When YHB got Locked Rooms out from my erstwhile local library, it reminded me that The Game was likely to be out in paperback. This was, in fact, the case, and a copy was purchased and read. I am fond of this book. I like Kim, of course, which helps. On the whole, though, it's a ripping adventure story; it doesn't make much sense, but why should it?
I did, this time through, notice the Clews being dropped for the next story. Reading Locked Rooms, I thought the references to the unexplained bits in the last book were very forced, and read as if the clews were mistakes that weren't noticed in time, and now needed to be turned into Clews to keep sharp-eyed readers from being too cranky. In fact, the Clews were very odd, and might well have been deliberately introduced. Foreshadowing is a legitimate literary technique, you know. The mention-in-passing of a Woman from Savannah who knows that Holmes is on board the ship comes from nowhere, and couldn't really have been a mistake. I must have skipped right over the relevant sentences on first reading, but I do that. The other big deal is a lovely scene that I originally simply read as local color, which is what it is. Its relevance to the next book is not necessary, nor is the ultimate explanation.
Oh, and I don't know if I'll do this for every book, but there is at least one conversation between women that is not about relationships. Well, one, anyway. Of course, one of the women in the conversation I'm thinking of is a lesbian, but the conversation is not about women, either. It's a straightforward plot conversation. I'm trying to think if there's more than one such conversation, though... Oddly enough, the last time I read The Game, I appear to have written primarily about how I hadn’t read any books twice through since starting this series of book reports. Well, and now I have.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.