Finished Jacqueline Carey's The Sundering. It's marketed as LoTR from the perspective of the 'villains', but that's misleading. In LoTR it's Sauron who wants to control the world, but in this it's the purported embodiment of 'good' who wants to control everyone, and the embodiment of 'evil' rebels against that on behalf of humanity; the epigraphs are from Paradise Lost, and the references are more accurately to pre-Tolkien notions of 'good' (as following Go*'s will, etc.) and 'evil'. And the orc-like and Nazgul-like characters are generally decent, honorable, sympathetic, and very reluctant to commit atrocities. The 'evil' characters are defending themselves against aggression on behalf of the 'good' characers, and genuinely just want to be left in peace.
The first book is perhaps a little subpar---but still manages to be interesting enough to be worth reading. Her attempts at a more chronicle-like, slightly archaic, cliche high fantasy style aren't particularly good, though they're also not satirical or humorous at all. The plot is moderately engaging, she did succeed in getting me to care about some of the characters, and the lore is mildly interesting.
The second book is better---better writing, lore, plot, characterization, etc. Pretty good.
End of the second book sets up possible sequels but apparently she's abandoned the setting.
Was thinking of starting The Realm of the Elderlings (Hobb) which I've been putting off for a long time but at 16 books + extras it's a bit of a time commitment so I started on Jemisin's The City We Became instead. Writing is good, though the audiobook has crappy music, reverb, and other audio effects added in places---maybe I'll get used to it, but so far it's been a little distracting. Might not mind if I liked the music and the effects more....
[Edit: I was wrong, first book was actually not JC's first published book....]
This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 20 April 2023 - 03:24 PM
Help
pat5150, on 19 April 2023 - 02:38 PM, said:
