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ishoa's review
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
2.25
jwells's review
Really love Wizard's magic for trusting the city to take care of him while he's homeless. I don't think I've seen an application of magic anything like it before. Overall I really like the book. If I had one criticism, it would be a case of Author Did The Research: Lindholm really wants to shoehorn in every single fact she has ever learned about Seattle history. I get it: the underground city is super awesome, but none of it was remotely necessary to the story...
rickard's review
2.0
This is a hard book to review. The writing is beautiful and immersive. It's engrossing. The problem is, this is the grim, grey, bleak, and depressing type of story that one does not generally want to be immersed in. At least I don't. I won't recommend this book except to a very certain group of people. That being said, in a quiet, subdued, sad kind of way... I'm glad I read it. And maybe that means it's a five star book. Or maybe not. Like I said; it's a hard book to review.
friss_zucker's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
pussreboots's review
4.0
While the bulk of the story is a captivating way of experiencing the magic of Seattle and harsh realities of being a homeless vet the novel is book-ended with a slow opening and a confusing ending. In both cases I found myself rereading passages just to figure out what was happening. The slow start nearly kept me from reading the rest of the book but I am glad I had continued reading.
1siobhan's review
5.0
Excellent. Urban Fantasy, Arthurian Legend, Vietnam War, Seattle, mental illness. What is real, what is unreal? Not at all what I expected from the title / description on the back, but a surprising, fast-paced book and extremely ambiguous in its possible interpretations. Read it though it is odd and weird. Five Stars.
mariebrunelm's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
As a huge fan of Robin Hobb, it took me a while to dare read the books she's written as Megan Lindholm. I wanted to savour the fact that somehow there were still books by her I had left to read, but I also feared I wouldn't enjoy Megan Lindholm's writing as much as I loved Robin Hobb's. This illustrated edition of Wizard of the Pigeons was the opportunity to find out. And I'm relieved to say Megan Lindholm can weave sentences just as poetic and intricate and brilliant as Robin Hobb.
Wizard of the Pigeons is an urban fantasy novel featuring a veteran anti-hero, Wizard, surviving in the streets of Seattle, a toy of his own magic. There are shards of light, but this is a dark, dark story. One chapter really upset me, but I couldn't resist keeping on reading, and though I may not have picked up this book had I known about the trigger warnings, I'm glad I did. This is a story of survival, and I really felt all the struggles but also the hope Wizard experiences.
TW: animal abuse but it is my duty to tell you that the cat is alive by the end), rape, suicide, assault.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Sexual assault
Moderate: Rape and Suicidal thoughts
ladyofways's review
5.0
This was a really reassuring fantasy read, even though it's the first time I've encountered the book. It's a traditional, mid-80s early urban fantasy by Robin Hobb when she was still writing under her real name, with heavy anti-war themes and a TON of nostalgia for 80s Seattle. The premise is basically that this guy came back from the Vietnam War mentally and physically broken, primed for violence and death, and has turned himself into a peace-keeping homeless wizard. He refuses to remember anything he used to be, including his name, and instead rides the bus around Seattle, feeding pigeons, telling people Truths (captial T), and protecting the Emerald City in a vague magical sense. But when a great evil comes to the city, focused on him, he has to face all the things he's buried, which mostly means himself.
Since I used to work in Pioneer Square, although much more recently (the King Dome was demolished when I was a kid, so I barely remember its existence), the first couple chapters felt like a rare opportunity to wander my old stomping ground again. I loved each mention of the waterfront, the Market, the old Ride Free Zone, the Underground, the way the monorail station at Seattle Center used to be before the EMP was built; even the reference to the Sinking Ship parking garage just caught me right in the feels.
The whole thing just has so much love: for Seattle, for peace, for magic, that it was easy to get swept up in it. There's evil in the world, sure, but eventually the unlikely hero can learn to stand up to itwith a heavy dose of his lady's magic backing him up, tbf, and because he's Merlin I guess??? A friend of mine who lived through the Vietnam War recommended the book to me, and I could feel her experiences at the war protests and the war's aftermath soaking through the pages.
Granted, it's an old book. There are antiquated notions of relationships, "fierce" women, normalized abuse (though it's not approved of, there's a "well, what can you do?" attitude), some gender essentialism in the scenes with Lynda (not just the sex scenes, but the "man's" bar she takes him to and kind of her whole "I'm a giver" character ) and the constant mention of Cassie's "woman's" magic being about healing and plants. There's plenty of casual racism: the exaggerated descriptions of Rasputin's Blackness, when no white character is treated that way; Cassie showing up to Euripides dressed as a G*psy; Lynda bringing him "oriental" food. And the depiction of mental health issues is centered around 80s/post-war neglected PTSD stereotypes.
It's surely not a book for everyone. There's not much plot, mostly just watching Wizard'sslow decline as he grapples with his mental health . It's very embedded in his mental state, memories, and early fantasy depictions of magic as feelings and swirlings and mentally pushing "power" around. To a younger reader, it would likely feel too antiquated; the problematic stuff would overwhelm the sweetness. But having been partially raised by someone who lived in and loved that era in Seattle, having grown up reading Lackey and McCaffrey and Huff, this honestly felt like coming home and I loved it. <3
Since I used to work in Pioneer Square, although much more recently (the King Dome was demolished when I was a kid, so I barely remember its existence), the first couple chapters felt like a rare opportunity to wander my old stomping ground again. I loved each mention of the waterfront, the Market, the old Ride Free Zone, the Underground, the way the monorail station at Seattle Center used to be before the EMP was built; even the reference to the Sinking Ship parking garage just caught me right in the feels.
The whole thing just has so much love: for Seattle, for peace, for magic, that it was easy to get swept up in it. There's evil in the world, sure, but eventually the unlikely hero can learn to stand up to it
Granted, it's an old book. There are antiquated notions of relationships, "fierce" women, normalized abuse (though it's not approved of, there's a "well, what can you do?" attitude), some gender essentialism in the scenes with Lynda (
It's surely not a book for everyone. There's not much plot, mostly just watching Wizard's
farahmendlesohn's review
5.0
One of my very favourite fantasies, and it's about to be reprinted by Grim Oak Press.