Book review: "The Dying Earth" omnibus by Jack Vance

I have been aware of Jack Vance, his opus and his fame for a long time, but I don't remember reading anything his before. When I saw the omnibus containing all his "Dying Earth" stories, I decided it was an opportunity to fill up my knowledge of older classics, and of course, to read something good.

"The Dying Earth" is not a novel. Even its parts are not novels, but a collection of short stories. First part, "Mazirian the Magician", is just a collection of short stories, with stories connected only barely with setting and some characters. The second two parts, "Cugel the Clever" and "The Skybreak Spatterlight", are novels (actually, fix-ups) telling stories of travels of Cugel, who travels the world trying to get home and exact revenge against a magician who sent him away. And the last part, called "Rhialto the Marvellous", is composed of three longer stories with common characters. Just to clear it up, these are mostly comic stories.

First, "The Dying Earth" is different from anything I have read so far. Maybe "Discworld" stories by Terry Pratchett are the closest thing to it. The world is full of magic, maybe even too full. It reminded me on old Conan stories. There is literally magic on every step: spells, creatures, objects... Vance doesn't even care to try to be realistic The "plots" takes place on Earth, but long in future, when the Sun is closing to its death and magic is again present on the world.

The style of the stories if definitely vintage, not something you would mistake for a modern fantasy. A bit pompous, you could say. Many concepts here looked familiar to me - and I realized that many modern fantasy writers copied Vance's ideas. I was there Chine Miéville got his idea for "The City & The City", and some other ideas used by new authors. If Vance patented his stories, every fantasy writer would have to pay him royals for using his book.

Since these are stories, you don't get to know the characters too much. This changes a bit in Cugel's stories, where we spend much time with him. But when Vance decides to focus on a character, he can do wonders (e.g. Drofo the worminger-sage). I found it unusual at first how everybody just keeps running all around the world; nobody stops to make any strategy. Women are mostly either victims or evil, or sometimes innocents in need of male guidance.

As of my impression. First part consists of six stories loosely connected. I can't say I really liked them, but they were OK and sometimes funny. Two Cugel novels were much, much better. They had a structure, a regular main character, an ultimate goal. And they were very funny! They are a bit long, but I didn't mind it at all. On the other hand, Rhialto's stories are not quite as good. Vance is obviously trying too much where he was effortless before, and I wasn't able to enjoy them. And even though you can't say that this book was planned to be consistent, these last three stories were even more inconsistent with previous...

But all in all, I had more good times than bad with this omnibus. "The Dying Earth" is definitely something that any real fantasy-fan needs to read, at least just to know where many of ideas came from. Maybe not a book to buy, but definitely a book to read.

Movie review: "Anna Karenina"

Yesterday I went to movies with my girlfriend to watch "Anna Karenina". It was originally her idea, but I didn't have anything against it.

Even though I was a passionate reader since I was ten, for some reason I (successfully) avoided most of high-school proscribed reading, including "Anna Karenina". I was vaguely familiar with the story, as much as I remembered from a book with short analysis of plot and characters for high-school books, but in general, I didn't know anything about the movie.

The story of "Anna Karenina" is a tragedy, revolving about three central characters in 19th century Russia. Karenin (played by Jude Law) is a high-positioned noble and politician, orthodox, strict but respected for his moral and ethical principles - but at the same time he is shown as cold and distanced, especially toward his family. Anna (Keira Knightley) is his wife, at the beginning of the movie displayed as happy with his marriage and especially their son, and loyal to her husband. She actually reprehends her cousin for being angry at her husband for cheating on her and manipulates her into forgiving him. But this changes after a chance encounter with young and dashing Count Vronsky - a pampered noble with eye for beauty, sweet tongue and flowery manners. An unexpected happens and these two unlikely people fall in love, and later to obsession, which damages their lives and especially Karenin family. There is also a secondary story, dealing with another young and shy noble Levin and his love toward Princess Kitty.

The story is good, but center of this movie is its characters, primary the central trio. As I expected from a renowned literary classic, characters are great and complex. The best notion for me is that no one is described as negative: all three are just people, with their personalities, caught in facts of life, love and passion. Though, I was surprised that at the end I was putting most blame on Anna - I don't know if this was intended by the movie-makers, or it was projected from my own beliefs and personality. I am even tempted to read the book to find out.

