| I thought I'd start this thread so that people interested in reading this book can find out more about it before commiting. Other opinions are obviously welcome and people can ask questions to which they will hopefully recieve answers! I was completely under the wrong impression with this novel. I thought it would be one of those stories that transcends demographics but at least to me (for some reason it's widely publically and critically acclamied) it was targeted predominately for the 12-15s (which is why I haven't written a review because I don't think I could make it valid). More critically, it wasn't the sweeping, innovative piece it was made out to be, but linear and hokey. The underlying theme of the story is that essential you can appraoch real life the same as you would an RPG, so you can basically apply the core skills and experiences gained from the latter to the former. This is realised by the main character entering a realm very reminiscent of a generic fantasy RPG setting. Once in there, he is basically lead (either literally or by contrived discoveries) around a poorly established world, where objects are frequently described as 'simple' and is populated by a mixture of humans, humanoid animals, and stock enemies*. Furthermore, the writing wasn't really effective (which may be a translation problem). The most I can praise it is by describing it as 'clunky' where otherwise it borders on being conufusing with being fragmented in terms of paragraphing as well as sentences. Major plot strands fizzle out and consequently leave behind plot holes, and symbolism was scarce despite the concept screaming out for it. Arguably you could say that this novel is very niche when you consider it was written around 2000 when RPGs were a lot less familiar to people. I think it works as subtle inspiration for children to slightly embody the heroes they play as in video/computer games, but I strongly feel it's inappropriate for the majority of mature readers. From my perspective I give it 2/10. *Sadly there were no slimes. |
PreFuturism-0May 25, 2013 1:42 PM