Chris said a great deal already, and touched on many of the interesting themes we got to explore again, and I mentioned a couple of things I found problematic.
In the end, this first book wasn't too bad considering it was written 35 years ago. Anthony's writing did seem much less sophisticated than I remember, and the underlying philosophy seemed much less developed. I guess that is to be expected as I am much more experienced and educated than I was 20 years ago.
While I enjoyed the book for it's flow and general story, his dialog is mostly awful and his characters, while standing out as individual personalities, still left me wanting more. Fate and Nature just came across as bitchy, pretentious, and self-important. For some reason I pictured War as this barrel-chested Hemmingway type wearing a safari hat. He seemed very macho and callous. Time was just kind of non-descript. I really didn't have a clear vision of the type of character he was.
Zane, for much of the story, struck me as kind of a bumbling idiot that fancied himself much smarter than he actually was, and I couldn't tell if this was intentional or not. By the end of the story he is much more confident, but took on this morally righteous air that I found annoying. The most interesting character is probably Molly, and she seemed to be a stereotype.
It will be interesting to see how Anthony's writing and character development matures as he continues the series.
As far as structure and plot goes, this story wasn't too bad. It seems to be fairly well planned out. There were no holes that I noticed, though there is a shitload of awkwardly placed exposition that's not helping Anthony's poor dialog. One moment when it was particularly obvious was when Luna was fighting the dragon and took its egg hostage. The cultist goes off on this speech about the environment and the reproduction issues of this dragon, and it seemed unrealistic but also clashed with the energy of the scene. I think he was foreshadowing/setting up Luna's salvation, but at that point it was already very obvious what was going on.
Things I do really like about this book: the world building is interesting. It's close enough to modern day civilization that it seems realistic, but the mix of magic and modern technology makes for interesting twists within the fantasy genre, and the right amount of kitsch to take its self too seriously.
I also like the idea of "office holders" managing human existence. In the end, they're human beings and they have to make decisions about things that are not always black and white. That's always going to be a good setup for entertaining drama. Anthony also asks tough questions like questions like "is death, war, evil, suffering, etc, necessary?" and creates characters that have come up with compelling arguments.
I think 17-year-old me probably would have given this book at least 4/5 stars. 37-year-old me gives it a respectable 2.5-3ish stars. I don't think this was my favorite out of the series back then, but it was good enough to get me into the rest of the series. I think it's still good enough to get me excited about reading the next 7 books.
In the end, this first book wasn't too bad considering it was written 35 years ago. Anthony's writing did seem much less sophisticated than I remember, and the underlying philosophy seemed much less developed. I guess that is to be expected as I am much more experienced and educated than I was 20 years ago.
While I enjoyed the book for it's flow and general story, his dialog is mostly awful and his characters, while standing out as individual personalities, still left me wanting more. Fate and Nature just came across as bitchy, pretentious, and self-important. For some reason I pictured War as this barrel-chested Hemmingway type wearing a safari hat. He seemed very macho and callous. Time was just kind of non-descript. I really didn't have a clear vision of the type of character he was.
Zane, for much of the story, struck me as kind of a bumbling idiot that fancied himself much smarter than he actually was, and I couldn't tell if this was intentional or not. By the end of the story he is much more confident, but took on this morally righteous air that I found annoying. The most interesting character is probably Molly, and she seemed to be a stereotype.
It will be interesting to see how Anthony's writing and character development matures as he continues the series.
As far as structure and plot goes, this story wasn't too bad. It seems to be fairly well planned out. There were no holes that I noticed, though there is a shitload of awkwardly placed exposition that's not helping Anthony's poor dialog. One moment when it was particularly obvious was when Luna was fighting the dragon and took its egg hostage. The cultist goes off on this speech about the environment and the reproduction issues of this dragon, and it seemed unrealistic but also clashed with the energy of the scene. I think he was foreshadowing/setting up Luna's salvation, but at that point it was already very obvious what was going on.
Things I do really like about this book: the world building is interesting. It's close enough to modern day civilization that it seems realistic, but the mix of magic and modern technology makes for interesting twists within the fantasy genre, and the right amount of kitsch to take its self too seriously.
I also like the idea of "office holders" managing human existence. In the end, they're human beings and they have to make decisions about things that are not always black and white. That's always going to be a good setup for entertaining drama. Anthony also asks tough questions like questions like "is death, war, evil, suffering, etc, necessary?" and creates characters that have come up with compelling arguments.
I think 17-year-old me probably would have given this book at least 4/5 stars. 37-year-old me gives it a respectable 2.5-3ish stars. I don't think this was my favorite out of the series back then, but it was good enough to get me into the rest of the series. I think it's still good enough to get me excited about reading the next 7 books.