Daniel’s Reviews > Hopeland > Status Update

So glad that's over... ugh.

I have been thinking McDonald should stick to novellas. I'll finish, but I don't know why. Just feels bloated and pointless.

ok, things have improved a wee bit, dnf averted for the moment

wow, pick this back up and the first chapter I read is absolute garbage. i did not need the history of a fictional Polynesian country all the way back to the creation myth. this is seriously flirting with dnf.

Haven't given up on this... exactly. But it's become extremely put-downable. It feels like it's meandering, and I've basically stopped caring about everyone. Still kind of hoping Amon comes back from it, but Raisa could die in a fire on the next page and I would just shrug.

Getting close to the present finally.

Still 2011, visions of the future, but we're still in the past.

So far this has been nothing like I expected. Vaguely urban fantastical, (Amon seems to have something like real magic, whereas Raisa's side is more like, is this supposed to be magic, or just bullshit performance art?) mostly romance, with a very loose? poetic? (in the sense of creative wordplay, not rhythmic) prose. And mostly in 2011. Hopefully I will continue to like it as it goes off the rails.

Oooh, shades of To Like The Lightning. I really could use an annotated version of this though. So many references and I have no idea if they're all real or which if any are made up.

I am reminded of of Matthew Swift. The electromancers, and something about what he's doing with the prose, but it's very tenuous, this feels much more modern and light. Different, but there's something. I like it.