Helpful Score: 1
A delightful story, kept me going from start to finish. Highly recommended
I wanted to like this. I really did. I am familiar with CJA's work for io9 -- her columns on movies, fiction and the State of SF brightened many a morning. And, with the opening chapters of this book, I thought I was on to a winner -- a book like Lev Grossman's "The Magicians" which took the "child magician" phenomenon, looked at it coolly, and in the context of other pop culture phenomenons, did something interesting. I even liked the absurdities -- the unnaturally abusive parents, the "Dotheboys Hall" schools, the unrelenting attentions of the mean kids -- not fun, but very appropriate for a fairy tale, and who said fiction was always supposed to be fun, anyway?
But once Delphine (the apprentice magician who will save the world) and Laurence (the apprentice nerd who will save the world) have grown up, I found their further adventures dreary and very difficult to care about.
But once Delphine (the apprentice magician who will save the world) and Laurence (the apprentice nerd who will save the world) have grown up, I found their further adventures dreary and very difficult to care about.
This book was terrible. How it was a Hugo nominee, I will never understand!
Elementary writing with numerous errors and inconsistencies, peppered with pop slang and shock lines to seem thrilling, cool, or hip but failing completely; the attempts are vain and unnecessary. The first three quarters of the book are a slog, but have a slight air of familiarity only because you've probably read something similar before. The worst part is the ending-- that you're strung along to get to only to address an interaction at the start of the tale THAT GETS THE WORST PAYOFF EVER AFTER 300 PAGES-- with no great denouement other than the two main characters were destined for each other (duh) in order to change the world in ways you'll never see. So disappointing.
In short, do not read All the Birds in the Sky. The book does not do its award nomination justice.
Elementary writing with numerous errors and inconsistencies, peppered with pop slang and shock lines to seem thrilling, cool, or hip but failing completely; the attempts are vain and unnecessary. The first three quarters of the book are a slog, but have a slight air of familiarity only because you've probably read something similar before. The worst part is the ending-- that you're strung along to get to only to address an interaction at the start of the tale THAT GETS THE WORST PAYOFF EVER AFTER 300 PAGES-- with no great denouement other than the two main characters were destined for each other (duh) in order to change the world in ways you'll never see. So disappointing.
In short, do not read All the Birds in the Sky. The book does not do its award nomination justice.
