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conuly
I read the first book in this series today.
It's definitely got some plot holes (yes, okay, Timothy is a mechanical genius - but is an uneducated boy who had to invent everything he uses, right down to the fishing rods, really going to be able to invent androids as well? Why didn't his father ever tell him that he was more than just crippled? Surely he must have known!) and some very obvious plotlines (if you don't guess who the Evil Bad Nastyman is within five pages of meeting him, you're terribly slow - though, given the nature of this world that's been written, you can possibly be forgiven for thinking that EVERYbody is evil), and I'd be stunned if it wasn't written directly to capitalize on the success of Harry Potter (instead of an ostracized boy finding out he's got magic and becoming well-liked but still a target for assassination, we've got a lonely unmagical boy realizing that all the magical people want to kill him and, no, he's NOT well-liked) but it's actually quite good!
Especially when you compare it to Harry Potter.
I'm going to get spoilerish here, so it goes behind a cut: The wizarding world in Harry Potter is basically the muggle world with magic. They even speak the same languages as their muggle counterparts, when you'd expect at least the more Supremacist of them to have diverged long ago (unless this is a relatively recent movement?). They ride muggle (but magic!) trains, they have muggle (but magic!) bathrooms, their school system is based on the British public school system (with magic!). If you don't happen to have magic, you can leave the wizarding world entirely, or survive somewhat within it as a squib.
This world is entirely magic. Nobody can survive without it. And when I say nobody, I mean it.
They don't use fire. They don't know how to, and they're stunned that this boy could figure out how to control fire.
They can't fish, or hunt, or (probably) plant food. No idea how they feed themselves, but I imagine it involves the use of magic.
They don't have glass in their windows, even!
Everything, I mean everything, is magic. Anybody without would be severely crippled.
And they do remarkable, un-HP things with their magic. They have buildings and cities that float in the air as a matter of course. They don't just blast fire at people (though they can), they create knives that stretch to reach you. One group of people was able to change color to blend in with their environment - but they were exterminated at least in part because of their refusal to depend entirely on magic.
The non-magical aspect of the world, such as it is, is different from ours as well. The society is loosely structured into guilds, which seem to focus on particular magical abilities. Some of these guilds, at least, can be told apart by various aspects of their dress or clothing, and entrance into them may be based on heredity. This isn't a completely foreign type of society, but it's very different from Harry Potter's Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts.
This is a remarkable world our friend has written. The story itself could've used some work - as I said, it was obvious from the beginning who the Big Bad was, and some aspects of Timothy's apparent genius are unbelievable - but I have to read the next to, just to involve myself in that world again. Brutal, cruel, prejudiced - but it's remarkable.
So. This week. Me in bookstore. Definitely.
It's definitely got some plot holes (yes, okay, Timothy is a mechanical genius - but is an uneducated boy who had to invent everything he uses, right down to the fishing rods, really going to be able to invent androids as well? Why didn't his father ever tell him that he was more than just crippled? Surely he must have known!) and some very obvious plotlines (if you don't guess who the Evil Bad Nastyman is within five pages of meeting him, you're terribly slow - though, given the nature of this world that's been written, you can possibly be forgiven for thinking that EVERYbody is evil), and I'd be stunned if it wasn't written directly to capitalize on the success of Harry Potter (instead of an ostracized boy finding out he's got magic and becoming well-liked but still a target for assassination, we've got a lonely unmagical boy realizing that all the magical people want to kill him and, no, he's NOT well-liked) but it's actually quite good!
Especially when you compare it to Harry Potter.
I'm going to get spoilerish here, so it goes behind a cut: The wizarding world in Harry Potter is basically the muggle world with magic. They even speak the same languages as their muggle counterparts, when you'd expect at least the more Supremacist of them to have diverged long ago (unless this is a relatively recent movement?). They ride muggle (but magic!) trains, they have muggle (but magic!) bathrooms, their school system is based on the British public school system (with magic!). If you don't happen to have magic, you can leave the wizarding world entirely, or survive somewhat within it as a squib.
This world is entirely magic. Nobody can survive without it. And when I say nobody, I mean it.
They don't use fire. They don't know how to, and they're stunned that this boy could figure out how to control fire.
They can't fish, or hunt, or (probably) plant food. No idea how they feed themselves, but I imagine it involves the use of magic.
They don't have glass in their windows, even!
Everything, I mean everything, is magic. Anybody without would be severely crippled.
And they do remarkable, un-HP things with their magic. They have buildings and cities that float in the air as a matter of course. They don't just blast fire at people (though they can), they create knives that stretch to reach you. One group of people was able to change color to blend in with their environment - but they were exterminated at least in part because of their refusal to depend entirely on magic.
The non-magical aspect of the world, such as it is, is different from ours as well. The society is loosely structured into guilds, which seem to focus on particular magical abilities. Some of these guilds, at least, can be told apart by various aspects of their dress or clothing, and entrance into them may be based on heredity. This isn't a completely foreign type of society, but it's very different from Harry Potter's Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts.
This is a remarkable world our friend has written. The story itself could've used some work - as I said, it was obvious from the beginning who the Big Bad was, and some aspects of Timothy's apparent genius are unbelievable - but I have to read the next to, just to involve myself in that world again. Brutal, cruel, prejudiced - but it's remarkable.
So. This week. Me in bookstore. Definitely.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 10:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 11:01 am (UTC)It's really fucking annoying.