greylin said:
I finished it a few days ago and it's haunting me rather unpleasantly. I didn't want to write about it for a while. It is a disturbing book with a nightmarish quality (it reminded me of dreams where my teeth start to fall out, to be honest!) and the whole thing with the Specks dragged on and on. There was *nothing* in this story to feel good about and the resolution seemed contrived to me. I'll read book three when it comes out, but only out of curiosity. I suppose I quite like Nevare (whereas I loved Fitz) but I don't particularly enjoy the quasi-American frontier setting of this series.
***Caution! Here be (slight) spoilers****
Greylin pretty much summed it up for me, though I didn't have a problem with the plains setting.
Some have said this book is depressing, and I have to agree, but I think a better way to describe it is very disturbing. I was in a funk the whole time I was reading it, and even had a couple of nights of nightmares. Somehow this book affected me on a very deep level. I'm still trying to understand it.
I'm a huge fan of Hobb. Her characters feel very real and three dimensional, and her world building is just awesome. I wish she'd give us readers a happy ending once in a while, though.
As for FM being predictable, I think it was written to be like that. I think Hobb wanted us to feel a sense of inevitability throughout the whole book. Nevare did his best to fight against the magic, but the most he could do was nothing, if you know what I mean. He didn't have the power to act against it, the only thing he could do was pretend that it didn't exist or waffle. This makes for a rather static storyline, and a really passive character. I think she overdid it a little, and to a certain extent I think she shot herself in the foot, by making the story so grueling and so dark. It's not going to appeal to a lot of people.
My big question is: In the first book, what did all that conflict between the old nobles and the new nobles serve? Why was it included? I assume that a good author has a reason for including everything in a story, but I guess every auther is not necessarily Marcel Proust. I don't see any reason why Shaman's Crossing couldn't have been 1/3 shorter. Maybe it was a mistake, Hobb doesn't have to answer to editors anymore? Was it just for atmosphere? I think the point of the first book was to show us everything that Nevare had to lose in the second book, and to set up his character and why he is so passive. Why all the conflict between cadets? What do you all think?
Oh, it's my first post here. Nice to meet you!
