art_cart_ron 's review for:

Shaman by Kim Stanley Robinson

3.0

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I really liked the idea of the book, and was excited to see how KSR executed it. The book itself would probably have been good if it were about 40% shorter. The padding was painful to read - almost like it was designed to be skimmed. I hope this wasn't bowing to a page count requirement, or some other lame art-sapping motive. The story at its heart was good. There were definitely areas of interest, though these were far outnumbered by predictable elements that were buried in pages upon pages of irrelevant repetitive description. The highlight is probably the bit of adventure around 60% in.
I chose this book as my introduction to Robinson - feeling that the Mars books would feel like a bigger commitment. I'm afraid it will be a while before I read him again, because this outing - while not bad - just wasn't quite worth the time it took to read it.