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lleullawgyffes's review
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
frakalot's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
"To say that a carving on the wall was evil was to impute to stone a quality it did not and never had possessed. But to say that an image which had been wrought by those who wished to give evil a gateway into the world was malign was not opposed to that basic truth."
I thought the writing started off really rough, the sentences felt incomplete, but by half way it had improved and I was enjoying the simple but delightful prose.
Yurth are feared by the Raski and disdained because of it. They have special telepathic capabilities which they use with limitations, by a voluntary code of conduct. Those rules can be broken in life or death situations.
Yurth telepathy comes through a mental discipline, similar in concept to Vulcan meditative training on Star Trek. We later learn that the feat of telepathy can also be achieved through use of drugs which I thought was rather interesting. This latter method is of course the inferior method.
The story has plenty of commentary about the privacy of our minds and how violation of that personal intimacy is a horrid experience. However, there is also at least a brief note on the incredible sense of calm experienced when joined with many agreeable minds, similar to how the Borg describe the experience of their hive-mind, to use another Star Trek reference.
Elossa is a Raski with a Yurth-trained mind? I don't think that's accurate. It's a little confusing because when she inadvertently harms a Raski man she recoils at having hurt one of her own kind, but later after helping him to recover she thinks that her efforts would do little to endear her kind to his kind. I'm still confused. I don't think Raski and Yurth are different kinds of the same species, but that may be the case.
There are quite a few unfortunate typos, nothing too jarring. "Marker" instead of "maker", "straggling" instead of "struggling" and that type of thing mostly. One typo near the end was a bit funny... "she might be making the worst mistake of her fife".
I thought that the line "There was little of the human in that face" was a bizarre turn of phrase in an utterly alien story with no other mention of humans or of Earth. However, I do note that the figures drawn on the cover are very humanoid.
I quite like the idea of the "Yurth burden" which forces the Yurth to take responsibility for their actions very seriously and the result is a great respect for all of life.
This has a bit of a dark psychological horror feel to it. Telepathy isn't a favourite subject for me but I enjoyed this quick read. This was a really good 3 star story as opposed to an average 3 star story.
I thought the writing started off really rough, the sentences felt incomplete, but by half way it had improved and I was enjoying the simple but delightful prose.
Yurth are feared by the Raski and disdained because of it. They have special telepathic capabilities which they use with limitations, by a voluntary code of conduct. Those rules can be broken in life or death situations.
Yurth telepathy comes through a mental discipline, similar in concept to Vulcan meditative training on Star Trek. We later learn that the feat of telepathy can also be achieved through use of drugs which I thought was rather interesting. This latter method is of course the inferior method.
The story has plenty of commentary about the privacy of our minds and how violation of that personal intimacy is a horrid experience. However, there is also at least a brief note on the incredible sense of calm experienced when joined with many agreeable minds, similar to how the Borg describe the experience of their hive-mind, to use another Star Trek reference.
Elossa is a Raski with a Yurth-trained mind? I don't think that's accurate. It's a little confusing because when she inadvertently harms a Raski man she recoils at having hurt one of her own kind, but later after helping him to recover she thinks that her efforts would do little to endear her kind to his kind. I'm still confused. I don't think Raski and Yurth are different kinds of the same species, but that may be the case.
There are quite a few unfortunate typos, nothing too jarring. "Marker" instead of "maker", "straggling" instead of "struggling" and that type of thing mostly. One typo near the end was a bit funny... "she might be making the worst mistake of her fife".
I thought that the line "There was little of the human in that face" was a bizarre turn of phrase in an utterly alien story with no other mention of humans or of Earth. However, I do note that the figures drawn on the cover are very humanoid.
I quite like the idea of the "Yurth burden" which forces the Yurth to take responsibility for their actions very seriously and the result is a great respect for all of life.
This has a bit of a dark psychological horror feel to it. Telepathy isn't a favourite subject for me but I enjoyed this quick read. This was a really good 3 star story as opposed to an average 3 star story.
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