Book Review
Nov. 14th, 2002 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaI get through quite a lot of books, so am probably likely to spit out reviews occasionally....
This is a children's book, of the two-schoolkids-find-weird-shit-in-Dorset-during-summer-holidays kind.
It's been done before, and Alan Garner did it a lot better.
Right from the beginning, when the children accidentally awaken a druid who's been asleep for millennia waiting for a great hero, there's a sense of dragging inevitability about the whole thing. You can probably fill in the rest of the plot from there.
The author has a slightly shaky grasp of history (the druid is familiar with Wicca). And I'm not 100% convinced about his physics either - surely a hamster sitting between the railway tracks would get sucked into a swift death if a train went over the tracks?
In the preface, the author cites "several excellent websites" as his source of informaion on all things Wiccan. And it shows. Every time a ritual is described, it has that shiny "guidebook" quality you get in descriptions of places which have been written without the author having visited them.
It's not all bad, though. There's a few good lines in it here and there, and, if nothing else, the mother's attitude towards magic is quite refreshing. If you're stuck somewhere with nothing else to read, it shouldn't actively offend you.
Oh, unless you're of a graphic artist persuasion. In which case the cover will offend you. Half an hour with Photoshop, max.
This is a children's book, of the two-schoolkids-find-weird-shit-in-Dorset-during-summer-holidays kind.
It's been done before, and Alan Garner did it a lot better.
Right from the beginning, when the children accidentally awaken a druid who's been asleep for millennia waiting for a great hero, there's a sense of dragging inevitability about the whole thing. You can probably fill in the rest of the plot from there.
The author has a slightly shaky grasp of history (the druid is familiar with Wicca). And I'm not 100% convinced about his physics either - surely a hamster sitting between the railway tracks would get sucked into a swift death if a train went over the tracks?
In the preface, the author cites "several excellent websites" as his source of informaion on all things Wiccan. And it shows. Every time a ritual is described, it has that shiny "guidebook" quality you get in descriptions of places which have been written without the author having visited them.
It's not all bad, though. There's a few good lines in it here and there, and, if nothing else, the mother's attitude towards magic is quite refreshing. If you're stuck somewhere with nothing else to read, it shouldn't actively offend you.
Oh, unless you're of a graphic artist persuasion. In which case the cover will offend you. Half an hour with Photoshop, max.
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no subject
Date: 2002-11-14 03:49 pm (UTC)Does this include ones you have nailed to the ceiling?
no subject
Date: 2002-11-15 03:28 am (UTC)