I liked the acting, even though I am not fan of Keira Knightley. But even more I liked the semi-breaking of the fifth wall: during the changes of scenes, characters are shown as traveling through theater sets; when important things are happening, supporting characters "freeze". I also liked the costumes and small details about Imperial Russia. The music was very good, even to me who usually don't notice such things.

All in all, I really enjoyed "Anna Karenina". If you don't like romances or dramas, avoid this movie. But for everybody else, the movie is never boring, has great and interesting characters and is very intense.

Book review: "The Wishsong of Shannara" by Terry Brooks

I was very happy to start reading "The Wishsong of Shannara" by Terry Brook, because I knew that after this I was done with "The Shannara Trilogy" and I could move on to better stuff. But I was once again surprised, because toward the end I actually enjoyed the book.

Again, "The Wishsong of Shannara" starts some years after the previous book. After the end of "The Elfstones of Shannara" and defeat of Demons, Will Omshford has married Eretria and returned to the Shady Vale, where he became a famous Healer and got two children, Brin (older daughter) and Jair (younger son). But it turned out that Will's playing with the Elfstones backfired and gave his children a strange and new ability, the wishsong. In Brin it manifested as the power to change world around her by song; Jair, on the other hand, was able just to make an illusion of change. One day while Will and Eretria were on a trip, after being absent for all these years from the Four Land, Alannon reappear in Shady Vale to collect Brin and take her to a dangerous journey - to destroy the book of evil magic, the same one that turned Druid Brona to evil Warlock Lord, as this can only be done with power of the wishsong. On this trip they are joined by Rone Lean, grandson of Menion Leah. Jair is to stay at home and guard their back, from both their parents (who would object to this journey) and Mord Wraiths (magicians turned evil by the book).

It this intro sounds a bit too fast, that is all right - the same is with the book itself. You found there information in few pages and the adventure immediately starts, with no one asking why. Again, there is new and unplanned addition to setting, convenient for the plot, which no one asks much about. But if you accept this, you are in for a pretty decent book. This is a much faster and lighter book than the first two - and although it has similar number of pages, it is read much faster. It is divided to two main plotlines, Brin's and Jair's - there are other POVs too, but these two are obviously main characters and we see the most of the book from their view. Brin's part was a bit to angsty in places, but she is such characters. Jair's part was, on the other hand, much more fun to read - lots of action, fighting, cleverness. He also has a much larger cast around himself, so their dynamic was more interesting. Nice last part of the book, especially description of Maeldrom forest - this was one of rare ingenious parts.

There is much characters in this book, and we don't meet everybody at the beginning. Although Brooks intended Garet Jax to be the most imposing one (as I gathered from his introduction), I found Slanter the most interesting and complex character. Other character are good and interesting (especially Cogline), if you don't mind single-mindedness much. This was the first book in series to feature genuine humor, and I appreciated that much. On the other hand, while I can say I was every warmed up for Alannon, in this book he was most irritating so far - he is described as philosophizer, teacher, wanderer - never seen him doing anything of that.

A reader could again find many inconsistencies if he would look for them, but there are not so obvious here and I didn't mind them. Curiously, the old hero is forgotten and does't appear any more - Will here, as was with Shea in "The Elfstones of Shannara" My biggest objection is that bad guys are still indistinctive and mute.

Just a note: this book not connected with plot, just by setting and some characters - every one is stand-alone.

"The Wishsong of Shannnara" is actually a pretty good book, especially Jair's part, compared to first two (especially the first). But while I was reading it, a also happened to read this. I know that taste is not something to discuss, and I am aware that Shannara series has a tons of fans... But compared to this, this book was bland - these few chapters written by Erikson contain more history, drama, epic, magic, characters, etc. than complete Shannara original trilogy! It was something in range of Eddings, but not of Feist who is much faster and funnier. Although it is not completely bad, it is not something I would really recommend since there are much better books out there.

Book review: "The Sword of Shannara" by Terry Brooks

When I started buying books from Amazon (also, kudos for this), I checked Wikipedia and other resources for examples of epic fantasy, especially for longer series. In such way I found about "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan, "Malazan Book of the Fallen" by Steven Erikson, "Belgariad/Malloreon" by David Eddings, "The Rifttwar Saga" by Raymond E. Feist... There are many series, most of which I haven't still read, although for the most I have plan to read them eventually. Since I was self-restricted on one book per month, I had much spare time, so I would usually read detailed synopsis, sometimes even for the whole series. One of these was the whole "Shannara" series by Terry Brooks. This was one series that I didn't really like from what I read about it - it all smelled me too much of sucking money from the fans (something like Feist). Repetitive stories, jumping back in time, mixing it with urban fantasy... But the first few books sounded OK, and I found it mentioned a lot on blogs I follow, so when an e-book containing first three books of the series (the original "Shannara Trilogy") become available (for fair price, even) I decided to buy it. Even if it was bad, it would be an education experience - reading on of the classics of fantasy. This is my review of the first book, "The Sword of Shannara".

