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A review by ornithopter1
The Many-Coloured Land by Julian May
2.0
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A clunky plot, with dissatisfying characters; all of which is poorly written in bland prose which skimps on the details and irritates with its pretentious use of unnecessary, labyrinthine vocabulary.
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The Many-Colored Land, sees a disparate bunch of misfits deliver themselves through a time-portal to ancient Earth. What they find there is not the wildness paradise they expect.
Too many characters are introduced in the first section of the book. A muddle of character introductions, giving each character their own chapter turn-by-turn, is a poor structure that gives too fleeting an impression of each protagonist. Partly due to this short-changing of character time and partly because of the poor writing, I found I was constantly forgetting who was who until I was a considerable way through the book. The plot setup is also rather clunky. Although this may be partly forgiven for the story-lines that the opening sets-up later in the book. Yes, some of the ideas were actually pretty decent despite all my other criticisms.
Once I had a grip on the characters I tried to enjoy the story, though there was so much to cause ire and irritation that my approval was only ever half-hearted. The choice of language is pretentious & obscure, and the prose has no rhythm whatsoever. It is a real. effort. to read. Julian May loves vocabulary - no bad thing in and of itself - unfortunately she chooses to use the full extent of her learning in a relentless fashion which makes some of the Physics papers I read for my dissertation look positively transparent! What is a pother? Oh its a 16th century word for a commotion. There is no nuance to the word 'pother' which would delineate from that of the perfectly useful 'commotion'. Thanks, Julian, for making me look that up, completely deadening the rhythm of my reading. But, um, what is an OPAQUE pother? Well, it just bloody pretentious and irritating.
It occurred to me near the end of my epic journey that what I was reading felt like the highlights of a book. Every scene felt rushed. It was as if the author had all the key scenes planned out, felt bored writing the interstitial passages, and was unequal to the task of rendering the dramatic moments in any detail (ironic, considering the breadth of language).
The end, when it eventually jogs into view with a last minute burst of enthusiasm, ISN'T an ending. Half of the characters we dutifully followed through the book are forgotten somewhere around the 2/3 mark. What the hell happened to them? I'll, umm, probably not be rushing to find out if they did anything interesting in the sequels.
A clunky plot, with dissatisfying characters; all of which is poorly written in bland prose which skimps on the details and irritates with its pretentious use of unnecessary, labyrinthine vocabulary.
:::::::::::::::
The Many-Colored Land, sees a disparate bunch of misfits deliver themselves through a time-portal to ancient Earth. What they find there is not the wildness paradise they expect.
Too many characters are introduced in the first section of the book. A muddle of character introductions, giving each character their own chapter turn-by-turn, is a poor structure that gives too fleeting an impression of each protagonist. Partly due to this short-changing of character time and partly because of the poor writing, I found I was constantly forgetting who was who until I was a considerable way through the book. The plot setup is also rather clunky. Although this may be partly forgiven for the story-lines that the opening sets-up later in the book. Yes, some of the ideas were actually pretty decent despite all my other criticisms.
Once I had a grip on the characters I tried to enjoy the story, though there was so much to cause ire and irritation that my approval was only ever half-hearted. The choice of language is pretentious & obscure, and the prose has no rhythm whatsoever. It is a real. effort. to read. Julian May loves vocabulary - no bad thing in and of itself - unfortunately she chooses to use the full extent of her learning in a relentless fashion which makes some of the Physics papers I read for my dissertation look positively transparent! What is a pother? Oh its a 16th century word for a commotion. There is no nuance to the word 'pother' which would delineate from that of the perfectly useful 'commotion'. Thanks, Julian, for making me look that up, completely deadening the rhythm of my reading. But, um, what is an OPAQUE pother? Well, it just bloody pretentious and irritating.
It occurred to me near the end of my epic journey that what I was reading felt like the highlights of a book. Every scene felt rushed. It was as if the author had all the key scenes planned out, felt bored writing the interstitial passages, and was unequal to the task of rendering the dramatic moments in any detail (ironic, considering the breadth of language).
The end, when it eventually jogs into view with a last minute burst of enthusiasm, ISN'T an ending. Half of the characters we dutifully followed through the book are forgotten somewhere around the 2/3 mark. What the hell happened to them? I'll, umm, probably not be rushing to find out if they did anything interesting in the sequels.