Momoevi

I enjoyed the book, however found it really dragging in certain places without realizing why...it just came to me, however, as I listen to the last quarter of the audiobook: There are a lot of instances of characters explaining things rather than living them. A lot of background and character history is told to the reader through extended soliloquy which really loses my attention.

In the instances in which they do actually live out the story, there seems to be a lot of overwrought description about the intensity of their experience...too much really, kind of over the top. I find myself rolling my eyes a little at the pleasure or pain or sadness or embarrassment or take-your-pick-of-emotion that each of the characters experience.

Kay is a very good writer and Vance is a good narrator, but the story just seems to drag and wander at points during the book.

I really liked A Song for Arbonne and looked forward to starting this trilogy. Unfortunately the first book has not quite lived up to my expectations - don't get me wrong, its still good and I will probably burn the credits to finish up the trilogy, but its not quite as good as I expected it to be.

Like book 1, this is just a slow moving story. Lots of characters, lots of story lines....the reason it moves really slowly is that the same part of the story is told over and over and over again through different eyes. Its really hard to pay attention when you're going through another iteration of a part of a story that you've already heard. Every character in the story is overly serious and overburdened by the weight of their own awesomeness...I don't feel a lot of empathy for them and I find myself hoping that one or more of them gets killed off...of course if they do get killed off then their companions will be tearing their hair out and screaming about pain and revenge for the next 100 pages or so, so perhaps not. What a quandary!