Since this is one of classics and it was written in seventies, the usual fantasy plot was somewhat expected. Two brothers, Shea and Flick, are living peaceful lives in Shady Vale. This is all interrupted when they are visited by Allanon, who they know only as wandering mystic, historian and philosopher. Allanon explains Shea, who was adopted in Ohmsford family, that he is a direct and only living descendant of ancient Elven King Jerle Shannara, and us such he is the only person in whole world capable of wielding his heritage, the Sword of Shannara. This is necessary because an old enemy of mankind, the Warlock Lord, is again on rise and is threatening to destroy all civilization. So Shae must journey to Paranor, old Druid Keep, to find the Sword and defeat the Warlock Lord. On his journey he is joined by his brother Flick, their friend Menion, and later by Balinor (Prince of old Human Kindgdom of Callahorn, dedicated to guarding the Human frontier), Handel (a Dwarf), and Durin and Dayel (two Elven nobles). And of course, Allanon, who is in fact the last Druid. On their journey they are opposed by Skull Bearers (black winged minions of Warlock Lord), Gnomes and Trolls.


If this reminds you to "The Lord of the Rings", this is because "Sword of Shannara" is pretty much blatant (and worse) copy of it. There is an escape from remote and peaceful valley without guidance, scary black pursuers with blood-freezing screams, a party composed of all free races... There is even a tentacle-monster living in a lake and a journey under a mountain. I know that many fantasy series found their inspiration in LotR (some would say even my beloved WoT), but not in this way and not this much. Later in the book things start moving off from Tolkien and start sounding original and interesting, but damage was already done at this point.


One good thing that Brooks does is in making a setting with interesting history, one that is connected to our present one. The bad side of it is that it is revealed in a big and obvious info-dump on the very beginning. It would be much more convincing if he had found some gradual way to reveal it. Also, there is very little sense of novelty in this book. Our heroes visit the villages of Dwarves and Gnomes, but we found almost nothing about them - like they are not different and they visit them every day. In fact, everything I know about the Gnomes in this book is that they are "yellowish" and "smaller than man" - almost nothing about their physical look, society, intelligence, habits... Similar for other races.


I usually refrain from second-guessing the characters, because this is the death of books (you know, why just they didn't kill Sauron or destroyed the Ring and saved themselves from troubles), but this book has so many problems that I just couldn't stop myself. Most of it sounds unconvincing and inconsistent. Shae founds out a complete reversal of everything he knew and believed, immediately accepts it and calmly proceeds with planning what next he will do. Handel is taciturn, moody, cheerful, grizzled, scared of basements (a racial trait of Dwarves!!!), brave, masterful tactician... I know people are complex, but not this much. All enemies are stupid, clumsy, gullible and incompetent - while our heroes are lucky, smart and dexterous. 


Then there are problems with Brook's writing. First, enemies are totally indistinctive - there is only two named enemies, one of the being the main big bad. Constant in-paragraph changes of POV are slightly irritating, especially at first. I couldn't make a mental picture of any characters - I couldn't even determine the age of Shae and Flick (somewhere between 16 and 36). Using contemporary expressions like "robotlike appearance" and "Spartanlike barracks" didn't help. My favorite was description of Hendel stalking on his "catlike feet" - a Dwarf with a "catlike feet"!!!


Tolkien received some objections for lack of strong female characters, but here there is absolutely no female characters in first half of book (except two (two!) mentions of Hendel's absent wife and Dayel's absent fiancée each). No one has wife, mother or daughter - especially not Gnomes, Trolls or Dwarves (there was some vague impression that Humans live in families, so I presume they include women). And when that one female character appear (her name is Shirl Ravenlock and she is a redhead Princess - I didn't know ravens are red) her only purpose is to be an object of love and something to protect for one of main characters. She actually says that her only wish is to support him (from away, I presume).


