Twelve
February 24th, 2003, 03:31 PM
Michael Moorcock's newest
Before I get into this, let me declare that I LOVED the Dreamthief's Daughter. Don't believe me? Proof. (http://booksiloved.com/12/Dreamthiefs_Daughter.html)
However, I've just finished reading The Skrayling Tree, and I have a hard time saying that it wasn't horrendous.
The D's D was a genius work in my opinion, because it was fantasy mixed with historical fiction, with historical commentary during a time that has always intrigued me(WW2). I believe that the best fantasy is that which you can somehow relate to what is going on in reality. Moorcock's writing in The D's D was simply marvelous, and every character felt very nice.
In The Skrayling Tree, however, I don't know what's going on. I respect Moorcock as a professional and am therefore slow to say anything bad about him. However, I don't know if he was in his right mind when we wrote this book.
The first 100 or so pages of this book is pure indocrination of his strange beliefs about this "multiverse". Oh yes, there are bleeps and blips of action, but for the most part we are hearing the very strange ruminations of a very strange girl named Oona. Aaaand that's it folks!
The second 100 pages or so are the thoughts of good 'ol Elric of Melniboné. Bored out of my mind, I thought that there was some renewed hope as I started to read about one of my favorite characters of fantasy.
It was hard to believe, but at least Oona's thoughts were coherent. At least she described he surroundings and forward movement, boring as they were. There was a patch of pages where Elric just kept jumping from one theme to another, with the majority of them referring to some odd something or another that nobody can understand.
Throughout Elric's entire section of talking, he didn't do much in the form of action. Just talking, talking, talking, confrontation, philosophical discoure, talking, talking, talking.
The final third of the book is from Ulric's point of view. Here we finally see some action...some adventure storytelling. Moorcock has always had a rushed style of action-telling, so I didn't mind it when I saw it here. However, the action in this final third of the book is so strange....so symbolic of SOMETHING...so hard to visualize...it was disheartening.
I expected much from this book, coming off up the D's D. I expected genius, and I came away with weirdness. I enjoyed the mind of Moorcock in the D's D, but I didn't want to hear this part of his mind.
There will no doubt be people who looooove this book. However, unless you are a huge fan of Moorcock, the specific reasons for loving the D's D will not be found in The Skrayling Tree .
12 (Rant over...it's a good thing I got this book for free)
Before I get into this, let me declare that I LOVED the Dreamthief's Daughter. Don't believe me? Proof. (http://booksiloved.com/12/Dreamthiefs_Daughter.html)
However, I've just finished reading The Skrayling Tree, and I have a hard time saying that it wasn't horrendous.
The D's D was a genius work in my opinion, because it was fantasy mixed with historical fiction, with historical commentary during a time that has always intrigued me(WW2). I believe that the best fantasy is that which you can somehow relate to what is going on in reality. Moorcock's writing in The D's D was simply marvelous, and every character felt very nice.
In The Skrayling Tree, however, I don't know what's going on. I respect Moorcock as a professional and am therefore slow to say anything bad about him. However, I don't know if he was in his right mind when we wrote this book.
The first 100 or so pages of this book is pure indocrination of his strange beliefs about this "multiverse". Oh yes, there are bleeps and blips of action, but for the most part we are hearing the very strange ruminations of a very strange girl named Oona. Aaaand that's it folks!
The second 100 pages or so are the thoughts of good 'ol Elric of Melniboné. Bored out of my mind, I thought that there was some renewed hope as I started to read about one of my favorite characters of fantasy.
It was hard to believe, but at least Oona's thoughts were coherent. At least she described he surroundings and forward movement, boring as they were. There was a patch of pages where Elric just kept jumping from one theme to another, with the majority of them referring to some odd something or another that nobody can understand.
Throughout Elric's entire section of talking, he didn't do much in the form of action. Just talking, talking, talking, confrontation, philosophical discoure, talking, talking, talking.
The final third of the book is from Ulric's point of view. Here we finally see some action...some adventure storytelling. Moorcock has always had a rushed style of action-telling, so I didn't mind it when I saw it here. However, the action in this final third of the book is so strange....so symbolic of SOMETHING...so hard to visualize...it was disheartening.
I expected much from this book, coming off up the D's D. I expected genius, and I came away with weirdness. I enjoyed the mind of Moorcock in the D's D, but I didn't want to hear this part of his mind.
There will no doubt be people who looooove this book. However, unless you are a huge fan of Moorcock, the specific reasons for loving the D's D will not be found in The Skrayling Tree .
12 (Rant over...it's a good thing I got this book for free)