Woodrow Landfair

I picked this up at a whim when I saw it on a shelf at the library. Something about the cover just caught my attention, and I hoped to surprise myself with something interesting and outside my normal interests. Unfortunately, it did not "wow" me.

The very beginning of it all was good enough as set-up, though the failure to "show, don't tell" was a bit overt. Shortly after that, it descended into a structureless ramble that lasted through a significant percentage of the book. It was more entertaining than the "begats" in Genesis, and an easier read than the soul-crushing numbers of the dead in The Gulag Archipelago but it was less informative than those "begats" and less gripping than those numbers. I slogged through it in bits and pieces while finishing other reads much more quickly.

It finally started picking up some real storytelling. I don't remember when, exactly -- maybe two thirds of the way into the book. At that point, I hoped it would build toward an intense, or at least engaging, climax, as well as a satisfying conclusion. Instead, what I got was a satisfying climax and a conclusion that felt a bit forced, but at least it held my interest enough to read much of the ending in one sitting before it dropped that interest on the floor.

Overall, I don't feel like it was a criminal waste of time, and I did like some of what the author obviously intended to convey, even if I did not feel like he did the best job conveying it.… (mehr)