[QuickTidal]

I did a boneheaded thing.....I went to the official website for this book, and downloaded chapter 1 for free....and read it....and already I love it.....BUT...

It doesn't bloody get released here in Canada till April 1st!

Damn and blast!

[stone monkey]

Werthead;258475 said:

The comparison was on the basis of, "Feck off giant construction with a turbulent past," rather than, "All-time classic but rather hard-going non-epic fantasy,"

Okay. I understand that but the book could have taken place in a series of featureless rooms for all the atmosphere the author gives to it. Just reminding us every few chapters that we're on a boat oh! and btw it's big and old, doesn't really cut it.

Gormenghast is the landscape (both physical and mental) of that trilogy - it dominates everything even when events are taking place outside it. The Chathrand is just a location. Although to be honest there are very few other books that have even got close to conveying that feeling. The last I can think of is Feersum Endjinn and even in that book Banks cheats by making the Serehfa Fastness comically huge.

[Tamilyrn]

Bought it, read it, loved it.

Thanks Werthead.

[azidhak]

Bought it before Easter but it got sidetracked by me getting Last Argument of Kings the day after I bought this. I think this is more of a young adult book, but that said I don't mean that as a bad thing. Sometimes not having the ordinary amounts of blood or sex can be refreshing.

Spoiler

I wonder a bit where the book will continue as the main plot is revealed at least and thwarted at least for the moment.

I liked it well enough, nothing exceptional but well crafted and the author may surprise me yet.

[Imperial Historian]

I read this, wasn't that impressed, I've read much more convincing debuts, but the author wrote well enough that I might pick up the next one if I see it, and there were some interesting moments. Not as good as the recent spate of excellent debuts, but i suppose i might be getting a little spoiled

[amphibian]

Werthead;258475 said:

You're saying this on an Erikson board. I'd have thought that we'd be used to forced and deliberately made-up names with absolutely no philogical reasoning behind them by now

You, sir, are slandering the only drill sarjin to ever approach R. Lee Ermey's awesomeness in literary form. Braven Tooth can do no wrong.

[polishgenius]

Werthead;230717 said:

Spoiler

It's like Scott Lynch because it's on a boat and it's like Philip Pullman because it has sentient animals in it. Erm, and that's about it really. In terms of writing style it's not really like either.

I just read it, and oddly enough, having not read that review of yours or any of the pre-publicity, Pullman and Lynch are exactly the two authors I thought of. Pullman partly because of the animals, but also because of a sort of playfulness that almost puts it in the territory somewhere between YA and 'proper' adult that Pullman occupies - and that was what I liked about it. Not sure really how to put it - a sense of wonder about itself that a lot of fantasy lacks nowadays.
Also his protagonists bear comparison to Pullman's, especially to Lyra.
Lynch I really have no idea why, but apart from the obvious Mieville comparisons (which really are down to the fact that it's on a great big boat- and as Stone Monkey says the location is almost incidental to the actual plot, unlike The Scar), he was the first author I thought of. He doesn't have the barbed wit of Lynch, but something of the cadence of his writing reminds me of Lynch's books.


Anyway, yeah, I liked it. It certainly showed promise. The main characters are reasonably stock but likeable for all that, and some of the others, while never greatly distinctive, are cool. I liked the mage and the rat especially. I'll be reading the sequels.