I usually hate first -person writing, but Andrew
Rose, How to Defeat a Demon King, and Ten Easy
Steps is one of my favorite books, and it's written
entirely in first -person. How does that happen?
Anyway, figuring out why that works actually
helped me understand something about first -person
narration that I hadn't realized before. So for
a little bit more context, I recently read another
fantasy book in first -person. It had a decent
premise, but the narration dragged it down for
me big time. And I thought, yeah, this is why
I don't like first person. It's awful. It has
this kind of first person writing that I usually
bounce off of. And as I thought about it more
and more, it made sense to me why. I previously
had the firm stance that I prefer third person.
It's superior. You need third person limited
and or I don't know. Do we need third -person
omniscient? I don't really know, but it's not
really something I'm interested in listening
to. But listening to this Andrew Rowe book, this
Demon King book, made me rethink my stance on
first -person because it's a great first -person
book. And what I discovered is it turns out that
not all first -person narration works the same
way. While preparing this review, I realized
that there seem to be two broad styles of first
-person storytelling. One is what I would call
confessional first -person. The other is adventure
narration, for lack of a better term. The confession
style tries to put you inside the character's
head constantly. There's lots of internal thoughts
and feelings, not just emotions, but physical
sensations as well, which is weird. This is the
kind that usually repels me, and I don't get
the appeal of it, and it's not for me. Adventure
-ish narration, on the other hand, is someone
recounting events of an adventure. It feels like
a storyteller describing what happened. They
just happen to be part of the story. And it's
closer to someone telling you a story at a tavern
or around a fire or on a trip or whatever. And
that style of storytelling is something I'm neutral
to. And I even enjoy it. And actually, I love
the bomb books, the Wizard of Oz books. In the
first few books, you meet characters. And when
you meet them and they join the party, essentially,
they will go into a. until they will tell a little
bit about themselves. And I don't remember if
it's I was doing this and then this happened.
I kind of think it is. So the book switches from
third person to first person as one of the characters,
the Tin Man, for example, is telling you about
what happened to him. And then it switches back
to third person. And that's the kind of context
in which it makes sense, even in a third person
book, for there to be first person perspective.
That's a little bit of a tangent, sorry. This
book, How to Defeat a Demon, King in 10 Easy
Steps feels less like you're trapped inside the
character's head and more like she, Yui Shaw,
is telling you the story of an adventure. Which
is great. It's a great contrast. So it's like
I said, it's like she's at a tavern telling you
the story. Honestly, the way it ends, there's
almost like a epilogue where this story could
be her telling you, hey, I've been adventuring.
This is all the stuff that happened to me. a
while ago. And it's been a while since then.
And I'm ready to go on the next leg of my journey.
And I just felt like getting all off my chest
and having a drink with somebody before I went
on and took on this new challenge, which is interesting.
And it's funny because it kind of, one could
say it removes the tension because if you're
in the moment or if the first person, if the
person's telling you the story, you know, they
survived. Unless there's a twist and they're
dead and they're a ghost and telling you to another
ghost or something like that, which would. kind
of be funny. And I would say that's true with
both types of first person, both the confessional
and this adventure style first person, you know,
the person survives. So you would think that
removes the tension. However, that's not always
true because like most things, it's all about
the execution of the storytelling. So another
little tangent, the confessional stuff I feel
is very much like the book I read was for girls,
little girls. Basically, that seems to be who
it was marketed for. Maybe. But I think there's
this concept that women are more interested in
emotions and women are more interested in people
and men are more interested in objects. Women
relate to people directly through people, through
having relationship with them, through talking
with them, through talking about their feelings
and things that happened. Whereas men do things
together and that's how men bond. And that's
how men. kind of process emotions and interact
with the world. It's, well, you know, there's
this issue going on. What is this thing? You
know, what are the things I need to understand
what's going on with this thing and this thing
and this thing that are all some of the, that
are all the, that are all parts of this larger
thing that's going on. So I can understand it
so I can interact with it. And that's how I'm
going to deal with it. Versus women might want
to know, well, what's happening to the people
who are, you know, affected by this thing. Yeah,
this thing happened. What about the people? And
I feel like this confessional writing style kind
of leans into that. It's written, at least this
other book, was written by a woman, two girls,
and it's all about the internal feeling, all
about this personal stuff. And there's even like
little personal politics type stuff going on.
But this story is written by a man, has a female
protagonist, and she's telling you the adventures
she went on, the things that she... The places
she went, the people she was with, the things
that they encountered and the items they got
and things like that, because it's kind of a
Zelda parody send up type of deal. And how she
thinks about them a little bit and how she figured
out clever ways to work around the limitations
that she has as a person, not being a hero, not
being in the hero class. It's kind of like a
game lit type of thing. It's not full lit RPG.
