The Rose of the World by Jude Fisher

Just to show you I'm no literary snob...a fantasy book.

The third book in the Fool's Gold Series. First two books were pretty good and both published within the last 4 yrs. Jude Fishers writing reminded me of Robin Hobb a lot. A bit lighter but nonetheless I enjoyed the epic writing.

But the Rose of the World...not quite as organized as the first 2 books. It's one of my complaints for serial fantasy/SCI-FI. I realize it's hard to keep all three (or more if it's larger than a trilogy) as exciting, as interesting as whatever book(s) are better. Especially when they are in the 600-1,000 page range. I always hope the endings will be satisfying and this one so far isn't.

I'm almost done with it, it has kept my interest in the last 24 hours. But there are problems with the writing. One might think implausibility but no, this is fantasy where all things within the rules of magic are plausible. What isn't hitting me right is the many, many threads which sometimes end without explanation for hundreds of pages. There are a lot of characters which I like normally, but some major characters meet unseemly ends while other minor characters reanimate for what looks like (at this point) no good reason. I'm sure the last 75 pages or so will explain some of it, but I anticipate some will be left dangling.

The Goddess, who is the Rose of the World is inconsistant in coming back to herself.
For someone to be a God she sure is afraid of one human who should be qualling in his boots just like all the others who's touched her. But for some unknown reason he turns her into a frail female...which even in her amnesia she never was.
Where the heck is Bete? Mam has turned into a romantic woman (she of he filed teeth) and that doesn't seem right. Thats the problem with this book, it's turned into some kind of romance thing. And really I hate romance books...hahah with a passion.

I guess the good thing is I bought the paperback. :-)

Prince of Tides

I guess that is the book you were reading for your book club. I read it in my Southern Writers' class. I liked it better than the movie, but there were parts that strained believability-like the thing with the tiger in the cage. In the movie, the older brother shot the escaped convicts with a gun. In the book, he pushed this tiger in a cage up to the door and sprung it on them.

My theory was that everyone in the family was nuts and, due to the sexual and emotional abuse-even the narrator/brother. So, even though he was the "well-adjusted" one, his memory was clouded by the trauma of being raped. Therefore, much of the story he was told was filled with a mixture of fact with delusion. My understanding is that a child who has suffered such abuse often surpresses the memory and it resurfaces as metaphor. So the narrator/brother isn't especially reliable as a source of information.

I'm not sure that my professor bought my argument. But it was a good class.