Thadlerian
Riftsound resident
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2005
- Messages
- 989
I've read this thing too, now. By the sea, as I had promised myself.
I can't say I'm very excited about this series any more. There simply seemed to be so little originality to it. Sure, lots and lots of concepts, but Redick doesn't do anything new. Why is the main concept a super-huge ship when the story could just as well have been played out on a normal-sized boat without you feeling any difference except for some background descriptions?
The awakened animal concept was interesting, like the way Felthrup's personality is developed. But nearly everything else was just a different flavour from things I've read earlier. And without any originality of plot and intrigue, I found it hard to appreciate the details. It seems Robert V.S. Redick has spent far too much time developing his universe and too little on thinking his plotting through. This is unfortunately a common tendency among debut writers, the underestimation of the importance of good storytelling over worldbuilding. The effect can easily be spending years on building a universe, only to discover that your universe is just marginally different from stuff that has been written before. I think writers should try to make themselves noticed as good plotters/storytellers/characterbuilders first, and worry about huge, comprehensive universes later.
Also, the realism (read: plausibility) was hurt by the too strong feeling of omnipotence in the main child characters. Children acting and achieving where all adults fail is one of the most common features of a Young Adult novel, but even YA doesn't have to do it so explicitly (just consider Philip Pullman or Terry Pratchett). And this is, beyond doubt, a YA novel.
But as a YA novel, it is too long. The story told is far too short for 462 pages - it could easily have been tightened down to 2/3 of the size, at least.
I can't say I'm very excited about this series any more. There simply seemed to be so little originality to it. Sure, lots and lots of concepts, but Redick doesn't do anything new. Why is the main concept a super-huge ship when the story could just as well have been played out on a normal-sized boat without you feeling any difference except for some background descriptions?
The awakened animal concept was interesting, like the way Felthrup's personality is developed. But nearly everything else was just a different flavour from things I've read earlier. And without any originality of plot and intrigue, I found it hard to appreciate the details. It seems Robert V.S. Redick has spent far too much time developing his universe and too little on thinking his plotting through. This is unfortunately a common tendency among debut writers, the underestimation of the importance of good storytelling over worldbuilding. The effect can easily be spending years on building a universe, only to discover that your universe is just marginally different from stuff that has been written before. I think writers should try to make themselves noticed as good plotters/storytellers/characterbuilders first, and worry about huge, comprehensive universes later.
Also, the realism (read: plausibility) was hurt by the too strong feeling of omnipotence in the main child characters. Children acting and achieving where all adults fail is one of the most common features of a Young Adult novel, but even YA doesn't have to do it so explicitly (just consider Philip Pullman or Terry Pratchett). And this is, beyond doubt, a YA novel.
But as a YA novel, it is too long. The story told is far too short for 462 pages - it could easily have been tightened down to 2/3 of the size, at least.