Janny Wurts, Traitor's Knot

I suspect that moving to Meisha Merlin after years with HarperFoo is the publishing equivalent of getting canceled on the networks and picked up by TNT. I have a certain fondness for the series in which this is the latest entry -- the one that started with Curse of the Mistwraith and has been rambling slowly along ever since -- but I can see why there might have been problems with declining sales. It's a long series of long books, intricate and complex and written in an idiosyncratic style. None of the main characters are unambiguously likeable, and the author's sympathy seems to be firmly with the camp for whom the survival of humanity is not the prime consideration. And it's never been obvious that the series has an end in view, unlike the Wheel of Time where, however bogged down the story has been for the last several books, at least we know that Carmaggedon is coming eventually.

Meisha Merlin had a real struggle bringing this book out, too; it was delayed and delayed and delayed, and I'm not sure the final result is completely satisfactory as an artifact; the maps, bold black line drawings printed as half-tone illustrations, look oddly soft, and there's a typo on the back flap.

Even so, I enjoyed the story, though it seemed to take a while to get going. ( Read more... )

Friday Flower

Another Chorisia Flower An unexpected gift amid the summer heat.