Monday, May 17, 2010

I wanted to like you.... Part 2 (or 3, or whichever)

Spellwright, by Blake Charlton. It has elements which I usually love in fantasy books, puns, wordplay, magic, but the magic just didn't coalesce for me. It felt labored, trying to read this, as if there had been too much thought put into the book, and perhaps not enough editing. Its a wonderful idea, the premise of the book, that magic is made up of spoken words, and there is one wizard who can't spell...

I think the main problem for me was that the world did not seem fleshed-out enough. Even though it has a lovely map as a frontspiece for the book, one that is not loosely based on Earth's geography, the world could stand with a little more framing, it felt too abrupt.

Its interesting that it seems to have gotten high praise from a number of well-respected fantasy authors, but for me, it was too difficult to plug past the initial hindrance of the first couple of chapters. I did not feel gripped or absorbed by the book. And I wanted to like this story.

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