Jonathan Palfrey
I tried this as my first experiment with Brandon Sanderson, having read nothing of his before, and I found it readable and mildly entertaining, but far too long, and rather cold throughout. On finishing it, I don’t feel motivated to read the sequels.
In fantasy, I like a hard magic system, which functions according to known rules and limitations; and here we have a hard magic system. However, this magic system has little in common with traditional magic: it doesn’t feel like magic as I know it from other stories. It seems more related to superhero stories from 20th century comics, in which particular people have special powers. I repeat: there is something cold about it.
On first reading, the story is not bad, but I have some problems with it.
1. I don’t believe the scenario. The author just asserts it without doing anything to make me believe in it. What is the Deepness? How did the Ruler come to be the Ruler? After reading through the whole over-long book, I still don’t know, and I don’t really care. To hell with it. I can go away and read something else.
2. Characterization is good enough, it’s not bad, and yet it’s fairly superficial. I don’t care very much about any of these people. I quite like Vin, the heroine, but even she isn’t enough to persuade me to read more books in the series. The whole situation strikes me as unreal.
3. The story drags. I plodded through it reluctantly, wishing for it to end sooner. It’s an unusually long novel, but I have a few other novels in my collection of similar length, and they don’t drag quite so much. A novel shouldn’t normally be this long, it’s an excessive length, but occasionally a novel may have enough story in it to justify the length. This one hasn’t. I kept wishing for it to get to the point and finish. Thank God it’s over at last.
4. As a man, I have no claim to be a feminist, but I suspect that the last sentence of this novel will not appeal to feminists. If you read through all the pages, you’ll get there in the end.
I tried this as my first experiment with Brandon Sanderson, having read nothing of his before, and I found it readable and mildly entertaining, but far too long, and rather cold throughout. On finishing it, I don’t feel motivated to read the sequels.
In fantasy, I like a hard magic system, which functions according to known rules and limitations; and here we have a hard magic system. However, this magic system has little in common with traditional magic: it doesn’t feel like magic as I know it from other stories. It seems more related to superhero stories from 20th century comics, in which particular people have special powers. I repeat: there is something cold about it.
On first reading, the story is not bad, but I have some problems with it.
1. I don’t believe the scenario. The author just asserts it without doing anything to make me believe in it. What is the Deepness? How did the Ruler come to be the Ruler? After reading through the whole over-long book, I still don’t know, and I don’t really care. To hell with it. I can go away and read something else.
2. Characterization is good enough, it’s not bad, and yet it’s fairly superficial. I don’t care very much about any of these people. I quite like Vin, the heroine, but even she isn’t enough to persuade me to read more books in the series. The whole situation strikes me as unreal.
3. The story drags. I plodded through it reluctantly, wishing for it to end sooner. It’s an unusually long novel, but I have a few other novels in my collection of similar length, and they don’t drag quite so much. A novel shouldn’t normally be this long, it’s an excessive length, but occasionally a novel may have enough story in it to justify the length. This one hasn’t. I kept wishing for it to get to the point and finish. Thank God it’s over at last.
4. As a man, I have no claim to be a feminist, but I suspect that the last sentence of this novel will not appeal to feminists. If you read through all the pages, you’ll get there in the end.
This book is set in New Orleans and documents the interrelated lives of a number of poor and generally unattractive people, central among them one Ignatius J. Reilly, a lazy, gluttonous, fat slob spoiled by his mother and distinguished by his extra??ordinary conceit and his incongruously fastidious command of the English language.
This book is set in New Orleans and documents the interrelated lives of a number of poor and generally unattractive people, central among them one Ignatius J. Reilly, a lazy, gluttonous, fat slob spoiled by his mother and distinguished by his extra??ordinary conceit and his incongruously fastidious command of the English language.
I bought this book, read about a sixth of it, put it down, and haven???t picked it up again. So I can???t write a proper review of it; all I can say is that it seemed quite well written, but the initial chapters failed to hold my interest. Some books suck me in and I read on compulsively, but not this one. Your reaction may be different.I give it two stars because I can???t definitely identify it as a bad book. Perhaps it???s just a slow starter and you need to read the whole thing to appreciate it.Also by [a:Michael Flynn 126502 Michael Flynn https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1282631351p2/126502.jpg]: I loved [b:The Forest of Time - Hugo Nominated Novella 11539011 The Forest of Time Michael Flynn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1570130951l/11539011.SY75.jpg 16478070] and quite liked [b:In the Country of the Blind 416325 In the Country of the Blind Michael Flynn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1312053809l/416325.SY75.jpg 1922459].
I bought this book, read about a sixth of it, put it down, and haven???t picked it up again. So I can???t write a proper review of it; all I can say is that it seemed quite well written, but the initial chapters failed to hold my interest. Some books suck me in and I read on compulsively, but not this one. Your reaction may be different.I give it two stars because I can???t definitely identify it as a bad book. Perhaps it???s just a slow starter and you need to read the whole thing to appreciate it.Also by [a:Michael Flynn 126502 Michael Flynn https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1282631351p2/126502.jpg]: I loved [b:The Forest of Time - Hugo Nominated Novella 11539011 The Forest of Time Michael Flynn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1570130951l/11539011.SY75.jpg 16478070] and quite liked [b:In the Country of the Blind 416325 In the Country of the Blind Michael Flynn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1312053809l/416325.SY75.jpg 1922459].
Although I liked the two previous books in this series, I'm afraid this one lost me. I read a good chunk of it, nothing much happened, and what little happened was generally rather downbeat. I gathered from reading other reviews that the rest of the book is much the same, so I lost interest in reading on.
Although I liked the two previous books in this series, I'm afraid this one lost me. I read a good chunk of it, nothing much happened, and what little happened was generally rather downbeat. I gathered from reading other reviews that the rest of the book is much the same, so I lost interest in reading on.