Discussion post: Death Game by Jo Graham

[sholio]

The first book of Legacy, Homecoming, is available from Fandemonium, but has just begun to ship and is not available on Amazon yet, so most people do not have it.

Therefore, we are kicking off this comm with a discussion post for the SGA tie-in novel Death Game by Legacy co-author Jo Graham, which was released in October. Have you read it? What did you think?

Comments may contain spoilers for anything in Death Game, so be aware!

Comments

[tielan]

Well, I was one of the preview readers for the book, and I enjoyed it then, although it was posted piecemeal. There were a lot of things I'd forgotten about the story and what happened at various points, as well as how funny some of the scenes were.

One of my favourite 'geeky' themes through the book was the way John kept on likening their passage through the maze to a tabletop RPG (although John calls it D&D, because that's his era): "you enter a four by six room with a table and chairs" and Teyla and the other people with them giving him disbelieving looks.

I rather like the stories told inside the novel - the little stories that the characters tell each other, and which provide insight into who they are. There was a criticism of that in one of the Amazon reviews: I think the reviewer objected to the characters being told things in the present of the book (circa S2) that the viewer didn't find out until much later (circa S3-S4).

I admit, part of my delight with this book is that Teyla (my favourite character) is both given a major role and a significant part in overcoming the obstacles. It seems to be quite rare in both fanfic and the tie-in novels for Teyla to have something to do that actively contributes to the solution, rather than being the person who asks the questions and calms Rodney and does what she's told. So I liked that.

My favourite line is towards the end when Rodney is ranting at Teyla and John about the hardships he endured when he thought they were missing, and Teyla simply cuts him off with a, "We love you, too, Rodney." It's so in-character for both Rodney and for Teyla, and nails them perfectly!

[scrollgirl]

Hey, I know this post is a few months old, but your recent review of the 2nd Legacy book reminded me of this comm.

I've been waffling on whether to buy the books or not, because while I liked the idea of John/Teyla subtext in theory (and I'm happy Teyla gets a bigger role), I'm not sure I want to see it actually happen in reality. But I'm curious about the reader's limited insight, what Jo did to play with unreliable (or perhaps just limited) narrators? Did the little stories that the characters told each other feel like clues leading up to a big revelation?

No worries if you're not in the mood to meta. I'm just curious!

[tielan]

In Death Game, the stories the characters tell are more of a 'door into', giving us a glimpse of who these characters are and where they've come from. However, they're also reasons for the way the characters are - how they behave, the assumptions they make while going through the maze. Most of the stories in Death Game aren't directly relevant to the plot except in the sense that they round out the characters and add intimacy and understanding between them.

However, in the light of the SGA Legacy series, the stories told in Death Game - and in Legacy - have a greater significance. There are elements in the Legacy series that brush up against the perspectives given in Death Game, however not so you have to have read DG. From what I saw during the writing process, Graham, Griswold, and Scott were careful not to presume on Legacy readers having read Death Game first and have salted anything that the reader needs to know in the Legacy series.

In Legacy, yes, there is the feeling of small cues gathering together towards a bigger story whose elements become clear in the 2nd half of the series. They've definitely crystallised by the 5th book, although where they go in the 6th and final installation of the series I don't know and can't predict with any degree of accuracy.