Reading update - Melusine
Dec. 22nd, 2006 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
euphoniaOne of the most promising and most frustrating books I've read lately. Promising because the world is obviously deep and well-fleshed out, the characters are fully drawn and engaging, the plot complex and intruiging. In short it has all the hallmarks of a truly amazing work.
Frustrating because my favorite character spends the majority of the book insane, and it really gets old after a while. And because while it's obviously a well-drawn world, the author doesn't make the slightest attempt to explain anything for the reader, which means you spend a lot of the book trying to figure out things like septads and decads and what the map might look like if you actually understood it, how the magic really works, and how the various governments relate to each other, etc. I have no doubt the author knows, and that I will eventually figure it out, but usually readers are offered a few more clues. And finally, most frustrating because the whole book is really a set-up for events that will take place in later books that I now have to go out and buy, because despite the fact that the characters occassionally nearly drove *me* crazy, I want to know what will happen to them.
The next book is The Virtu, and it's out in hardcover. The final book is Mirador and it's out next October. I have a feeling I won't want to wait that long, but I'm looking forward to a book where Felix isn't running screaming from his shadow more than half the time. Just the glimpse of him we got at the end of the book is almost enough to make me run out and buy the second book in hardcover right now. :-)
Frustrating because my favorite character spends the majority of the book insane, and it really gets old after a while. And because while it's obviously a well-drawn world, the author doesn't make the slightest attempt to explain anything for the reader, which means you spend a lot of the book trying to figure out things like septads and decads and what the map might look like if you actually understood it, how the magic really works, and how the various governments relate to each other, etc. I have no doubt the author knows, and that I will eventually figure it out, but usually readers are offered a few more clues. And finally, most frustrating because the whole book is really a set-up for events that will take place in later books that I now have to go out and buy, because despite the fact that the characters occassionally nearly drove *me* crazy, I want to know what will happen to them.
The next book is The Virtu, and it's out in hardcover. The final book is Mirador and it's out next October. I have a feeling I won't want to wait that long, but I'm looking forward to a book where Felix isn't running screaming from his shadow more than half the time. Just the glimpse of him we got at the end of the book is almost enough to make me run out and buy the second book in hardcover right now. :-)