Multiple POVs, good bad or indifferent?

[Kahuna Burger]

In the case of Snow Crash vs. Diamond Age, I'd suggest it's a spotty author's best work vs. one of his inferior works. IMHO Cryptonomicon is on the better side, and it has multiple PoVs. (But even in Snow Crash, there are multiple PoVs, they're just far less prevalent.)

IMHO Terry Pratchett does a good job with multiple PoVs, and does so on a regular basis.

Cheers, -- N

Well, there is a reason I clarified my definition of MPOV in the first post - I really can't think of any recent books I've read off the top of my head that truely have only a single POV.

 

[Nifft]

Well, there is a reason I clarified my definition of MPOV in the first post - I really can't think of any recent books I've read off the top of my head that truely have only a single POV.

How about Tad Williams? Memory, Sorrow, Thorn was single PoV, while Otherworld was multiple PoV -- and IMHO the latter was superior.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Kahuna Burger]

How about Tad Williams? Memory, Sorrow, Thorn was single PoV, while Otherworld was multiple PoV -- and IMHO the latter was superior.

Cheers, -- N

I haven't read either, so I can't comment - it may be that the multiple plots bother me more than the multiple points of view in the works I've read, but they obviously go together quite a bit.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

In the case of Snow Crash vs. Diamond Age, I'd suggest it's a spotty author's best work vs. one of his inferior works. IMHO Cryptonomicon is on the better side, and it has multiple PoVs. (But even in Snow Crash, there are multiple PoVs, they're just far less prevalent.)

I was going to bring up Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, which I am rereading now. It has 3 major POV's (Daniel, Bob, Jack, and Eliza), and occasionally skips over to one or two others (Liebniz and Enoch). It umps around quite a bit, forward and backwards in time, and across continents. I quite like it. Snow Crash had at least two major viewpoints, with Hiro's being predominant. I haven't read Diamond Age, so I can't comment on that.

 

[sniffles]

Multiple POVs bug me too, but it depends on how it's done. In LOTR it's everyone heading for the same point, so it doesn't bother me.

But if it's groups of characters whose actions may be interconnected but who may never meet or will only meet in passing, then I don't find it as enjoyable to read.

I also prefer third-person narrative to first-person. Books that switch back and forth between the two drive me crazy.

 

[Klaus]

LotR didn't really have different PoV's, as much as it had the narrator following two different groups. SoI&F has a more true PoV switch, in that the text often shows the same scene from the perspective of different characters. not simply following characters that are elsewhere.

 

[Darth Shoju]

How about Tad Williams? Memory, Sorrow, Thorn was single PoV, while Otherworld was multiple PoV -- and IMHO the latter was superior.

Cheers, -- N

Actually Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn has several different PoVs.

For my preference, it is a style that doesn't inherently hinder my enjoyment; I've seen it used well (LoRT, MS&T) and not so well (The Wheel of Time--again, all respect to the late Robert Jordan. The series started out well but my writing group tends to use this series as an example of PoVs gone out of hand).

 

[Nifft]

Actually Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn has several different PoVs.

I hope I'm thinking of the right series -- kitchen boy, goes on quests,

Spoiler

gets tortured, becomes king, princess regrets sluttyness

, elves are kinda cool, trolls are

Spoiler

kinda small

-- kitchen boy was the main PoV, right? There are side-quests, but the story (pretty much every plot-point) is told from his PoV?

Thanks, -- N

 

[Darth Shoju]

I hope I'm thinking of the right series -- kitchen boy, goes on quests,

Spoiler

gets tortured, becomes king, princess regrets sluttyness

, elves are kinda cool, trolls are

Spoiler

kinda small

-- kitchen boy was the main PoV, right? There are side-quests, but the story (pretty much every plot-point) is told from his PoV?

Thanks, -- N

That's the right story, but there are a quite a few times when important events are seen through the eyes of other characters; Duke Isgrimnur being a chief example (there are others, but I only have the first book in front of me now).

 

[takyris]

It doesn't bother me at all. I don't need every book to be written that way, but I'm quite happy with it.

I will say, just for argument's sake, that doing so makes the book's focus more about the plot and less about the lead character -- the fact that the author is splitting viewpoint time multiple ways means that it's harder to build up that complete immersion that a reader can get in a book that has just one viewpoint character. I don't think that's a bad thing -- some books are about the plot, and some books are about the character -- but it's something for the writers out there to consider. (And to shy away from argument: I'm not saying that multiple POVs mean that you have no character development. I'm saying that the protag's character isn't really the focus of the novel if you're popping from one POV to the next. Two non-identical statements.)