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A review by jonathanpalfrey
Return to Eddarta by Randall Garrett, Vicki Ann Heydron
2.0
Like the preceding volume, this is a straight "OK". It takes us quite pleasantly and competently through the steadily unwinding plot, without providing any scenes that I find compelling. I read it just to find out what happens next.
It's instructive but mystifying to see that an author can write this fluently and competently and yet produce a novel that lacks fizz and doesn't engage my enthusiasm. Some other authors may not seem to write any better, but they succeed in writing scenes that I positively enjoy reading and want to return to again and again.
The plot is well contrived in that it goes along through seven volumes at a fairly brisk pace, always coming up with some new twist and turn; and it all seems to fit together so well that I think the whole series must have been sketched out in advance, before the detailed writing began.
It's instructive but mystifying to see that an author can write this fluently and competently and yet produce a novel that lacks fizz and doesn't engage my enthusiasm. Some other authors may not seem to write any better, but they succeed in writing scenes that I positively enjoy reading and want to return to again and again.
The plot is well contrived in that it goes along through seven volumes at a fairly brisk pace, always coming up with some new twist and turn; and it all seems to fit together so well that I think the whole series must have been sketched out in advance, before the detailed writing began.