Response: Matt Caroll’s “Sunsets on the Far Side of the World Part II”

First of all, the title intrigued me, and from reading the stories I felt like I was diving into just a small part of a much larger world (what’s Part I?). I liked the Tarantino-meets-Tolkien structure of the storytelling, and how the lighthouse keeper and the Captain are brought together in the end. This was also the point of most confusion for me, with the jumps between time, place and characters. As far as I could tell there were four major characters: the lighthouse keeper, the magician, the rider, and the Captain. The fate of the captain and the lighthouse keeper were satisfactorily resolved for me, but I was curious about the fate of the other two (what happens to the magician after he gets to Utah?, what is the letter the rider is in such a hurry to deliver? Etc.). I’m getting a sense of a much larger world that I want to know more about.

The jumps between these characters could be made clearer. Just putting some asterisks between the break or making a chapter break or something like that would probably do the trick. I’d say it would also be a good idea to either do the story entirely in the first person perspective of each character, or in the third person. Right now it seems split evenly (the lighthouse keeper third, the magician first, the rider third, and the Captain first), and it makes it hard for me to tell if the story is supposed to be more about the magician and the captain or an ensemble piece. Also, eliminating the jumps-within-jumps that happen (the magician having a flashback to his old village and love interest) would make the story clearer.

The last major point I had was about the inclusion of Utah. Right now, it takes me out of the setting of the fantasy world, and being a big Tolkien nerd this is always heart-wrenching for me, but at the same time I thought it opened up a lot of possibilities (what does a fantasy world look like that includes places like Utah? Do magicians and non-magicians keep entirely separate a la Harry Potter? Is there no separation? How screwed up are the politics? Etc. etc.). If the idea is to jar the reader’s preconceptions of a fantasy universe, this does the trick, but it needs to be expanded on and justified.

All in all a very compelling story. Basically, I just want to read more about this world.