Clovermead book review
Jun. 18th, 2004 01:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraClovermead, by David Randall
Who might want to read this book:
childrens/YA fantasy fans
people who know DR and are curious
Overall recommendation:
A fine book to pick up at a library and read sometime
Comments:
Clovermead is by-the-numbers YA fantasy. That sounds harsh. It's very competently done - there are some good moments and some nice lines, and at no point did I want to smack the author over the head for inconsistency, implausibility, or painful clunkiness. On the other hand, nothing really grabbed me. There was a shortage of vowel sounds - no "aha!", no "eeek!", no "oooo, neat". And not enough "oh my, what will happen next!". Too much of the suspense of the plot, in my opinion, hinged on a rather commonplace revelation - perils of being an older reader, I suppose, except that many fantasy-reading kids would catch it too. I also never felt really involved or invested with the characters (well, Clovermead, she's our only viewpoint), although that may be largely to do with the central struggle of her character development, uh, centering around a moral conflict I found rather tiresome and resolution I consider downright unfortunate. But we'll get to that in a second ::grin::. The supporting cast is reasonably sympathetic and interesting and, where failing to avoid cliche, at least isn't too annoying about it.
What You All Really Want To Know:
Yes, the heavy-handedness of the Christian allegory does at times intrude on the unfolding of the action and characters. I should point out that Mr. Randall subscribes to a moral theory I find... deficient, detrimental, and otherwise distasteful, and that my opinion cannot help but reflect that, while yours may vary. The climax of the moral action is a recognition of sin and request for aid from an external saviour that, while still several steps up from the Left Behind series, just had nothing to interest me, and that I'm not sure I would want to give kids to read until they were old enough to think about critically. (Of course kids survive reading all sorts of crap, but with a book so obviously aimed at forming their moral character in the wrong direction, I might want to be careful.) Oh, and the grotesquely self-sacrificial nun character... what purpose did that even serve? The politics are thankfully muted except for several wistful mentions of the old Empire which would surely set things right if only they would take over again.
Would I Read The Sequel:
Yes. Things seem fairly well set up at the end for a continuation - vague but grand prophecies, areas of the map left unexplored, the secondary characters all finally properly introduced and ready to interact, curious new powers, key conflicts left unresolved, the hope of the Empire comin' back and layin' down the good law, etc. And I have high hopes that with his Moral Point Made, DR will be able to move on past that and more fully explore the potential of his setting and characters... the potential is there.
Who might want to read this book:
childrens/YA fantasy fans
people who know DR and are curious
Overall recommendation:
A fine book to pick up at a library and read sometime
Comments:
Clovermead is by-the-numbers YA fantasy. That sounds harsh. It's very competently done - there are some good moments and some nice lines, and at no point did I want to smack the author over the head for inconsistency, implausibility, or painful clunkiness. On the other hand, nothing really grabbed me. There was a shortage of vowel sounds - no "aha!", no "eeek!", no "oooo, neat". And not enough "oh my, what will happen next!". Too much of the suspense of the plot, in my opinion, hinged on a rather commonplace revelation - perils of being an older reader, I suppose, except that many fantasy-reading kids would catch it too. I also never felt really involved or invested with the characters (well, Clovermead, she's our only viewpoint), although that may be largely to do with the central struggle of her character development, uh, centering around a moral conflict I found rather tiresome and resolution I consider downright unfortunate. But we'll get to that in a second ::grin::. The supporting cast is reasonably sympathetic and interesting and, where failing to avoid cliche, at least isn't too annoying about it.
What You All Really Want To Know:
Yes, the heavy-handedness of the Christian allegory does at times intrude on the unfolding of the action and characters. I should point out that Mr. Randall subscribes to a moral theory I find... deficient, detrimental, and otherwise distasteful, and that my opinion cannot help but reflect that, while yours may vary. The climax of the moral action is a recognition of sin and request for aid from an external saviour that, while still several steps up from the Left Behind series, just had nothing to interest me, and that I'm not sure I would want to give kids to read until they were old enough to think about critically. (Of course kids survive reading all sorts of crap, but with a book so obviously aimed at forming their moral character in the wrong direction, I might want to be careful.) Oh, and the grotesquely self-sacrificial nun character... what purpose did that even serve? The politics are thankfully muted except for several wistful mentions of the old Empire which would surely set things right if only they would take over again.
Would I Read The Sequel:
Yes. Things seem fairly well set up at the end for a continuation - vague but grand prophecies, areas of the map left unexplored, the secondary characters all finally properly introduced and ready to interact, curious new powers, key conflicts left unresolved, the hope of the Empire comin' back and layin' down the good law, etc. And I have high hopes that with his Moral Point Made, DR will be able to move on past that and more fully explore the potential of his setting and characters... the potential is there.
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Date: 2004-06-18 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-18 07:20 pm (UTC)