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A review by annasirius
God Stalk by P.C. Hodgell
3.0
2.7
This novel calls many elements its own that make it - considering it's date of first publication - a surprisingly fresh read and should elevate it quickly to my top ten. Unfortunately, the writer was ambitious, as the blurps suggest, but to me she was not yet successful in realising her ambitions. Too often, I simply do not know why the main character, Jame, does what she does. E.g., she plans to leave the town as soon as the mountain passes clear - and yet she enters into an apprenticeship (a long-term commitment) that goes against all her deeply rooted religious beliefs. There is not much time spent on explaining what she finds fascinating about becoming a thief. Everytime Jame tries to figure out something about her people's past or religious beliefs, I feel entirely left in the dark: the author never provides the reader with any knowledge, any hints, in advance that would make Jame's heureka-moments enlightening. There are a bunch of characters in the book for which I needed to draw up a list to even remember who is who. Some of them have been given some detail to make them mildly exciting, but I didn't really bond with any. Bane is supposed to be the big, dark antagonist, but his characterisation as 'the guy who kills little boys sadistically for amusement' in absence of any other details is just clumsy. His helping Jame once is later called 'their uneasy friendship' (or some such thing) - to me, the two never established a relationship at all, and thus Jame's actions to provoke him make little sense to me.
In short, I think there is a lot of good material here, but it is not developed properly, leaving the story half raw and losing me on the way.
This novel calls many elements its own that make it - considering it's date of first publication - a surprisingly fresh read and should elevate it quickly to my top ten. Unfortunately, the writer was ambitious, as the blurps suggest, but to me she was not yet successful in realising her ambitions. Too often, I simply do not know why the main character, Jame, does what she does. E.g., she plans to leave the town as soon as the mountain passes clear - and yet she enters into an apprenticeship (a long-term commitment) that goes against all her deeply rooted religious beliefs. There is not much time spent on explaining what she finds fascinating about becoming a thief. Everytime Jame tries to figure out something about her people's past or religious beliefs, I feel entirely left in the dark: the author never provides the reader with any knowledge, any hints, in advance that would make Jame's heureka-moments enlightening. There are a bunch of characters in the book for which I needed to draw up a list to even remember who is who. Some of them have been given some detail to make them mildly exciting, but I didn't really bond with any. Bane is supposed to be the big, dark antagonist, but his characterisation as 'the guy who kills little boys sadistically for amusement' in absence of any other details is just clumsy. His helping Jame once is later called 'their uneasy friendship' (or some such thing) - to me, the two never established a relationship at all, and thus Jame's actions to provoke him make little sense to me.
In short, I think there is a lot of good material here, but it is not developed properly, leaving the story half raw and losing me on the way.