tilikon's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
linwearcamenel's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
tmobil's review
3.0
Favorite Quotes
No story sits by itself, Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river.
People often belittle the place where they were born.
Heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners.
Scenery without solace is meaningless.
This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for.
...the human spirit knows, deep down that all lives intersect.
Death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.
Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.
The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.
Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.
Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else.
People say they 'find' love, as if it were an object hidden by a rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find then is a certain love. And [he] found a certain love with [her], a grateful love, a deep but quiet love, one that he knew, above all else, was irreplaceable.
Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping itself alive.
Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.
There was a pier filled with thousands of people, men and women, fathers and mothers and children--so many children--children from the past and the present, children who had not yet been born, side by side, hand in hand, in caps, in short pants, filling the boardwalk and the rides and the wooden platforms, sitting on each other's shoulders, sitting in each other's laps. They were there, or would be there, becuause of the simple mundane things [he] had done in his life, the accidents he had prevented, the rides he had kept safe, the unnoticed turns he had affected every day. And while their lips did not move, [he] heard their voices, more voices then he could have imagined, and a peace came upon him that he had never known before.
No story sits by itself, Sometimes stories meet at corners and sometimes they cover one another completely, like stones beneath a river.
People often belittle the place where they were born.
Heaven can be found in the most unlikely corners.
Scenery without solace is meaningless.
This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for.
...the human spirit knows, deep down that all lives intersect.
Death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.
Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.
The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.
Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.
Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you're not really losing it. You're just passing it on to someone else.
People say they 'find' love, as if it were an object hidden by a rock. But love takes many forms, and it is never the same for any man and woman. What people find then is a certain love. And [he] found a certain love with [her], a grateful love, a deep but quiet love, one that he knew, above all else, was irreplaceable.
Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping itself alive.
Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.
There was a pier filled with thousands of people, men and women, fathers and mothers and children--so many children--children from the past and the present, children who had not yet been born, side by side, hand in hand, in caps, in short pants, filling the boardwalk and the rides and the wooden platforms, sitting on each other's shoulders, sitting in each other's laps. They were there, or would be there, becuause of the simple mundane things [he] had done in his life, the accidents he had prevented, the rides he had kept safe, the unnoticed turns he had affected every day. And while their lips did not move, [he] heard their voices, more voices then he could have imagined, and a peace came upon him that he had never known before.
storiwa's review
3.0
2nd time to read this. Fairly different and interesting telling of the myth of Merlin and King Author's family.
courtermomof5's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
miramanga's review
4.0
I'm utterly exhausted after reading this epic tome. [a:A.A. Attanasio|5217055|A.A. Attanasio|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1328326006p2/5217055.jpg] takes us on what I can only describe as a psychedelic, New Age, quantum journey through a masterfully reimagined tale of the Arthurian legend starting from the beginning. And we *mean* the VERY beginning. The big bang, all of that. The greatest light show on earth indeed, encompassing angels, Odin (as a *very* bad guy) and a pantheon of other well known myths and gods.
The writing is florid, the first fifty pages read like a hippy trip on acid and are TOUGH to get through. Once you break through the writing becomes more compelling though by the end I was a bit baffled and relieved to be done.
I've never read anything like this and probably interested enough to track down the sequel too...
The writing is florid, the first fifty pages read like a hippy trip on acid and are TOUGH to get through. Once you break through the writing becomes more compelling though by the end I was a bit baffled and relieved to be done.
I've never read anything like this and probably interested enough to track down the sequel too...
angelasasser's review
4.0
Whatever I was expecting when I first read this book was completely blown out of the water by one of the most unique and well-crafted epics I have read in quite awhile, and since!
While this is a retelling of Arthurian legends, do not be fooled by such well-recognized themes. This novel reads more like an ancient tale told around the fire than it does the dulcet and expected lines of most predictable retellings of Arthurian legend, and yet at the same time, Attanasio adds a strange mix of scientific cosmology with glimpses of the future intersecting with the past. This can be offputting to some, but intriguing to others, such as myself.
This particular volume follows the trials of Ygrane, the celtic priestess with knowledge of her past lives, Merlin, the demon now shackled by the form of a man who ages backwards, and the rise of Uther, the would-be father of Arthur. The lives of all three intersect, their stories unfolding in vivid, fearless descriptions that harken back to the gritty clash of Christianity and Celtic religion which permeated the ancient times of Brittania before King Arthur's ascent.
I have nothing bad to say about this book other than the beginning starts out slow. But keep reading, my friends, and it does not disappoint, especially if you have a taste for the gritty, sensual, and vividly recreated style of a great myth.
While this is a retelling of Arthurian legends, do not be fooled by such well-recognized themes. This novel reads more like an ancient tale told around the fire than it does the dulcet and expected lines of most predictable retellings of Arthurian legend, and yet at the same time, Attanasio adds a strange mix of scientific cosmology with glimpses of the future intersecting with the past. This can be offputting to some, but intriguing to others, such as myself.
This particular volume follows the trials of Ygrane, the celtic priestess with knowledge of her past lives, Merlin, the demon now shackled by the form of a man who ages backwards, and the rise of Uther, the would-be father of Arthur. The lives of all three intersect, their stories unfolding in vivid, fearless descriptions that harken back to the gritty clash of Christianity and Celtic religion which permeated the ancient times of Brittania before King Arthur's ascent.
I have nothing bad to say about this book other than the beginning starts out slow. But keep reading, my friends, and it does not disappoint, especially if you have a taste for the gritty, sensual, and vividly recreated style of a great myth.
jovvijo's review
4.0
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAH!!
So honestly I didn't read the synopsis of the story and just went in because I rather like unicorns (Seriously what's not to like?).
And wow!
WOW!
This is an Arthur (Arthurian?) tale, all camelot and what not, but it's done is such a way that you just toss any preconceived ideas out of that 9th floor window and read with gusto!
It's so completely unique!
I feel so dead sorry for the dragon for all I am one of the annoying specks living on it!
(Apologies mate)
Honest and true if you like high fantasy, (or fantasy written when the author was surely high), you are going to be BLOWN AWAY by this book!
WOOOOOOOSH!!!!
Only reason I don't 5/5 star it is because at the end I was sated and have no inclination to read the books that come after it. Isn't that funny? I wonder why?
Recommended reading for YOU!
So honestly I didn't read the synopsis of the story and just went in because I rather like unicorns (Seriously what's not to like?).
And wow!
WOW!
This is an Arthur (Arthurian?) tale, all camelot and what not, but it's done is such a way that you just toss any preconceived ideas out of that 9th floor window and read with gusto!
It's so completely unique!
I feel so dead sorry for the dragon for all I am one of the annoying specks living on it!
(Apologies mate)
Honest and true if you like high fantasy, (or fantasy written when the author was surely high), you are going to be BLOWN AWAY by this book!
WOOOOOOOSH!!!!
Only reason I don't 5/5 star it is because at the end I was sated and have no inclination to read the books that come after it. Isn't that funny? I wonder why?
Recommended reading for YOU!
lostinabookbrb's review
2.0
I felt like I should have liked this book more than I did. The plot was intriguing but the pace threw me off. I also didn't think the character development was well thought out.
haukka's review against another edition
3.0
I love it so far. It's basically a very harmonious weaving of every myth and religion since the beginning of time into a Arthurian beginning.