Wednesday 24 August 2011

The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt

I gave up, I'm sorry... I just couldn't quite like any of the characters, and couldn't even be interested in them... isn't that awful?  I'm sure it's a very good story, and I can see that it's a very clever world, just... not for me.

I should at least try and say why though, shouldn't I...  It's been a while since I returned it to the library, so I'm a bit hazy, but what I remember feeling was that the book was all about the world rather than being about the characters, and that the characters were really only there in order to move through the world so that we could see it.  I tend to read books not just to find out about worlds, but because I'm interested in the individuals who live there, and how they relate to the world - how they feel about it, and each other and cope with... the morals of that world, you could almost say, the philosophies of it...  And that was what I didn't find in Court of the Air...

2 comments:

Cath said...

Yeah, you're completely right about this one. I ploughed on to the end and ended up liking various things about it but wished I could have felt much more connection to the characters. I've got book two on my Kindle so will give that a try in the winter.

Jen said...

Ah, you were interested enough to finish the first one though, and think about reading the second! It's funny, isn't it, the different ways we must all read stories... *g*