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Title: A book too far, for a writer who's wasting his talent
Review: Turtledove is a tremendous writer, but he just writes too many books, and this one is proof. The magic in this book is just a plot device -- it does no real work except to occasionally have a spell misfire in some uninteresting way. Turtledove has done some very interesting work with magic (see, e.g., the Toxic Spell Dump) but he hasn't done it here. I love Turtledove's work, but this book offers little to the reader to justify its hardcover price. It's not actually bad, you understand, just not up to his usual standards. I'd put it into a class with "Into the Darkness," which shares its flaws.Harry, you're a hell of a writer. If you're not making enough money to let you write fewer books and focus on the ones that are really first-class, get a better agent.
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