the world. Make sense? No.
That would almost be bearable, in one of the cases it makes sense, in the other two, one wonders why the invitation was even offered when teh offerers don't even know that she needs the invitation (perhaps these people wander around, especially in times of social crisis, looking for people to invite into their home. One could posit some sort of competition for most complete strangers who've slept in your home).
As I said, it would ALMOST be bearable, if one saw mroe than the minisculest portion of any of her characters' personalities. Or if she bothered to describe the thing that was "amazingly beautiful" instead of saying that and leaving it. Or if Talthea bothered to care about the consequences of her actions after she left, claiming as she does that she's searching for truth and having taken a vow to help everyone who is in need of it.
Theres more telling rather than showing when any action comes up too. there's a great fight, and we get half a page, maybe, to a several hour battle. That's fine, normally. You don't have to show me all the action. But when you put in on stage, and you have minute details of conversation seconds before and after that action, you darn well better let me see the action. If you can't pull it off, have it off stage.
Anyway. Yeah, there's some great ideas, but I have no attachment to the characters and feel like I don't really know anything about the setting: for particular scenes or for the world in general.
