The Wildling

[salinea]

I better make a review of this before it goes fuzzy in my head.

All over I'd say the new book by CS Friedman, the Wildling, was without surprises. It was an excellent book, very well written, with themes very cleverly woven into it, but it lacked a certain spark of 'wow'.
In great part, I think it may be just because it was a sequel. Unlike her other SF books, it didn't make us discover a whole universe (and universe/society building is one of the thing Friedman is the most skilled at), it just plundged us into one we already knew and liked. Sure, we discovered a little bit more about the Braxin society, and that from another point of view, which was very interesting. We also learned about what became of the psychics, but I thought that part was too little unexplored, even though there were lots of awesome ideas about it. Overall, we were given new nuances, new details, more complexities, but we didn't learn anything really new and offputting. It was a pleasure getting back in this world, but disapointing to only get what we expected.
The characters were good and interesting to read about, but they did lack the charisma IMO of previous characters.
The most successful part of the book, IMO, was how the themes of the books were used and incorporated in the story. As in In Conquest Born, Friedman uses small quotes at the beginning of each chapter, and each of those quotes informed and were extrapolated in the chapter in a very elegant way. Eventualy, the novel's point, which was Identity, just as This Alien's Shore was Otherness, the Season of Madness was Change and In Conquest Born was Opposition, was achieved in a magistral way.
My last criticism was that the end was rather abrupt. If this book was made so as to close the loose ends that In Conquest Born had, I'm not very satisfyed because I feel like this one got quite as many loose ends.
A wonderful book, then, but slightly disapointing at the ending because I was expecting something more. Maybe I should blame it on the waiting.

Comments

The Wildling

[generalblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks for the comments, I wanted to know your opinion. You know this "Eventualy, the novel's point, which was Identity, just as This Alien's Shore was Otherness, the Season of Madness was Change and In Conquest Born was Opposition, was achieved in a magistral way." is really insightful and I had not realized it myself. I will of course read the Wildling, but perhaps I should reread In Conquest Born first? It will not be immediately though, I got that notorious TBR problem I mention several times every day ;)