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srgower's review against another edition
3.0
I made the mistake of reading some bits of reviews of the book before I got to the first chapter, and didn't expect to like it. Overall, I thought it was a decent mystery - what was with the town of Grand Mound, and why did baseball players choose to stay there? How did the town get them to stay? It turns out there wasn't really anything insidious, but you do have to believe a few things in order to accept the final 'solution'.
Three stars for:
- At least 1-2 loose ends not really tied up in the book (Was Mike's agent, Justin Birdsong, in on the Grand Mound conspiracy?)
- There were a lot of tense changes throughout. More annoying than confusing.
- It seemed like a book that was essentially a vehicle to tell side short stories, and the "frame story" was a little on the weak side.
Three stars for:
- At least 1-2 loose ends not really tied up in the book (Was Mike's agent, Justin Birdsong, in on the Grand Mound conspiracy?)
- There were a lot of tense changes throughout. More annoying than confusing.
- It seemed like a book that was essentially a vehicle to tell side short stories, and the "frame story" was a little on the weak side.
jamietr's review against another edition
I'd read Magic Time before, about 15 years ago, but remembered little of it, so it was almost like it was new to me reading it this time around. Kinsella is a master of baseball stories, but this one isn't as strong in my mind as some of his others. The story is interesting--about a ball player who is recruited to play for the small Iowa town of Grand Mound. But baseball is almost ancillary to the story, which is different from many of Kinsella's works.
Grand Mound was a kind of Green Town, and the story had a Bradburyesque feel to it, without the poetic writing of either Bradbury, or Kinsella in some of his other works. It was an enjoyable story, but the writing was not as strong as I remembered from some of Kinsella's other works.
Grand Mound was a kind of Green Town, and the story had a Bradburyesque feel to it, without the poetic writing of either Bradbury, or Kinsella in some of his other works. It was an enjoyable story, but the writing was not as strong as I remembered from some of Kinsella's other works.
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