What I especially like about the passage I quoted is the use of indirection. When Zeke identifies by name two of the three men in the room, he adds a third name with a note of inflection in his voice. We hear this from the PoV of Rector, as is the case throughout the novel. (This is in contrast to the earlier novel, in which the PoV swung back and forth between the two protagonists). Anyway, we draw the inference about Zeke's incomplete knowledge ourselves, and then read that Rector has done the same. So we our on the same page with our protagonist, so to speak. Only after that do we learn that Rector isn't sure he understood Zeke properly. He isn't sure who is who yet even as to the two names which Zeke pronounced with confidence. Yet it tells us something about Rector's developing state of mind -- as someone trying to free himself from the influence of a powerful drug -- that he notes his own uncertainty. He knows what he does not know. Finally, the brief passag...
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I've blogged a bit recently here about BONESHAKER, a steampunk-fantasy novel by Cherie Priest, set in an alternative-history late 19th century Seattle and its outskirts. That novel set off her CLOCKWORK CENTURY series. Most of the other books in the series are only loosely related to BONESHAKER. They take place in other parts of the alt-history US, have little overlap in characters or plot with the original, etc. But THE INEXPLICABLES is a true sequel. We're back the northwest, mostly within the city wall (yes, in these stories there's a tall wall around Seattle, although enterprising folk can and do get in and out), and the character/plot overlap is large. The protagonist of THE INEXPLICABLES is Rector Sherman, a young man who has just been kicked out of the orphanage in the Outskirts of Seattle after having reached 18. He was a minor character in BONESHAKER. Rector is neither a hero nor an anti-hero, though somewhat closer to the latter than the former. He is a ...