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A review by timinbc
Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett
3.0
3.5, really. Better than average.
Lookit, the magic system here is completely ridiculous. Right off, it assumes that reality has a personality and can be persuaded that things are not as they seem. (So do real things, which is not quite as much of a stretch. Many of us speak to inanimate objects; the only difference is that we don't expect a reply). No, Siri, I'm not talking to you, and I'm sorry if you thought I was calling YOU inanimate.
OTOH, SF/F authors are allowed one impossible thing, of which they can say, "I know, but what if?"
Bennett has done that here, as meticulously as any Agatha Christie plot.
It's a long, slow, wordy book. Like so many fantasy books these days, it relies heavily on offscreen slaughter of millions of ordinary people, and often seems to revel in it, providing juicy detail. I know, I know, orc genocide goes back beyond Tolkien, and what does gore mean after Game of Thrones?
Sancia's still good. Orso's weary world view is useful. Gregor is far too visible in his noble suffering.
Orfelia's way too predictable.
I like the idea of dual Bad Guys. I didn't care for Crasedes's James-Bond-villain gloating and explaining, but it was nicely balanced by Valeria's underexplaining.
The plot was mostly predictable, but Bennett left room for us to wonder WHO would do the inevitable things. The Tevanne twist at the end was good.
There's far too much reliance on the old trope of "stall them while I get this done" ... "ugh, eck, I can't" ... "you have to" ... "3,2,1" .. "got it!" This is just the red LED timer on the bomb, the one that never explodes but also never gets stopped with more than one second left.
I recognize the considerable effort Bennett has made here to think about what, in a world like this, would define the bad guy, and even to think about whether there is, or can be, a macro-level good guy. Are we just hopeless, with our own Aziraphale and Crowley maintaining the dynamic tension without which we'd all just tear ourselves apart?
Worth reading, but I'm also glad it's over. Bennett has left the door open for another volume, for which I am a definite "maybe."
Lookit, the magic system here is completely ridiculous. Right off, it assumes that reality has a personality and can be persuaded that things are not as they seem. (So do real things, which is not quite as much of a stretch. Many of us speak to inanimate objects; the only difference is that we don't expect a reply). No, Siri, I'm not talking to you, and I'm sorry if you thought I was calling YOU inanimate.
OTOH, SF/F authors are allowed one impossible thing, of which they can say, "I know, but what if?"
Bennett has done that here, as meticulously as any Agatha Christie plot.
It's a long, slow, wordy book. Like so many fantasy books these days, it relies heavily on offscreen slaughter of millions of ordinary people, and often seems to revel in it, providing juicy detail. I know, I know, orc genocide goes back beyond Tolkien, and what does gore mean after Game of Thrones?
Sancia's still good. Orso's weary world view is useful. Gregor is far too visible in his noble suffering.
Orfelia's way too predictable.
I like the idea of dual Bad Guys. I didn't care for Crasedes's James-Bond-villain gloating and explaining, but it was nicely balanced by Valeria's underexplaining.
The plot was mostly predictable, but Bennett left room for us to wonder WHO would do the inevitable things. The Tevanne twist at the end was good.
There's far too much reliance on the old trope of "stall them while I get this done" ... "ugh, eck, I can't" ... "you have to" ... "3,2,1" .. "got it!" This is just the red LED timer on the bomb, the one that never explodes but also never gets stopped with more than one second left.
I recognize the considerable effort Bennett has made here to think about what, in a world like this, would define the bad guy, and even to think about whether there is, or can be, a macro-level good guy. Are we just hopeless, with our own Aziraphale and Crowley maintaining the dynamic tension without which we'd all just tear ourselves apart?
Worth reading, but I'm also glad it's over. Bennett has left the door open for another volume, for which I am a definite "maybe."