David S. Garnett

I bought this about 3 years ago when I getting ready to run a Warhammer campaign. I thought it would help get me in the mood and give me ideas. BUT I never got around to it.

This is a very linear story with only one real main character and that character falls into the "blank slate with an epic destiny" cliche. I probably would have loved it when I was 12, with all the fighting and chaos warped mutants, but at 52 it didn't do much for me. I'm afraid I'll never find out who Konrad really "is", though by the end of the book you've got a pretty good idea.… (mais)

One thing I've noticed as I dip into paperback SF novels from the mid-70's is how amazingly thin they can be in more than just length. This has a scenario of a future Earth with underground Watchers, above ground feudal kingdoms in constant war, and then it gets weird. How things got this way, how people live in it day to day, etc., is completely unexplored. Instead we have passages like the following: "But had the blacksmith really seen her? She could not be the only woman with red hair. And who, assuming it was she, was the rider accompanying her? They rode towards Verdun. What did she want there? And--the thought suddenly occurred to him--what if she would not come back with him...?" Question after question. This goes on with character after character, for pages, throughout the book. The effect is not transformative, the way some books with odd narrative styles are. It certainly is not a window into the 1-dimensional characters. It's just exhausting.

Not recommended.… (mais)

Thoroughly skimmed. I do not like New Wave SF. I'll just say one thing: in the intro., the editor regrets that none of the female authors who submitted stories provided him with anything like what he wants. Well, judging by the stories that were accepted, that's because none of them were sufficiently sexist and misogynist.

In the one coherent story I did finish, [a:Jack Deighton|1441732|Jack Deighton|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66-251a730d696018971ef4a443cdeaae05.jpg] wrote about the colonization of Mars. An increasing number of personnel were women. No longer a rarity on Mars, their benefits were not restricted to their abilities as project workers. The first true Martians (twins) had been born the year before, and several more were on the way." And that's just a minor example, one I can stomach."… (mais)