Robert H

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• Rated 2 stars

“Every book so far had pace, thrills, and interesting characters. For his final effort, GRR Martin decided to split the book in two (an annoying trend), and put all the boring / annoying characters in this one, and all the exciting / interesting characters in the other. That's cheating!

The result is a bit of a mess. Not as exciting, full of exposition (to cover the story as told in the other 6 books), full of highly predictable thoughts by unoriginal, witless characters... It is a major disappointment. Still, at least I can get back to reading other writers now!”

Robert H wrote this review Friday, March 14 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Despite the off-putting cover image, this is a wonderful novel. Written by a poet, it is no surprise that the use of language is precise, skillful, melodic and beautiful to the ear, but all the language in the world can't save a novel if characters and plot are off. Fortunately, the characters in this are believable and convincing (despite the semi-fictitious premise) and the story is interesting to read. For some reason, it is the wandering singer who visits at the start and at the end of the story who sticks in my memory the strongest, and some of his observations of the people he entertains.”

Robert H wrote this review Saturday, March 1 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“A brilliant start, and a very interesting conclusion. Unfortunately, what happens between the start and the end is 2000 years of very dodgy, tediously linked history. As convincing as the conclusion and the start can be, the dodgy tedious links in between lose the book credibility. Still, I'd recommend it as an interesting read.”

Robert H wrote this review Saturday, March 1 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Starting out with brilliant writing, wry, British humour, an ear for beautiful sentences and enough magic to feel a bit like Gaiman's Stardust, this novel soon loses its pace and enters a few hundred pages of less than surefooted development, before ultimately regaining momentum and coming to a conlusion that is, perhaps, not as happy as I would have expected. The writing is beautiful, but the plotting is a bit asymmetric, and the lack of female characters makes this novel sometimes a bit hard going. Mr Norrell, initially a bit of a grouch but vaguely likeable, turns into such a bitter Scrooge that he is difficult to bear, while Jonathan Strange spends a lot of time in a kind of limbo. I'd recommend it, and I will by Clarke's next novel, and I hope to see the movie, but I don't think this book is quite as wonderful as it could have been...”

Robert H wrote this review Saturday, March 1 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“Truly one of the masterpieces of science fiction, this story is immensely touching, relatively short (like Dune, it is essentially a novella that has been extended to full novel length), and rich in character development and all those other pesky things SF is known to occasionally skimp on. I'd recommend it highly to anyone.”

Robert H wrote this review Saturday, March 1 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Continuing the operatic scale saga that is A Song of Ice and Fire, this is by far the bloodiest book so far. If the second book left me feeling slightly complacent and assuming that, after the surprise deaths of major characters in the first, the story would now return to conventional and play out according to expectations, this book shattered those suspicions. By the end, half the main characters are dead. The writing is still serious and epic in tone, still reminiscent of Dune (but still without Dune's originality or wealth of ideas), and still highly readable and entertaining. It's a dark and bitter series, this, operatic, entertaining, riveting and vicious.”

Robert H wrote this review Saturday, March 1 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“The second book in what is turning into a bit of a neverending series. It's well written, and each chapter gets progressively more exciting towards the end, only to cause some frustration when it is left behind for a chapter that takes place elsewhere (and takes its own time to get more exciting). In some ways, these books have semblance to Frank Herbert's Dune - the intrigue, the thrills, the language, the courts. In other ways, Dune is much superior (the amount of ideas, imagination, etc.) It's enjoyable and a good read. No more, no less.”

Robert H wrote this review Wednesday, February 20 2008. ( reply | permalink )