Patricia McKillip, Fool's Run
Sep. 24th, 2007 12:33 pmPatricia McKillip, Fool’s Run: This gets a pass, in the end, but only because the second half is a wild ride. Though really, [spoiler]?
The set-up: a woman locked away for life, considered the Underworld’s most dangerous prisoner. (Though you have to take the author’s word for this, at first, since for most of the book, Terra Viridian is too out-of-it to tie her own shoes, let alone go off on another laser-rifle rampage.) The central mystery of the book of course is: why’d she do it? What possessed her? Is she just crazy, or…I think most of you can already guess the answer to this question, XD. If she were simply crazy, where would the story be?
( Other characters )
And that’s, er, it. The rest is a matter of maneuvering the players into place at the space-station, with who-cares-what flimsy excuses, so they can all be there when [spoiler] goes down.
At this point, my biggest complaints were: the Magician is a cipher, Aaron and Jase are clichés who spend more time acting out of character than in-character, those excuses sure are flimsy, and Patricia McKillip obviously doesn’t know anything about…a lot of things, actually, but mainly music – can’t write anything technical, so she just has the Magician playing the same note over an over (for the record, a B flat). A minor quibble, maybe, but the killer is in the details, and the book lacks interesting detail…
…in the first half. It does get better later on. ^^; McKillip has the sort of style that imbues nearly every act with implied layers of meaning, so I sort of got cranky when there wasn’t anything there – but sometimes there was something there, and then it was all worth it. (An example of a line I really liked: an ex-con “was pacing a small, very contain oval between two couches; its exact dimensions fascinated and appalled the Musician.” See? Isn’t that cool? Now If only the ratio of A to B were more in B’s favor.)
Then there’s some stuff about the past, and the action happens…okay, I have a small problem with the content of the action.
( Spoilers from here to the end. )
In summary: nice scenery, poor plotting, occasionally great writing. Checking IMDB, I see that this book has not been made into a movie, which is a shame, since it would really be a great one -- all the structuring, logic, and cliché issues would disappear in a visual medium, leaving behind pure, unadulterated SF coolness. (Also I’m impressed all over again by the cover, which strikes a perfect balance between ambiguous and apt.) Will probably read more by McKillip, in spite of everything. ^^; Any recommendations? Books with actual substance appreciated. (I've already read the Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy.)
The set-up: a woman locked away for life, considered the Underworld’s most dangerous prisoner. (Though you have to take the author’s word for this, at first, since for most of the book, Terra Viridian is too out-of-it to tie her own shoes, let alone go off on another laser-rifle rampage.) The central mystery of the book of course is: why’d she do it? What possessed her? Is she just crazy, or…I think most of you can already guess the answer to this question, XD. If she were simply crazy, where would the story be?
( Other characters )
And that’s, er, it. The rest is a matter of maneuvering the players into place at the space-station, with who-cares-what flimsy excuses, so they can all be there when [spoiler] goes down.
At this point, my biggest complaints were: the Magician is a cipher, Aaron and Jase are clichés who spend more time acting out of character than in-character, those excuses sure are flimsy, and Patricia McKillip obviously doesn’t know anything about…a lot of things, actually, but mainly music – can’t write anything technical, so she just has the Magician playing the same note over an over (for the record, a B flat). A minor quibble, maybe, but the killer is in the details, and the book lacks interesting detail…
…in the first half. It does get better later on. ^^; McKillip has the sort of style that imbues nearly every act with implied layers of meaning, so I sort of got cranky when there wasn’t anything there – but sometimes there was something there, and then it was all worth it. (An example of a line I really liked: an ex-con “was pacing a small, very contain oval between two couches; its exact dimensions fascinated and appalled the Musician.” See? Isn’t that cool? Now If only the ratio of A to B were more in B’s favor.)
Then there’s some stuff about the past, and the action happens…okay, I have a small problem with the content of the action.
( Spoilers from here to the end. )
In summary: nice scenery, poor plotting, occasionally great writing. Checking IMDB, I see that this book has not been made into a movie, which is a shame, since it would really be a great one -- all the structuring, logic, and cliché issues would disappear in a visual medium, leaving behind pure, unadulterated SF coolness. (Also I’m impressed all over again by the cover, which strikes a perfect balance between ambiguous and apt.) Will probably read more by McKillip, in spite of everything. ^^; Any recommendations? Books with actual substance appreciated. (I've already read the Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy.)