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Dec. 4th, 2012 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pedantherNow that was more like it. The Taking of the Gry has engaging characters, and the plot barrels along at a good old clip. It's not Great Literature, but that's something it never claims to be, and what it is is an entertaining read.
I say "engaging characters"; actually, it might be that the writer is more engaged with the characters. In retrospect, there was a sense in Sard Harker and Odtaa that the author was watching the characters from a distance, which translated to a distance between the characters and the reader as well.
The Taking of the Gry was published a decade after the other two, which made me wonder if perhaps I'd just been let down by his earlier work, and he got better later. Having looked at the dates for all of his novels that I've read, though, I don't think that works; books I enjoyed alternate with books I found disappointing, sometimes very close together. There is this, though: the later disappointing books are disappointing in a different way to the earlier ones.
I say "engaging characters"; actually, it might be that the writer is more engaged with the characters. In retrospect, there was a sense in Sard Harker and Odtaa that the author was watching the characters from a distance, which translated to a distance between the characters and the reader as well.
The Taking of the Gry was published a decade after the other two, which made me wonder if perhaps I'd just been let down by his earlier work, and he got better later. Having looked at the dates for all of his novels that I've read, though, I don't think that works; books I enjoyed alternate with books I found disappointing, sometimes very close together. There is this, though: the later disappointing books are disappointing in a different way to the earlier ones.
