Author: Shen Chun would like to thank the author in advance. In fact, I have seen many recommendations for this novel in different places, but due to the fear of long novels (TJ¡¯s fear?), I have never had the courage to read it. In fact, both the rigor of the setting and the historical perspective are very much to my liking; the many spoofs in it add to the fun - I can see a lot of spoofs, does this represent the depravity of my own nature? So it was a very enjoyable reading, thank you very much, lol.
¡ù¡ù¡ù
Text "Of course, God plays dice. But it only counts the winner."
(¡ª¡ª"The Evolution of the Universe")
ButterflyinStorm, the first time I saw this title, I vaguely guessed the author's original intention of choosing this title before even reading the author's preface.
The butterfly effect in meteorology, or turbulence in fluid mechanics, or chaos theory in physics, or: initial condition sensitivity.
The depth of my understanding of this aspect is far from being able to give an in-depth explanation. I can only use an analogy from my predecessors: it is like holding a pencil and standing on the table with the sharpened tip. Then let go of your hand - which way will it fall in the next moment?
No one knows. Maybe it depends on the flatness of the table, maybe it depends on a sudden breeze, it may also depend on the adhesion between the finger and the pencil the moment you release it, or even the degree of wear of the pencil tip, or even more likely the density distribution of the pencil itself If not Let the pencil fall over countless times. From a statistical analysis, it is difficult to determine which cause caused it to overturn. This is the sensitivity of initial conditions. In a non-equilibrium environment that does not have strict order, any slight change in relevant factors will cause the pencil to collapse without hesitation and become an accomplished fact.
The same is true when scaling up to a very large system. Small disturbances pull up an attractor, and then gradually expand and ripple away like water waves. If the system itself is in an extremely chaotic state, even the breeze of a butterfly flapping its wings will stir up a storm.
The theme of the world of "Butterfly in the Storm" is based on this theory. Whether it is for love or some more inner reasons, in order to re-enter the life of the person she is pursuing, Reese becomes the butterfly that disturbs history. .
If we talk about the setting, then the setting itself is very, very interesting - at least for me - because unlike some other novels about going back to the past, "historians of later generations" are not going to change and create. History, but to prevent the history of the two attractors from being disturbed, and to continue to move towards the established path, and at the same time, want to use this to achieve their ultimate goal.
It feels like some kind of difficult acrobatics, balancing itself dangerously with known history. However, a butterfly cannot see the coast thousands of miles away, just as history is not a pencil. It cannot be reproduced thousands of times, and then statistically analyze the most basic factors, or choose the most appropriate direction for it to fall. They have done certain things, but they cannot judge the exact results of these things and whether the impact is large or small. The arrow of time has been shot from this point. Regardless of their will, readers of the book of history become participants and lose the "possibility" forever.
Reese expressed her wish, fate let go of her hand, and the pencil fell down, marking the only direction. Where the future leads is something that people living in it here and now cannot see.
If we call it suspense, then this is the biggest suspense I felt after reading the first volume - how to balance and evolve this history, and can their goals be achieved? Even if we meet Naimen again (the male protagonist who has been waiting for development so miserably, he didn¡¯t even get his turn to show up in the first volume, blast), how should Reese face him. The memories they shared have never happened, can love still be expected? What trajectory will distorted history take?
(Out of bad taste, I personally hope that the author will say: Everything is unimportant, the important thing is love! It is love~~~;PP)
So what exactly is the cause of this suspense? From my personal reading, aside from my appreciation for the setting and historical perspective, there are still many areas that can be improved^^ Let¡¯s put aside what suspense is. The explanation of Cihai is: 1. Care. 2. When appreciating dramas, movies or other literary and artistic works, the nervousness of being concerned about the development of the story and the fate of the characters. In order to reflect the conflicts in the work, writers and directors often use various techniques to arouse suspense in the audience or readers when dealing with the plot structure, so as to enhance the appeal of the work.
The version of Cihai I have may be too old, and there is no entry for suspense in it, but just in terms of the definition of suspense, it has a lot in common with what I understand as "the unknown of the future."
There are many ways to set up suspense. Based on my reading experience, I roughly divide them into three types according to the ending suspense setting. No.One is the orthodox method, the guidance method. Blurring the ending and the nature of the story means that readers cannot judge what kind of ending the author may lead to, and can only follow the book to experience it. Many famous works we read are like this. The author and bias try their best to "disappear" in it, leaving behind a realistic world of words. As readers gradually deepen the plot, the only and most reasonable ending of the story is gradually revealed in front of them. The second method is the maximum suspense method. This type of book itself uses suspense as its selling point. People who have read Hitchcock's books or movies will understand that the protagonist is surrounded by crises from the beginning, forcing readers to breathe. You will never be able to guess the ending until the last page, nor will the fate of the characters be settled. The last method, which is used in many popular novels, is to hint at the ending. When watching 007, although the process was extremely thrilling, who would think that 007 would die? Who can doubt that he can win the final victory? Just like romance novels, if anyone finds out at the end that the ending is not lovelove~~happyending, I am afraid that the author will be heartbroken.