I'd say game lit because it just because that's
what I'm saying. But it's interesting because
it deals with events and things. more than it
does with people. There are emotional moments,
there are touching moments, but that's not the
focus. Focusing on the emotions and on the people
isn't how you get to those things. You know the
characters, you travel with them, and then things
happen and you react emotionally to them, which
makes sense. That's the kind of storytelling
I prefer. So anyway, getting back to it, to be
more specific. Like I said, it focuses on events,
not emotions. There's strategy. There's clever
plans going on. There's adventure pacing. It
just keeps moving. There's not a lot of sitting
and dwelling with things. There's some reflection
times, but it's just let's keep moving to the
next thing. There's this great thing that happens
maybe three quarters into the book. Yui goes
into this. It's like where the Master Sword is.
She goes into where the Master Sword is. She
can't pull out the Master Sword because it's
locked in this thing. Only the hero can get it
out. She can't. She's not a hero. And she doesn't.
tell her party members what she's doing or her
one party member at the time. And she also doesn't
tell the audience what she's doing. And she basically
says, you'll find out later what happened. And
that's it. It creates a suspense. It's a clever
use of the first person limitation that she's
choosing to withhold information from us. And
we know that. And she knows that we know that.
And then it turns into this cool surprise at
the end, which is really neat. Again, despite
the fact that she's telling the story and we
know she survives. there's this great final fight
that's really intense even though we know she
survives and uh the narration is still exciting
even though it's first person so she's saying
i did this i did that you know the demon lord
did this whatever um but it works it didn't feel
claustrophobic at all it felt and it didn't feel
like we weren't in the scene like we i don't
know i don't know if there was immediacy there
because i hear first person is good for immediacy
But I don't really buy it. I don't really see
it. It doesn't really make sense to me. It seems
like it's good for, like, wasting time. Sorry.
Sorry. Sorry to be mean. And I think the parody
tone works with the narration well. There's this
Zelda -style structure. If you ever played a
Zelda game or two, you understand you go to this
temple, you collect these things, you go through
these challenges, whatever. And she kind of,
like, gets to examine those things. Like, well,
you know, why are these enemies leaving this
room? Why would the silver goddesses put this
stuff here? Um, why wouldn't the demon Lord just
do this? And, uh, it's interesting because it's
like, huh? Well, why, why do the games work like
this? It takes the conceits of the games and
it says like, if this were real, why wouldn't
somebody just work around it? And then it says,
well, somebody can work around it. And that person
is that somebody is Yui Shaw and she's going
to do it. She's going to kick buttons. It'd be
really cool. And you're going to enjoy watching
her figure out ways to work around the system
that has been set up, which is pretty cool. And,
uh, She also gets, like I said, to poke fun at
things, and it's really enjoyable. So at several
points, I actually forgot that the story was
in first person at all because it was just that
good, and I was that drawn into what was going
on. So this book actually changed my perspective
a little. I do not hate first person narration.
I strongly dislike a particular style of it,
which I've spent some time describing to you.
Again, there's the confessional style of first
-person versus the storytelling style of first
-person book, story, whatever. And this book
showed the difference to me. And it's clear to
me that one is superior to the other. That's
a matter of my preference. I'm curious what you
think. Do you like first -person books? Do you
avoid them like I usually do? What are some great
first -person novels that you would recommend?
Because if there's more good stuff like this,
that would be great. Andrew Rowe has a bunch
of other books. I checked one of them out. It's
a series of six, and they're first -persons.
I was like, oh, I don't know if I'm going to
do this, but I might. If somebody strongly recommends
it, I'll check them out, and it could be good.
Again, if you know a first -person fantasy or
adventure story that really works, I'd love to
hear about it. Let me give you some historical
examples. Jules Verne's Journey to the Center
of the Earth is first -person. Hold on. I'm trying
to think. The Alan Quartermain books are first
person, and they're telling of these adventures
that happen to these people, and they're classics.
They're probably classics because they're good.
It's been a long time since I've read Journey
to the Center of the Earth. I read it when I
was in high school. It's been a couple decades,
and I haven't read it since then. But anyway,
that's just two examples of stuff. Recently,
I tried an Alan Quartermain book. I never finished
it, but it was interesting to me that it was
in first person. got distracted and wanted to
read other things. So anyway, again, please give
me an answer. Tell me your thoughts about first
-person books, whether you love them, hate them,
and ones that you recommend. And also, I would
be remiss if I did not tell you to check the
pinned comment to find more of my reviews or
my book chats where I'm talking about books in
kind of a loose manner, not going super deep
into them, but giving you a broad assessment
of them, a broad idea of what they're about,
and encouraging you to check them out. You can
find Probably some bonus content, too, if you
check the pinned comment. There might just be
something interesting for you to find over there.
Anyway, until next time, folks, this is MJ with
Fortress Fiction signing out.