mcq@druxt.UUCP (McQueer) (12/30/83)
Just for the record, I had never heard of Roderick MacLeish either, but one of the critical excerpts on the inside cover tells me that Mr. Hedrick was either entirely correct, or close; MacLeish apparently is a commentator on National Public Radio, which may be operated by PBS for all I know. 'Nuff said? What I really want to do is put in another reccomendation for this book. This is one of the better works I've read recently. I think it qualifies as something special. It reminds me of some of the better work of Ursula K. LeGuin in that it is VERY finely crafted and displays the incredible ability to capture the correct mood that I associate with LeGuin. More than anything else, I am impressed by MacLeish's intimacy with his characters, and how natural and "right" he makes them seem. This book presents the conflict between mythological good and evil in a way that makes its appearance in an ordinary setting believable. It manages to use the stuff of old legends to examine the motivations of very real characters for their actions. There are very few fantasy novels that can be said to provide the feeling for the human condition that make them "literature". I find that when this IS done the result is remarkable, and I include "Prince Ombra" in this very special class. For anyone who reads this newsgroup with an eye towards anything outside "hard core" SF (and I don't mean to knock anyone for only wanting to occupy their time with writers like Hogan - please, not one of these fights) READ this one. Bob McQueer ihnp4!druxt!mcq
dann@wxlvax.UUCP (Dan Neiman) (01/09/84)
This is a sort of counterpoint to a favorable review of Prince Ombra.
I recently read the book and was disappointed. The age level
aimed at seemed to mid-teens. Most of the concepts, particularly
the classic hero versus the force of darkness were not particularly
original, nor particularly believable.
The plot seemed essentially simplistic, and like most books of this
type the final confrontation with the evil Prince of Darkness was
about as believable as Dorothy throwing the pail of water on the
witch in the Wizard of Oz.
We're not talking about an incredibly bad book by any means, there
were some nice touches. But any reasonably sophisticated reader of
F&SF is going to have seen this one go by too many times before to
really enjoy it.
Change of subject --
Is anyone else getting tired of all the retread fantasy novels on
the market today? There doesn't seem to be a spark of innovation
in any ten of them. And they all seem to be number x in the new
XXXXX cycle. I'm tired of badly written, imitative fantasy and I'm
tired of serials. And there is *no* new hard sf being published
to speak of. As a friend of mine is wont to say, 'What's the world
*coming* to?'
I guess it's time to start reading serious literature.
dann