The extension of this last method is probably the "historians of later generations" method common to many fantasy, fantasy, science fiction and military novels nowadayslaughs, predicting the ending in advance, relying on the process and characters to drive readers' interest in reading. There seems to be no suspense in such a book, but people still read it with gusto. Why?¡ª¡ª
process.
In fact, suspense has a double meaning, one is the story, and the other is the characters. The suspense is not purely based on the ending. For a novel with a clear theme, when we judge that it will never have a tragic ending (or comedy), and that the story and characters point to light (or darkness), it does not mean that it is without suspense. In a sense, the struggle between authors and readers has just begun here. Without the suspense of the ending, at least one leg of the work is crippled. At this time, the author must use superb skills and plot settings to do his best to make readers care about the characters in the book and let readers resonate with the characters' joys and sorrows. Allow readers to guess future developments and engage them in the world of the book.
Yes, the process is just like when human beings are born and must face death. Before this inevitable ending, what is still worthy of people's efforts are the bits and pieces they have lived, happiness and misfortune, happiness and sadness. Process is an important factor that prevents us from thinking that a book only needs an outline or a beginning and an end. It is also the only reason why the ending does not become the end of everything.
Therefore, when the author adopts the last method of setting up suspense, he must spend more effort on the process. Judging from the first volume of "Butterfly in the Storm", there are at least a few shortcomings.
The first point is determined by the structure and setting. It is estimated that it will not be that easy to cultivate. I will make a false statement and the author will just listen to it. As the opening work of the whole book, the first volume has to accommodate a large amount of background and historical perspectives, with the intention of establishing the reader's overall impression of the world and history. A big problem with the setting itself is very obvious here (it will probably become more obvious in the future). This is a novel that "goes back to the past", and the "past" in the novel itself is fictitious. That is to say, the readers did not recognize the past at first, and had to repeat the past in various ways in order to clearly introduce the terrible changes in the present. In the limited text space, it is necessary to tell stories as well as ancient stories. The former seeks to be exciting, while the latter seeks to be substantial. It is inevitable to focus on one and lose the other. And the most troublesome thing is that no matter how clear the concept of the world and its history is in the author's mind, there is still something missing in conveying it to the readers.
This story faces the problem of "double narration". The "history" changed by Reese and Miley has actually never happened before the readers' eyes. To avoid the impression of "re-creating history", the author may need to add more details and descriptions to make the consequences of the changes clearly visible, causing pressure on the characters and readers.
(A suggestion to prevent chaos in the world: why not write two historical texts at the same time, laugh - just a suggestion; p)
The second point comes from the narrative perspective. A full-perspective narrative is probably the best choice for this novel. But I have to say that the author used some lazy methods - sorry, I took the occasional vague conversation between Annie and Bonnie and the blank space between the characters to be lazy to a certain extent.
In my personal eyes, the best foreshadowing is: everything is normal and logical. But it is also normal and logical that certain things have happened. If the author himself is strongly hinting that "something is wrong", the foreshadowing effect will be greatly reduced.
??Like the following paragraph: "Lesa Helmontthe alchemist? How is this possible?"
"It doesn't match the intelligence She shouldn't be on this ship at all!"
¡°What should we do now? It¡¯s a rare opportunity to control the fate of the entire Principality of Soma¡¡±
"Well, let's just settle down and be slaves uh, let's just be servants."
In fact, when Annie and Bonnie were rescued at sea, I had a flash of doubt - a merchant ship was attacked by a phantom wind, and it turned out that only two of them were safe and sound. Coupled with the detection of the bronze mirror, the The two girls were already a little suspicious. After reading this paragraph, some issues become more obvious.
To be honest, this type of foreshadowing is somewhat unpalatable to bad people, because readers do not rely on reasonable derivation to draw conclusions, but are led to conclusions by the author. The captain and the captain of the navy, the captain and the alchemist, the trainee priest and the bishop repeatedly talked about whether they were spies. I don¡¯t know whether the purpose is to relieve the readers¡¯ doubts, or to hide it? If it's the former, why do everyone use the same reasons: confusion and many flaws, which makes a group of people's judgments appear to be on the same level (big bang); if it's the latter, this purpose has been completely achieved; P needs to be obvious here It is definitely not easy to remind everyone that "there is a problem in this paragraph" without revealing the trace.
The author also has the problem that the clues are not complete enough, and the description and means of auxiliary clues are not enough.
Taking the shield section as an example, when I watched it for the first time, I roughly judged that Anne (Rise) used some method of changing the thickness of the shield to take advantage of Leonard. At the time, I didn¡¯t think about the means she used to do this. In fact, what I was more concerned about was why she did this. Regardless of whether she was a spy or not, a person who wanted to hide her identity used a means that could easily reveal her identity. It can only be said that she had a reason for "having to do this" (well, I later found out that I overestimated the cute heroine, she is just one-dimensional, lol). What will happen to Annie if she loses to Leonard? Looking back and forth, nothing happened to her - except for her damaged self-esteem - so there is only one explanation. The only motivation that prompted her to use magic to change the shield was her self-esteem and competitiveness. It's a pity that the author's description of Anne's character in this aspect is far from enough, so I only judged after reading it a second time that this was not another intentional trap.
