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luannerare 's review for:
Lord Valentine's Castle
by Robert Silverberg
I'm so dissapointed of this reading.
Silverberg has such a beautiful and fluid prose. The thing I loved the most about this book was how vast and wonderfull Majipur was, yet how gorgeously was described through the pages; the diversity, the scenarios, the complicated fauna, the neverending list of species and lifeforms inhabiting the planet and the system that allowed them to live side by side through it's history.
Damn, the worldbuilding was so amazing. But that's all I got from this book.
There's no story arc. I never felt the urge to read the next chapter because I already knew nothing was going to happen. Don't get me wrong tho: there's something-like a plot between the lines. In fact, they mention the main plot in almost every chapter, and being a saga I know they are not meant to achieve the main goal on the 1st book, but the author should have tried to go at least one step further into achieving that goal for the sake of his audience's patience.
And I feel obligated to mention the fact that the only character who went through some development was, of course, Valentine. And I don't think it was solely because he's the main character, but more because he's a) the MALE main character and b) the MALE WHITE HUMAN main character. I don't remember the rest of the crew's name because they only served a purpose: to be a plot device.
Specially Carabella, the only woman in the book and who had the same amount of potential as this book when I first started reading it.
But I'm probably being too progressive or too hard at judging this. I mean, it was written in the 80's, when people didn't know about basic plotlines or gender equality so it's okay. I guess.
Silverberg has such a beautiful and fluid prose. The thing I loved the most about this book was how vast and wonderfull Majipur was, yet how gorgeously was described through the pages; the diversity, the scenarios, the complicated fauna, the neverending list of species and lifeforms inhabiting the planet and the system that allowed them to live side by side through it's history.
Damn, the worldbuilding was so amazing. But that's all I got from this book.
There's no story arc. I never felt the urge to read the next chapter because I already knew nothing was going to happen. Don't get me wrong tho: there's something-like a plot between the lines. In fact, they mention the main plot
Spoiler
(Valentine's true identity)And I feel obligated to mention the fact that the only character who went through some development was, of course, Valentine. And I don't think it was solely because he's the main character, but more because he's a) the MALE main character and b) the MALE WHITE HUMAN main character. I don't remember the rest of the crew's name because they only served a purpose: to be a plot device.
Specially Carabella, the only woman in the book and who had the same amount of potential as this book when I first started reading it.
But I'm probably being too progressive or too hard at judging this. I mean, it was written in the 80's, when people didn't know about basic plotlines or gender equality so it's okay. I guess.