Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4873 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 1024 pages

Customer Reviews

An aquired taste!
Clearly not my cup of tea...pardon the pun :)...I think this would make a good english setwork book:p

My all-time favourite book...
I honestly don't have the words to express how much I love this book. If I tried it would probably just come out as incoherent squeaks and flailing. This is my all-time favourite book. If I had to have only one book to read for the rest of my life, this would be it. That's how much I love it. It's not just a book, it's a whole world contained within the pages and it's so real. It's the kind of book you lose yourself in and you look up once you've finished it and it takes a moment for the world around to readjust around you and you have to remind yourself that there is no English magic. I would make everyone read this. It's a masterpiece.

magnificent
This subtle, carefully wrought novel brought to mind Charles Palliser's 'The Quincunx' re-written by M.R. James. It is quite magnificent - both in its use of language and in its construction.

But, unfortunately, this is the sort of 19th century style doorstopper which could easily be misconstrued as 'boring' - and has been described so in many reviews here. That is an injustice and a misinterpretation.

'JS + MN' is a pastiche of a peculiarly English type of classic novel - where the slowing down of time is a key element. To equate this phantasy with the epic mysticism of Robin Hobb is to do a deep disservice to both authors.

This is more Dickens than Robin McKinley, Wilkie Collins territory rather than J.K. Rowling.

The 'faerie' element in the novel is the 'wild card' which shifts the already odd story into the strangest of dimensions.

This book is definitely worth persevering with - there is so much to reward the reader. So many ideas and shapes of other stories. It occasionally reminded me of Gene Wolfe's 'The Book Of The New Sun' sequence in this respect. Asides and hints; whispers of secrets. For me it was a joy to read and savour rather than an arduous chore. And I was sorry to close its pages.