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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
WELL. That was an adventure.
While I haven't managed to put my Drowned Ammet feels down in writing yet, at the close of that book Mitt was one of my least favorite protagonists. Possibly ever. (Well. Second to Holden Caulfield.) It was so terrible that when I opened Crown of Dalemark and saw his POV, I almost wrote the book off as a lost cause. BUT THEN. Maewen appears like a glorious freckled breath of fresh air. Time travel is one of my most very favorite tropes in fiction, so as soon as I realized that was where the plot was headed, I just had this huge grin on my face and was swept away from there.
The presence of an encyclopedia in this volume was much appreciated and made the reading experience so much more pleasant than in the previous works. Trying to keep all the earls straight is tricky business.
But yes! Loved loved loved just about everything about this book. Even Mitt. I was downright fond of him by the last pages.
While I haven't managed to put my Drowned Ammet feels down in writing yet, at the close of that book Mitt was one of my least favorite protagonists. Possibly ever. (Well. Second to Holden Caulfield.) It was so terrible that when I opened Crown of Dalemark and saw his POV, I almost wrote the book off as a lost cause. BUT THEN. Maewen appears like a glorious freckled breath of fresh air. Time travel is one of my most very favorite tropes in fiction, so as soon as I realized that was where the plot was headed, I just had this huge grin on my face and was swept away from there.
The presence of an encyclopedia in this volume was much appreciated and made the reading experience so much more pleasant than in the previous works. Trying to keep all the earls straight is tricky business.
But yes! Loved loved loved just about everything about this book. Even Mitt. I was downright fond of him by the last pages.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Some of the character changes seemed to smudge over what happened in previous books, but the mythology of the world is neat.
I wavered between 2 and 3 stars on this one. I wanted so much more from the final book in the series, and it just fell flat. The whole style of the story was completely different than the other three books. The main point of view would jump all over the place, sometimes changing mid paragraph. And bringing in a character from modern times was just weird. I was still really confused by all the different names the Undying go by, just like in the last book. I could've sworn the main Undying in this book was one person, and then it turned out to be another. It was all a little bit of a mess. And maybe it's just me, but having two main characters with similar names, Mitt and Moril, made me constantly have to stop and remind myself who was being talked about. Anyway, just a bit sad that this book didn't feel the way I wanted it to and that the series ended on such a low note.
A beautiful ending to this story that tied it all together in ways I did not think the three books before it could be tied.
Really enjoyed having a girl protagonist fro DWJ, too. The way she writes women is deligthful, and they differences warm my heart.
Took me very long to finish, not because of thw book itself, but the stress of life. You cannot read this without thought, because you have to remember and think about rhe three previous books while reading to undersrand what's happening.
Really enjoyed having a girl protagonist fro DWJ, too. The way she writes women is deligthful, and they differences warm my heart.
Took me very long to finish, not because of thw book itself, but the stress of life. You cannot read this without thought, because you have to remember and think about rhe three previous books while reading to undersrand what's happening.
Agh, I'm conflicted! I feel badly about giving this only two stars, but...it's a mess. You know how Diana Wynne Jones endings usually fall apart a bit? Since (I assume) this was the last book in the quartet, the entire thing seemed to be falling apart from the get-go. There are lovely characters, both new ones and ones I already adored from earlier books, and I can see that she tried to tie everything from the previous three books together, but the whole thing got WILDLY out of hand and ran careening down the hill until it smashed to pieces at the bottom.
For build-up and characters, you can't beat DWJ, and in the earlier books, my enjoyment of those aspects easily carried me through (especially for the first two books). The fourth book of necessity was less about build-up or characters, so it wasn't nearly as enjoyable. DWJ's weakness is in any kind of plot-related revelation, and this book is mostly that--and thus mostly incomprehensible, at least on first read. The glossary at the end is helpful, but a story shouldn't be so unnecessarily obfuscated that you have to read the glossary to figure out what it was trying to say!
For build-up and characters, you can't beat DWJ, and in the earlier books, my enjoyment of those aspects easily carried me through (especially for the first two books). The fourth book of necessity was less about build-up or characters, so it wasn't nearly as enjoyable. DWJ's weakness is in any kind of plot-related revelation, and this book is mostly that--and thus mostly incomprehensible, at least on first read. The glossary at the end is helpful, but a story shouldn't be so unnecessarily obfuscated that you have to read the glossary to figure out what it was trying to say!
This was a good if slightly oddly paced end to the series - I struggled with the end (another reviewer points out that DWJ often struggles with endings, to which I agree).
7/10 stars. An excellent conclusion to the series, with a character (Maewen) I actually liked!
Enjoyed the journey. Our POV characters all resist the call to adventure; accept it, meet all matter of threshold guardians, are helped or hindered by the not-gods that populate this world, and meet the (metaphorical) father who gives one a crown. On the way there are rings and crowns and swords that are got by not-entirely heroic means. Also, time travel, a bomb, and inchoate trains.
But the conclusion was a wee bit flat and I'm a little grumpy that the crowned head was in fact to the manor born.
But the conclusion was a wee bit flat and I'm a little grumpy that the crowned head was in fact to the manor born.
http://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2012/02/2012-book-30.html