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cupiscent 's review for:
The Heir of Night
by Helen Lowe
A very stately and thematic fantasy, of the Tolkien school, full of forces, mysteries and struggles, without necessarily getting a lot done. I found it sort of tedious; your mileage may vary.
There seems to be a really interesting story in the back-end of this book, and occasionally glimpses of it were caught through the mist. I was intrigued by the deep inculcation of the warrior culture, interested in the "outsider" characters and their stories, and definitely excited by the origin tales of the world and the Derai (not space elves, totally not space elves, honestly officer). But most of the book was not concerned with exploring those things, preferring to wander about in dreams and the aether dealing in symbolism and prophecy and tableauxed duels of power and will. Occasionally shiny, mostly dull.
Part of my problem with this is that it just didn't move. The first part is concerned with the activities of one night, the second part with the activities of a second night some weeks after the first, and the third part finally gets out in the world and does some stuff, but eh.
Now, don't get me wrong, that's not necessarily an inherently bad structure. I was very impressed with [b:The Forging Of The Shadows|1741471|The Forging Of The Shadows (Lightbringer Trilogy)|Oliver Johnson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1187645239s/1741471.jpg|1739096], which takes place from dusk until dawn of one cataclysmic night (but includes oodles of backstory for all the main characters in flashbacks, etc), and one of my favourite books is [b:A Song for Arbonne|104085|A Song for Arbonne|Guy Gavriel Kay|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309212350s/104085.jpg|2498881], which is almost theatrical in the way it moves between acts that are comprised of one-night activities... it's just there are lots of characters moving in intriguingly different directions at those single events.
The Heir of Night combines simplicity of structure with simplicity of plot (there's one storyline, with occasionally tiny shoots of branch-off) and a narrow cast, and it's just too little to engage me fully.
There seems to be a really interesting story in the back-end of this book, and occasionally glimpses of it were caught through the mist. I was intrigued by the deep inculcation of the warrior culture, interested in the "outsider" characters and their stories, and definitely excited by the origin tales of the world and the Derai (not space elves, totally not space elves, honestly officer). But most of the book was not concerned with exploring those things, preferring to wander about in dreams and the aether dealing in symbolism and prophecy and tableauxed duels of power and will. Occasionally shiny, mostly dull.
Part of my problem with this is that it just didn't move. The first part is concerned with the activities of one night, the second part with the activities of a second night some weeks after the first, and the third part finally gets out in the world and does some stuff, but eh.
Now, don't get me wrong, that's not necessarily an inherently bad structure. I was very impressed with [b:The Forging Of The Shadows|1741471|The Forging Of The Shadows (Lightbringer Trilogy)|Oliver Johnson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1187645239s/1741471.jpg|1739096], which takes place from dusk until dawn of one cataclysmic night (but includes oodles of backstory for all the main characters in flashbacks, etc), and one of my favourite books is [b:A Song for Arbonne|104085|A Song for Arbonne|Guy Gavriel Kay|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309212350s/104085.jpg|2498881], which is almost theatrical in the way it moves between acts that are comprised of one-night activities... it's just there are lots of characters moving in intriguingly different directions at those single events.
The Heir of Night combines simplicity of structure with simplicity of plot (there's one storyline, with occasionally tiny shoots of branch-off) and a narrow cast, and it's just too little to engage me fully.