Alright, I know, you've caught me loafing. I've been on vaccation at my parents house and have been FAR, FAR too lazy to use my parent's horrible slow dialup connection. Plus there was too much fishing and loafing to do for me to bother writing at all. I did get a bit of reading done, but really not that much. My vaccation wore me out to tell you the truth.
I did get to finish Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn. I've really struggled with reviewing this book. It's a asian fantasy.
As I ponder this some more let's have a bit of information about Lian Hearn. Lian is a pseudonym for Gillian Rubinstien, an award winning Austrailian children's author. She has over 30 books in print. The Tales of the Otori series is the only set that is published under this pseudonym.
She has this to say about the Nightengale Floor
In Japanese art and literature I am fascinated by the use of silence and asymmetry. I like the concept of ma: the space between that enables perception to occur. I wanted to see if I could use silence in writing. So the style is spare, elliptical and suggestive. What is not said is as important as what is stated.
"Spare" hardly describes it. This book is almost barren. A lot of science fiction and fantasy books could use a few hundred pages less than they have. This book is guilty of the opposite. There's not enough information. Important characters are trotted out before the reader only to disapear after a few pages. Who are these people who influence the plot so much? Why don't we get to see them more? Hear about them through other characters more? Why is so much time spent on Lady Maruyama and her character only to have her tragic death barely acknowledged? Hearn speeds through some really important plot development in the beginning. I think that she does this in order to get to the relationship between Shigeru and Takeo. Instead of spare, her writing ends up seeming harried, often making it difficult to follow the story. If you get lost and can't follow the characters, it's not due to the fact that the names are foriegn, it is due to the fact that the author flits around character development like a hummingbird.
And here dear reader, here is my biggest problem with this story:
The IDEA of the story, the plot, the ideas within the story are Good. No, that doesn't even describe it. They're amazing! However, the writing and execution of the story are unforgivably bad. Character development is horrendous, and the entire book is erradic. It's because the story is so good that the writing is so unforgivable. If you don't believe me on how good the ideas are let me tell you something I find a bit shameful; I am still fighting the urge to read the second one. I keep telling myself that maybe it'll be like Eragon and she'll have grown up a bit. But on the other hand it was SO very very bad that if the second one is just as bad, I'll stew over it for weeks like I did with this one. So right here and now I vow to stop the vicious cycle of abuse to myself and I will NOT read the next one. Someone should have been a better editor and forced her to finish the story properly. I hear that it's going to be a movie soon. Thankfully she is not the screen writer.