In conclusion, "The Sword of Shannara" is a terrible book, worse even than those by Terry Goodkind (if there wasn't Terry Pratchet, I would say that the name Terry was cursed). You know that feeling when you are read a good book and you just can't leave it without reading another page/paragraph/sentence. Well, I didn't felt in once while reading this book. What's worse, I am now stuck with reading the whole trilogy.

Just started a re-read of "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R. R. Martin

I finally decided to read "A Dance with Dragons", fifth book in what is probably currently most famous fantasy series around: "A Song of Ice and Fire". My initial plan was to wait for the paper-back edition to come out, since I didn't want to buy a hard-cover. I was also in process of buying first four books, and bought "A Game of Thrones" and "A Clash of Kings". But as I recently bought Amazon Kindle, this made me change it since now I don't have to wait for anything.

Anyway, before reading "A Dance with Dragons", I will be doing a reread of whole series so far, to refresh my memory. ASoIaF is one of my favorite series, and I have read first few books many times. But I haven't read them since I stopped going to library (some 4-5 years, now) and this will be the first time to read them in English.

I plan to make a post for each book.

Comment: "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy

For the last several weeks I re-watched "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy with my girlfriend. We have been both busy, so we couldn't connect enough time to watch whole episode in one sitting (and these movies ARE long), so the whole thing dragged for some time. Because of this I won't make a usual review, but will just write some comments.

First, I really like LOTR. I have read those books over dozen times: while I was a member of library, I used to read them one a year at least. I read and liked "The Hobbit", "The Silmarillion", etc. I also watched the movies at least four times completely and lots of times in fragments (when they were played on TV). My firm opinion is that a person cannot be a serious epic-fantasy fan without liking Tolkien. Sure, there are better books, longer, more complex, more realistic, etc. Sure, Tolkien had flaws, like with female characters or black-and-white morality. Nevertheless, "The Lord of the Rings" is still one of best things epic fantasy can offer: rich and complex setting, numerous and detailed characters, excellent writing, and what is most important, feel of epic that can be used to describe and define this whole genre.

After all this said, I have to admit that I didn't like the movies this time. I don't know is that because of my growing up (last time I read these books I was in second or third year of colleague, some 5-6 years ago; now I have a job and steady relationship, although reading is still one of my priorities) or because all those excellent books I read in the meantime. Except LOTR, library had first four volumes of ASoIaF, "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" trilogy and first two R. Scott Bakker's volumes to show from epic fantasy genre (there were tons of low-fantasy books, like different Forgotten Realms series) and since then I have read a lot of best-selling epic fantasy series (WoT, Feist, Eddings, Erikson...). Nevertheless, I still have fond memories of LOTR and I don't think I would find the books less valuable now. But this time I couldn't enjoy in good sides of the movies; instead I was constantly nagged by flaws.

I know that they couldn't fit the whole book in this short time and that some compromises had to be made. It is normal to dismiss details of settings and less important characters and I think that right choices were done in this department. What I seriously dislike are the simplifications and alterations that were made to draw a wider audience (what they call a Hollywoodization).

First movie is very decently done and I don't think I have anything to complain here. There is one of my favorite scenes ("You shall not pass!"), which was done superbly. They dropped many things from introductory parts (run from Shire, Tom Bombadil), but that understandable and it's more important the movie kept the feeling of the book (except the wizard fight). Second movie is more questionable. I really liked how they captured the anger of the Ents, but lots of things get mauled. They concentrated on the battle of Helm's Deep, which is far from the central point of book; also, fight was overly-dramatized. Saruman is second big complaint: he is shown as evil characters, corrupted and weak; while he is all this, he is far more complex. Third movie was the worst. There were too many changes and I didn't like any scene with Aragorn. They made the same mistake with Denethor as with Saruman. The siege of Minas Tirith looks to easy... List of complaints is long.

I was always proud to talk with non-reader about LOTR books, how complex and good they are. With movies, this wasn't the case; I often felt obligated to defend the books because of someone's bad opinion of movies. I will be watching "Game of Thrones" soon, so I did they do an excellent job with it, or just decent.

Movie review: "Krull"

I usually don't watch TV, but last Saturday I was resting from very tiring week. I was accidentally passing by when my younger brother was just starting to watch some old-looking fantasy movie, so I joined him (I missed first 30 minutes or so). I checked TV-schedule later and found out the movie's name was "Krull". I heard it mentioned few times over years but didn't know pretty much anything about it.

The plot is simple: a mysterious mountain lands on medieval-ish planet Krull. The owner of the mountain, the monstrous Beast, captures some princess, so her fiancée (or want-to-be fiancée; as I said I missed the beginning) gather a band of fugitives and few mystics and monsters to save her. First find the weapon, then the information, then the magical beasts for transport, and so on...

I think this is one of the most predictable films I ever watched. The movie follows tropes to the letter; on the other hand, it is possible that it actually started them in the first place. For example, when someone is killed by enemy fire, the rest of the gang will all stop and watch him for some time, although they are still under fire...

Acting is terrible and special effects even more so. I mean, really bad. Sound effects (especially the sound of those "rifles") started to give me a headache. On the other hand, these were the state-of-the-art effects at the time the movie was filmed.

All in all, "Krull" is one of the worst movies I watched in last several years. But on the other hand, it has that melancholic spirit of classic fantasy. Don't expect anything valuable from this movie, but if you are a fantasy fan (as I am) it can be entertaining to watch something of an establishing movie of this genre.

Main problem of this movie is that has been copied (good or bad) so much that you recognize all jokes and points immediately. I had this same problem when I read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams - I already knew all the jokes.

Movie review: "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows", Part Two

This weekend I went to watch the last episode of one of most popular franchise, "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2". I intentionally didn't want to go to premiere because I planned to avoid the rushes. Also, this was my first 3D projection. I didn't have any special desires for it, but all projections were in 3D so I didn't have the choice. After watching the movie, my opinion that 3D is not anything to make fuss about was confirmed. Although it did give few scenes a special spark, it wasn't especially impressive. I presume that in some CG heavy movie (e.g. the new "Transformers") its advantages would come more forward, but for this kind of movie it's completely unnecessary.

Not, let's get back to the movie. As with every ending, it is hard to give a decent review: those who liked it just need a confirmation that the movie is good as they hoped or not, and the others need to start with previous movies. With movies based on books it is even harder; most fans have already read the book so they know what to expect. And with this movie it is double-hard because the book was split to two movies... So I will avoid discussing about the plot, except in most general way. Anyway, it is obvious that movie is intended for those who watched previous episodes and know what is going on, since it offers no introduction or recap. I must say that I don't remember either book or previous episode so well, but even that didn't spoil my enjoyment.

Well, as expected, plot continues the events from previous movie. After destroying some of the horcruxes, Harry, Hermione and Ron still have a few to go. Contrary to the last movie, which was more oriented about displaying the doubts and fears main characters have, here we have a big turn. The decisions have been brought, time for doubts is over and friends are reunited. The last confrontation is looming and it is appropriate that it happens in the place where everything began: Hogwarts. Because of this, movie is mostly action-oriented. Sure, there is magic, info-dumps, some mystery. But all characters are already introduced, there is no need for more worldbuilding; all that is left is to get things done; this doesn't make it some magic-themed "Die Hard" movie, though.

Pacing is fast and good and there are few especially epic scenes (the big, glowing shield and whole last battle, for example). It is nice to see the fame shared with some other characters, instead focusing everything on the main trio. There is not much to say about the acting and characters; they are the same as in previous seven movies. Only objection was that some characters were only superficially touched, but that is just a restriction of the media: it is hard to fit such a big book in relatively short movie properly and with great number of details that wouldn't confuse the audience.

In the end, I can say just that I really liked last part of "Harry Potter". I mean, it is not a masterpiece of movie arts, but audience should know what to expect. It IS "Harry Potter" and it is very superbly done: tension, action and great conclusion. A great movie for both fans and general audience.

Book review: "Riddle-Master" Patricia A. McKillip

I am not really sure how my attention was drawn to "The Riddle-Master of Hed" trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip, but I was under impression of this book being something of a fundamental of fantasy literature, kind of "Lord of the Rings". I actually felt a little embarrassed for not reading it; I consider myself a well-versed in fantasy, and here I was, not even aware of such a classical piece. Media can sometimes be such a seducer, true?

