[Mithfânion]

A Fantasy classic. My experiences with the classics have been mixed. Tolkien went on to become my favourite author while I couldn't get into Lord Dunsany's King of Elfland's daughter or Peake's Gormenghast, in fact I thought the latter was a hideous piece of writing. I'd told myself not to try Worm because of this but over the years I keep running into this book and find myself wondering.

Looking at that I suppose the prose in Worm may become a bother. OTOH it is really a heroic Fantasy as well, with lots of influences of norse mythology and some pretty splendid imagery. I don't mind elaborate prose if there is a point to it instead of meandering, so I'd hope Worm has a great plot.

What did those who read it think of this 1922 offering?

[phil_geo]

To be frank, imo if you don't want to enjoy the great prose for the great prose, I don't recommend the novel. The prose is fantastic, but the plot is rambling and somewhat disjointed.

He drops the original premise of the novel about 25 pages in and never goes back to it, never explains the races he creates and leaves it to you to figure them out (and they are inappropriately named making it much more difficult) and the stories are somewhat stand-alone from adventure to adventure instead of being conceived as a grand tale.

That said, the epic scenes are vivid and gratifying to read - but only if you are immersing yourself in the descriptions and flow of the writing, not if you simply want to hear what happens next. For example, I think he spends several pages describing one character's bed iirc.

[Gildor]

Its got some minor flaws that could detract if you let them, like ^ said, the original premise of the man Lessingham being the protagonist is bizzarely soon dropped, the races though called demons, witches etc are just humans, there is some other stuff that i've read that seems to put people off, but to me those types of reasons just get swept under the carpet when the book is as good as it is.

The prose is one of a kind, i've not ready anyone else who can write like Eddison. Though if you're worried about the plot it settles down into something resembling a coherent story, which is one of essedntially conflict between the nasty Witches and the noble Demoms, with lots of machinations and lots and lots of amazing fighting

The books online at sacred texts (http://www.sacred-texts.com/ring/two/index.htm) if you want to check out the writing.

Its my favourite book from the fantasy masterwork series, i'll be ever thankful for discovering it.

[bluetyson]

It is here, too, if you want it in one handy file for a Palm or other ebook reader.

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0602051.txt

[Mithfânion]

I've been reading the first chapter and I pretty much love this stuff. Very much the feel of tolkien actually, with larger than life characters, which feel authentic for a heroic age.

[Murrin]

Read this book a while back, and I loved it. Early on I found some of the sentence structure a little confusing, but after a while I settled into it and from there it was just great.
I also have Mistress of Mistresses, but I've had trouble getting into it. The prose might be a little harder to grasp in that one, or it might just be me, not in the right frame of mind for it.

[phil_geo]

Hey Mith, I always wondered - so did you finish it and did you like it? You were concerned that unless it had a great plot it wouldn't hold your interest, and that's what happened to me - I got tired of the the prose and the plot isn't very coherent.

So did you toss it aside, enjoy it for the prose, or did you get more out the plot than I did?