A small suggestion is to choose a more natural method when arranging clues. For example, if Annie and Bonnie were rescued just after they arrived in this world, then they will definitely understand that the history recorded in the history books is somewhat different from what really happened. In order to import the history of this world into the history books, they must have a better understanding of the real situation now. . If during this understanding process, they are allowed to talk and interact with other characters, revealing clues and arranging foreshadowing, it will be more logical than bringing up their conversations in the dark, and it will also be able to shape the characters more and take the opportunity to describe " This history".
¡ª¡ªThe above are just suggestions for the following chapters. I do not recommend that the author revise the first volume, because from the reading point of view, the first volume is already very good. Instead of spending time to achieve the impossible perfection, it is better to work hard to fill in the first volume. Pit, laugh.
The last suspenseful question is what I quoted at the beginning of the text: "Of course, God plays dice. But it only counts the winner."
Of course, Reese has entered history and she has become an unknown part, but if she is always just the winner, then the interest of this article will lose a lot, and the unknown will also lose its charm, not to mention the suspense. When readers know that "no matter what happens, the character will turn around," it is the beginning of them giving up on investing more emotions in the character's fate.
I have this worry because the power they revealed in the first volume is too powerful and very unbalanced compared with other powers in this world. It is hard to imagine that other than "achieving that goal", there is anything that can restrict them from doing whatever they want. It's not a matter of whether something was actually done, but that the existence of such a powerful force has already caused an imbalance. After all, this history is too far away from them. Even if there is a disturbance, it will not involve too many specific people and things they know. If readers also have this illusion, it may greatly reduce the tension of such precise tampering with history.
Or maybe, just as Ionette Hartman vaguely revealed in "Prelude to the Trade Winds" - the law of cause and effect across time and space - the hero in "Twelve Monkeys" didn't realize it until the end. The beginning was the end, and he had already witnessed his own death. This setting is of course very interesting, but unfortunately it is far less attractive to me than the previous one - because this vicious cycle of correcting history + distorting history + doubling correction is very complicated and interesting, lol.
Okay, now that I have finally finished what I need to say, let me praise the author and talk about my favorite chapters.
"The Quiet Arrival of Butterflies" is the final chapter of the first volume. It is the culmination of all the foreshadowing and foreshadowing of the author. It is also the pinnacle of this volume's writing power in my personal opinion. Both the description and the language are excellent and have reached a peak. Among them, Chapters XVII and XIX can be classified as favorites. The former is a description of the encounter, fight, and instantaneous life and death between the navy captain and the pirate captain; the latter is really wonderful because of the background settings and descriptions, and I read it with gusto. ¡ª¡ªIf you like to read these, maybe a hundred readers will only have two or three perspective changes, explanations andIt can be seen from the gaps between the descriptions that the author has put a lot of effort into it. What I appreciate most is the smoothness. I originally lamented that the integration of discussion and story is very easy to go wrong, but these paragraphs are always able to control the discussion within a certain degree and do not deviate from the main line of the story. This kind of layout arrangement can be said to be very exquisite.
"Compared with the first volume, "Interlude to the Prelude to the Trade Wind" is more complete and more brilliantly written, probably because the perspective is completely that of Reese, and the characterization is more fleshed out and believable. While reading this article, I kept playing the soundtrack CD of "Somewhere In Time" ("Seventy Years Back in Time"). It was just a coincidence, but it happened to lead me to understand Reese's pursuit in time. Her ending is naturally completely different from this movie, but for some reason, at the end, I still remembered the ending of that movie, where the man sat blankly on the bed, everything he had experienced and loved, dissipated like a dream, maybe never even occur.
Fortunately, this is a novel that seems to be happy at least for now. Even if it is a dream of words, I still hope that Reese's dream can come true. In a world where the spirit determines the power, what is more powerful than "love"? It doesn't matter whether we believe it or not. Love, it is so cheap and so widespread, but it is the mantra that can always save the world¡ª¡ª
This is all a process. No matter whether you are sad or painful, you can tell yourself this when you can't move forward.
There is a moment when you feel that you have lost everything, and the whole world has abandoned you to fight alone. There is a moment when you suddenly cannot think about it, and despair hits you like a wave. My dear, you can tell yourself this, this is just a process.
The sadness only lasts for a moment, and those obstacles are just pranks of fate. Compared with the joy brought by success, they will not be worth mentioning.
This is what the incredible power spell says: Because there are people you like, because you have beliefs that must be implemented, because you have ideals that cannot be given up. Because of these, you can be extremely strong, and then if you keep fighting, you will be able to expel evil, be full of happiness, and embrace The final victory.