It did have some vividly drawn scenes, and some sharp observations. The "other" world is a kind of waiting room where the characters can heal up safely before going back to deal with things. We don't see what difference it makes for them if someone on the surface is up to something bad. The characters were there, but not for anything that felt pressing for that reality. When the most exciting thing Koschei the Deathless has to do is attend a meeting, there is a major problem with the plotline. The characters were there, but not doing much of anything. The "other" world was dark and bleak, and not magical or exciting. I did recognize the other characters from Russian history and folklore, and it didn't really help. Perhaps if I had more of a background in Russian fairy tales I might have been more impressed, but despite having done a fair amount of reading (undergraduate major in Slavic folklore and history) I didn't know who it was. There is a villain, but not a very scary one, and the mastermind/big bad wasn't introduced until the very end. In addition, the parallel universe they move into wasn't particularly interesting. There are several characters, and intersecting story arcs, but the characters never felt fully real to me. I can see that this is in the same sub-genre as "Neverwhere," but it simply isn't as good. Show More confirms the truism that Neil is one of the nicest people in sff.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |