Reading: The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time, Book 2)
Redraft: Chapter 5 of 32
17609 / 139570
Found myself in the unusual quandary of having two books burning holes in my pockets at the same time yesterday, as I had cracked into the first few chapters of The Great Hunt as I waited for Shadows Return to be released. But my anticipation for Flewelling's latest won out, and in the end, there wasn't much of a conflict: I finished Shadows Return by the end of the day. (That it was shorter than the previous Nightrunner books was one reason; that it was well-written and plotted--though perhaps a bit more linear and less multi-layered than some of the previous books--was another.) I get the distinct impression that it was the first half of a book that grew too long in the telling, and therefore had to be split up into two in order meet publisher demands. The fact that the next book is projected for 2009 would seem to reinforce that suspicion. That is one thing that Flewelling seems deficient in; after being spellbound by her work in The Bone Doll's Twin, I was utterly gobsmacked by the terse and virtually cut-off ending to the book. She sheers the end a bit more smoothly in Return, but it still feels hasty.
Meanwhile, I've continued well past the middle point in The Great Hunt, and am continually impressed by Jordan's world building. I've come to realize that, with the years its spent percolating in my mind, my own novel has worked up quite a milieu of its own, but nevertheless, there is much I still have to learn, and I'm glad to have found several masters capable of teaching me what I need to know.
No comments:
Post a Comment