Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Chernevog

C. J. Cherryh

Good but not great. Better than Rusalka, because it enters the story with the characters more fully defined and fleshes out the relevant backstory and cosmology more. It also begins with the characters is a higher state of stability and happiness and then brings them crashing down threatened with utter ruin, which works in a classic dramatic sense. This is the way to make this kind of scenario play out, and shows Jim Butcher to quite fully be a third rate hack by comparison. Nevertheless, as the series proceeds some of the appeal thorugh deconstruction of Western fairy tales and horror elements wears off somewhat, and the final arc somehow lacks the full urgency implicit to the scenario.

Worse than: Finity’s End by C. J. Cherryh
Better than: Rusalka by C. J. Cherryh

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