I bought an omnibus edition, called simply "Riddle-Master: The Complete Trilogy". It contains all three books: "The Riddle-Master of Hed", "The Heir of Sea and Fire" and "Harpist in the Wind". The books start with Morgon, a young ruler of smallest kingdom of the land, island of Hed, full of farmers and famous for its beer. Morgon became a land-heir (ruler of kingdom with special connection to the land) very recently, after the death of his parents a year ago. Before that Morgon was (which is very uncommon for people of Hed) a student of college in Caithnard, greatest place of art of riddling. After they (they being Morgon, and his sister Tristan and brother Eliard) are visited by Deth, a harpist for High One (something of reclusive over-ruler), they learn that Moron won a hand of Raedlerle of An, daughter of a King of a powerful kingdom of An. Morgon decides to take his previously unknown prize, since he met Raedlerle before, while attending college. But while on way there, accompanied by Deth, he gets attacked by mysterious shapechangers and loses his memory. After regaining it, he starts a journey toward High One's mountain planning to ask him about the shapechangers, who are starting to become a real threat. On way there, he meets the others land-rulers and learns about secret behind the stars on his forehead.

Second book brings a radical change in perspective, since it is told from point of Readlerle, a character that was only briefly mentioned in previous book. We follow her as she searches for explanation about Morgons disappearance (first book ends in a cliffhanger, so we don't know anything about Morgon and his fate) and later for Morgon himself, as rumors about him start to fill the land. As searching brings to more distant places, she also starts to find new things about herself, especially her own strange power, which frightens her.

In third book we are back to Morgon's POV. We follow him and Raedlerle as they are first running from, and later fighting, their enemies, who include shapechangers, but other, too. Also, they discover that some of their dead enemies and allies are not as dead as they believed. But the biggest discovery will be about High One...

To me, the books sucked. They were written in the seventies and the author in the introduction clearly states how she was impressed by "The Lord of Rings" so much that it directed to toward writing fantasy. This is clearly in her writing because she really managed to emulate the sense of LotR and still be completely different from it. When I say sense of LotR, I mean about that atmosphere to nobility, a thing that I tend to associate to either older or poorer works. Let's take ASoIaF for example: it is certainly epic, and it contains occasional great nobility, but its prominent characteristic is grittiness; its characters are in no way chivalrous. You won't see that in LotR; people there are either heroes (large or small), noble, courteous and strong, or villains, foul-mouthed and cowardly. For more examples, WoT tends toward that, while MBotF completely inverts it; "Sword of Truth" by Goodking tends to that, but the books are terrible. I am not saying it is bad or it is good; it's just one style and it is just part of book. Anyway, McKillip succeeds in copying this style of LotR, but unfortunately fails in making books as interesting or intense.

There are several things that bothered me. First, I was irritated by characters, Morgon, Readlerle, Lysa... Always taking a easier route would quickly lead to the Dark Side, but I would nice to be that they sometimes do the smart thing instead the perfectly noble thing and clinging to impossible ideals. I mean, it's nice when someone sticks with his believes, but sometimes it is just obvious they will have to make some compromises (except when they are shounen-heroes) so why not do the smart thing and adapt quickly instead of dragging to whole book. E.g. Rand from WoT at first doesn't like One Power, but it obvious that he will be forced to use it. So even though he struggles against it and is reluctant about it, in the end he does accept it as a part of himself and learns to live with it. Secondly, they don't do much in this book; I think that good two thirds of these books consist of traveling. Things do get interesting when they actually start to do something (for example, defense of Lungold), but they are soon interrupted by another trip. Thirdly, I couldn't completely understand McKillip's writing. I don't know if that is because English is not my first language (although I read it more than Croatian, by the way) or she just has such way of writing, but I was often find myself confused by the events. Things do get explained later, but even after reading whole omnibus, I can't say I completely understand what happened. This also happened often with Erikson, but somehow I believe that with him this is intentional; here I believe reason is the lack of skill. This doesn't mean that McKillip is poor writer; even though I am a poor judge for this, I found her writing very beautiful. Also, for a book called "Riddle-Master", full of riddling and people who pride themselves on it, it would be nice to hear at least one riddle...

When I learned that "Harpist in the Wind" won a Hugo award, my opinion of it was something like of a Picasso's painting: experts and people with taste are able to appreciate it and discuss it strengths and details, but most of people would have to take their word for it being a masterpiece. So, "Riddle-Master" can be beautifully written, it can have strong metaphors or pictures, but I don't believe it will be so appreciated by general audience (by this I mean fantasy-literature audience). The fact that is not really omnipresent on web at least partially affirms my opinion. On audience that I think could appreciate this book would be the kids; I would have liked this book when I was 10, when I adored "The Hobbit".