A review by evakristin
Changer by Jane Lindskold
2.0
This book started with a really good and interesting idea: The characters from myths and legends are real, and some of them still live among us. I’m sorry a story with so much potential didn’t occur to a better writer.
Jane Lindskold does a lot of things right, but she also does a lot of things wrong. To me, the worst fault was that she is awfully long winded. Sentences like “The King comes down to the kitchen, dressed casually in khaki trousers and a cotton button-down shirt, and finds Eddie seated at the counter watching the news and eating a bowl of cold presweetened cereal.”, makes it take forever to get to the point. How about “The King comes down to the kitchen, and finds Eddie eating breakfast.”? I suppose she is trying to make it more believable that her mythological characters live in our modern world by adding details like this, but to me it just got tiring to read.
I think this story could be told, and told better, with half the amount of words. With this never ending up building, the ending was a resounding anti-climax that left me feeling like “That’s it? Ok. Whatever.”.
Jane Lindskold does a lot of things right, but she also does a lot of things wrong. To me, the worst fault was that she is awfully long winded. Sentences like “The King comes down to the kitchen, dressed casually in khaki trousers and a cotton button-down shirt, and finds Eddie seated at the counter watching the news and eating a bowl of cold presweetened cereal.”, makes it take forever to get to the point. How about “The King comes down to the kitchen, and finds Eddie eating breakfast.”? I suppose she is trying to make it more believable that her mythological characters live in our modern world by adding details like this, but to me it just got tiring to read.
I think this story could be told, and told better, with half the amount of words. With this never ending up building, the ending was a resounding anti-climax that left me feeling like “That’s it? Ok. Whatever.”.