Meridian #2: Going to Ground TPB
Jan. 12th, 2007 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catalyst2Yet another series that I hadn't seen before and so I snagged it from the library on a whim. The stories in this volume were OK, with one major reservation.
This is obviously a coming-of-age story and does that well. The classics are there: the unexpected discovery of the power, the initially reluctant use of that power, the subsequent overuse of it and the realization that it is people's perception of your use of that power that poses the greatest danger of all. They are done well and Sephie grows into her power convincingly.
The revelation to Sephie of the world within a world within a world (symbolically, of course, indicating her passage to adult knowledge as she matures) is well done, if a little unoriginal.
The realization of the floating worlds is exquisite artistically and conceptually and the exiles' discovery of their new "home" having passed through the cataracts is just inch-perfect.
My only nit-pick is with the protagonist Ilahn. It is such a cliche to have a ravening maniac as the Big Bad that it is boring and especially disappointing here, given how richly most of the other characters are written and drawn. In addition, how can he have gained so much power and knowledge and yet remained such an ignorant and unskilled wanker? Maybe Ilahn becomes more complex later but for me, mo matter how well written the protagonist is, the interest comes from the degree to which I think the antagonist can actually pose a threat to the hero. In this case, not at all - so much of the tension dissolves out of the story.
This is obviously a coming-of-age story and does that well. The classics are there: the unexpected discovery of the power, the initially reluctant use of that power, the subsequent overuse of it and the realization that it is people's perception of your use of that power that poses the greatest danger of all. They are done well and Sephie grows into her power convincingly.
The revelation to Sephie of the world within a world within a world (symbolically, of course, indicating her passage to adult knowledge as she matures) is well done, if a little unoriginal.
The realization of the floating worlds is exquisite artistically and conceptually and the exiles' discovery of their new "home" having passed through the cataracts is just inch-perfect.
My only nit-pick is with the protagonist Ilahn. It is such a cliche to have a ravening maniac as the Big Bad that it is boring and especially disappointing here, given how richly most of the other characters are written and drawn. In addition, how can he have gained so much power and knowledge and yet remained such an ignorant and unskilled wanker? Maybe Ilahn becomes more complex later but for me, mo matter how well written the protagonist is, the interest comes from the degree to which I think the antagonist can actually pose a threat to the hero. In this case, not at all - so much of the tension dissolves out of the story.
