Book Review
Oct. 1st, 2005 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariElantris
by Barry Sanderson
This fantasy novel was overall good. It's main flaws derive, I think, more from it's being a first novel than anything else. The plot revolves around the country of Arelon, which was formerly ruled by the city of Elantris and its inhabitants. Elantrians were quasi-godlike beings, almost immortal and able to wield a rune-based kind of magic. Elantrians were not a separate race like elves, though, but ordinary people transformed by a random and mysterious process. However, a natural disaster drained changed Elantrians into diseased creatures and made the transformations a curse rather than a blessing. The resulting chaos brought an unscrupulous man to the throne and made the weakened country prey for the imperial ambitions of a ruthless theocracy.
The main weakness is that the prose is a little too earnest and a little too plain. THe narrative structure is also incredibly straightforward. I prefer something a little more subtle, with more texture.
The best thing is that Sanderson has some pretty original ideas. First of all, the world he has built has none of the typical swords-and-sorcery trappings common in the genre. The driving forces in the novel are politics and religion, not simplistic good vs. evil. The secrets and mysteries revealed over the course of the book are interesting and not wholly predictable. And the characters are multi-dimensional and believable.
by Barry Sanderson
This fantasy novel was overall good. It's main flaws derive, I think, more from it's being a first novel than anything else. The plot revolves around the country of Arelon, which was formerly ruled by the city of Elantris and its inhabitants. Elantrians were quasi-godlike beings, almost immortal and able to wield a rune-based kind of magic. Elantrians were not a separate race like elves, though, but ordinary people transformed by a random and mysterious process. However, a natural disaster drained changed Elantrians into diseased creatures and made the transformations a curse rather than a blessing. The resulting chaos brought an unscrupulous man to the throne and made the weakened country prey for the imperial ambitions of a ruthless theocracy.
The main weakness is that the prose is a little too earnest and a little too plain. THe narrative structure is also incredibly straightforward. I prefer something a little more subtle, with more texture.
The best thing is that Sanderson has some pretty original ideas. First of all, the world he has built has none of the typical swords-and-sorcery trappings common in the genre. The driving forces in the novel are politics and religion, not simplistic good vs. evil. The secrets and mysteries revealed over the course of the book are interesting and not wholly predictable. And the characters are multi-dimensional and believable.
