Nightseer by Laurell K. HamiltonMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I waited a long time for Nightseer. It was a couple of years at least as I waited for someone, somewhere in public library land to see fit to introduce it to their collection. I pestered my own library's Inter-Library loan staff with intermittent requests for it. Laurell K. Hamilton was getting more and more popular for her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series, surely someone in Western Australia will think her first ever book written worth adding to their collection? Okay, yes, the AB series have gradually devolved from decent paranormal mystery/adventure/romances into stories of massive paranormal interspecies orgies interspersed with pages devoted to the angst-ing of her “animals” - how they all feel about her and is she paying them enough personal attention - but still, there is some interest in her writing and needs must be met, surely!
Anyway, I was absolutely determined not to order or buy a copy unread or unseen as that goes against my book buying collection policy, which is as follows. Books to be bought must fall into one of the following categories, in no particular order;
1. Be a classic or collectors item.
2. Be a book I want my children to have access to in the family bookcase to read either now or when they get older.
3. Be so fantastic that I know I will want to read it more then once, or
4. Be the latest from a favourite author (which I actually will buy sight unseen.)
And (you can probably guess where I am going with this), Nightseer, originally written in 1992, unfortunately doesn't fit into any of those categories. There was a lot in this book, lots of ideas, lots of characters flitting in and out to add to the names one had to remember, important background information dumped suddenly and then onto the next confrontation. It kind of had an epic feel but it wasn't long enough. The action sequences, and there were lots of them, didn't really flow. Magics were inadequately explained. There were prophecies.. and then suddenly demons, devils, dragons, magical bottomless bum bags like a Mary Poppins carpet bag, witches, Princes from all sorts of exotic magical realms at this one magic school, and then the one student who was at odds with the leader of the realm. This leader in his wisdom okayed major destruction and carnage at the school all to get rid of our protagonist, but happily handing her over ALIVE to her mothers killer and arch-nemesis. A whole bunch of people died and there didn’t really appear to be a reason. There were bad guys everywhere and the links connecting them were tenuous at best. And then there was our protagonist, who was half-elf, half-demon, half-royal, half-lucky, prophetic, a sorcerer and an enchantress, could handle a sword, wore boys clothes in this medieval world (ooh la la!) fearless and of course attractive to all and anything half-male and to top it all off, pursued by a prince to be his consort. Did I mention she had a magic sword?
You know, there’s a saying going around to do with books and reading and I’m considering it is one I should begin to take the advice of. I do have a tendency to keep reading until the bitter end. It is this.
Life is too short to read bad books.
View all my reviews
