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saerryc 's review for:
Suldrun's Garden
by Jack Vance
This is by no means for everyone, but might be worthwhile if you go into it with a proper sense of what you should expect.
Vance does a fantastic job of evoking a sense of the Celtic Otherworld, better than any other modern author I've read (The only other thing I can think of that even comes close is the Tom Bombadil sequence in Lord of the Rings). This is centered around the idea that there's a supernatural realm that it's possible for mortals to bump up against, especially in places such as forests. Supernatural entities (i.e. fairies, magic-users, pseudo-goddesses) might give the mortals some sort of quest or task to do; there tend to be horrible consequences if/when the mortals offend the supernatural by breaking their ritual rules or by desecrating nature; things are often complicated by time passing differently in the fairy world than in the regular world; and the mortals emerge from the encounter forever changed, if they emerge at all. It's often fun to follow along the heroes of such a story as they jump through ridiculous, arbitrary hoops to overcome the dangerous obstacles and monsters in their way.
This type of story is inherently episodic, with plots meandering all over the place as the Otherworld constantly complicates anyone's attempts to do any sort of planning. The best Otherworld stories, thus, are those with strong, memorable protagonists, whose random adventures you enjoy reading about and whose character arcs make up for the unavoidable lack of plot continuity. In my opinion, the single best example of this is the Irish Tain Bo Cuailnge (I am particularly fond of Thomas Kinsella's translation, simply called The Tain), in which Cuchulainn kicks ass and puts analogous mythic heroes to shame.
Such a protagonist is what this book is missing. Vance's premise is to take Game of Thrones-like political maneuvering and have it get mixed up with the Otherworld. This is actually a pretty good idea, and he handles the Otherworld part of it particularly well. But there's nothing memorable about any of the main characters---there's little personality, little depth, little reason to like them. Perhaps as a consequence of that, the story inspires little emotion, except for two scenes that are notable exceptions. In a story that deliberately has only a loose plot, this is a near-crippling problem. The Otherworld can be cool, but it becomes merely tedious when you don't care what happens to the hero.
Overall, the ideas are good, but the execution is mixed (it does get better after a particularly wretched beginning). Not essential, but enough of it is decent that it might be worth a shot if you're into Celtic mythology and/or the idea of the Otherworld
Vance does a fantastic job of evoking a sense of the Celtic Otherworld, better than any other modern author I've read (The only other thing I can think of that even comes close is the Tom Bombadil sequence in Lord of the Rings). This is centered around the idea that there's a supernatural realm that it's possible for mortals to bump up against, especially in places such as forests. Supernatural entities (i.e. fairies, magic-users, pseudo-goddesses) might give the mortals some sort of quest or task to do; there tend to be horrible consequences if/when the mortals offend the supernatural by breaking their ritual rules or by desecrating nature; things are often complicated by time passing differently in the fairy world than in the regular world; and the mortals emerge from the encounter forever changed, if they emerge at all. It's often fun to follow along the heroes of such a story as they jump through ridiculous, arbitrary hoops to overcome the dangerous obstacles and monsters in their way.
This type of story is inherently episodic, with plots meandering all over the place as the Otherworld constantly complicates anyone's attempts to do any sort of planning. The best Otherworld stories, thus, are those with strong, memorable protagonists, whose random adventures you enjoy reading about and whose character arcs make up for the unavoidable lack of plot continuity. In my opinion, the single best example of this is the Irish Tain Bo Cuailnge (I am particularly fond of Thomas Kinsella's translation, simply called The Tain), in which Cuchulainn kicks ass and puts analogous mythic heroes to shame.
Such a protagonist is what this book is missing. Vance's premise is to take Game of Thrones-like political maneuvering and have it get mixed up with the Otherworld. This is actually a pretty good idea, and he handles the Otherworld part of it particularly well. But there's nothing memorable about any of the main characters---there's little personality, little depth, little reason to like them. Perhaps as a consequence of that, the story inspires little emotion, except for two scenes that are notable exceptions. In a story that deliberately has only a loose plot, this is a near-crippling problem. The Otherworld can be cool, but it becomes merely tedious when you don't care what happens to the hero.
Overall, the ideas are good, but the execution is mixed (it does get better after a particularly wretched beginning). Not essential, but enough of it is decent that it might be worth a shot if you're into Celtic mythology and/or the idea of the Otherworld