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kentcryptid 's review for:
Under the Pendulum Sun
by Jeannette Ng
Under the Pendulum Sun is an ambitious book with an intriguing concept, but for me it didn't entirely work.
Catherine Helstone travels to fairyland to look for her brother, a missionary on an unsuccessful quest to convert the fae to Christianity. The initial descriptions of the land of the fae and its inhabitants are imaginative and unsettling, but Catherine quickly arrives at her brother's house and then basically doesn't leave it again for the rest of the book's 400 pages. It feels like there's an exciting world out there that could be explored, but the author is more interested in religious musings and analysis of Catherine's incestuous relationship with her brother.
The concept of missionaries going to fairyland could have been a great chance for a scathing satire on empire and evangelism, but this never really takes off as a theme either.
Catherine Helstone travels to fairyland to look for her brother, a missionary on an unsuccessful quest to convert the fae to Christianity. The initial descriptions of the land of the fae and its inhabitants are imaginative and unsettling, but Catherine quickly arrives at her brother's house and then basically doesn't leave it again for the rest of the book's 400 pages. It feels like there's an exciting world out there that could be explored, but the author is more interested in religious musings and analysis of Catherine's incestuous relationship with her brother.
The concept of missionaries going to fairyland could have been a great chance for a scathing satire on empire and evangelism, but this never really takes off as a theme either.