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Title: Adolescent writing.
Review: Gene Wolfe tries really hard, to write that is. He has a large vocabulary, but not much else. I've never read a writer's prose that insisted so much upon itself, but came off as the writing of an "aspiring" writer. By that I mean someone who has all the window dressing but no literary or artistic form. For example, his description is near non-existent. Plot developments happen hurriedly, one after the other, without any explanation or cohesion. It was common in the Shadow part, I only read that half, I couldn't take any more, for a climactic fight to take, at most, a paragraph. Important plot changes happen in sentences; it's like a bunch of random fantasy ideas thrown into a novel without any integration. The book is kisch. Buying this book would be like going to a store and puchasing an original Nintendo instead of a Wii. Don't waste your money or your time, please! Other good fantasy exists.
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