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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Easily the best new book I've read in several years, September 15, 2005
It's hard to believe that it came out in May and I'm just now coming across it, but Jane Lindskold's Child of a Rainless Year is the best new book I've read in a long time. I'd read some of her short stories here and there, but none of her novels had jumped out at me from the bookshelf until now.
I'm struggling to put into words exactly what it is that makes the book such a great read. A good part of it is the pacing, I think, as well as just the right balance (for me, at least) between between description and action, and between language and story. This may just be me, but with most fiction out there, I usually feel that either the language overwhelms the story or the story overpowers the language. This is one of the rare books where they are equally strong, complementing each other rather than fighting for my attention. Most of all, though, it's simply a damn good story.
I guess a brief summary would be that Mira grew up in a house that was very mysterious in many ways (and not in the cliched ways which are no longer mysterious at all), in New Mexico. When she's nine, her mother disappears and she is sent to live with foster parents who are required to move to a new state and change their names as a requirement of the mysterious trustees of her mother's estate. All sorts of things happen, eventually building up to a middle-aged Mira returning to the house she grew up in, which she'd now inherited. She starts trying to understand all of the mysteries that surround her childhood, her mother, the house, her foster parents, and her connection with art and color.
The book pulls together an amazing mix of art, local history and culture, psychology, hidden family secrets, and the paranormal -- and more importantly, all in a way that builds the story, rather than just dumping information here and there because the author had it.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Almost perfect., June 4, 2006
Before picking up this book, I had not read much work by Jane Lindskold. I can assure you, I will be remedying that as quickly as possible. Child of a Rainless Year was a nearly perfect book. I loved it, and resented the time when I had to put the novel down to do something else.
The one thing that I have read by Lindskold in the past is Donnerjack-- the Zelazny novel that she completed post-humously after Zelazny's death. Unlike a lot of serious Zelazny fans, I really liked the book. I thought that Lindskold deserved credit taking on a truly daunting task in trying to complete it.
With that background in mind, it was with interest that I picked up Child of a Rainless Year. It had been recommended to me with the strongest possible praise by someone who generally does not do a lot of praising. I was also interested to see what Lindskold could do on her own.
No disappointments for me. The book brings to mind the best of the de Lint works, with enough personal touches from the author to make it unique and uniquely hers. I had no issue with the slow pacing. (In fact, I think that the pace may make this book a winner with people who are less fantasy fans than "normal" literature fans.) It was terrific to see a non-standard hero used in the book. The dramatic build worked perfectly with the concept and the plot. Lindskold is a skilled writer and she uses just the right level of description and detail to maintain user interest. The only little quarrel that I have is that I could have done with less New Mexico local color during the tours with Domingo, but that's a taste issue.
I suppose that how you react to this book will have something to do with your expectations. This is *not* a swords and sorcery fantasy novel. No dragons. No werewolves. No battles. Think Urban Fae and you are getting closer-- but without the fae. It is probably closest (as I said earlier) to the works of Charles de Lint. If you like the explosions and a lot of magic, this is probably not the book for you.
If you think that you are not really a fantasy fan, then I think that you should give it a chance. It's about the characters, not about the fantasy. That is what makes it such a good read.
The book is suitable for all ages. Probably even good for youngsters to see a main character over 25.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
slow seduction, June 15, 2006
This review is from: Child of a Rainless Year (Mass Market Paperback)
Mira Bogatyr Fenn is fifty-one and unfulfilled, having sublimated her artistic talents for reasons she doesn't quite understand. Her adoptive parents pass away, and Mira finds herself drawn to the Victorian house she inherited from her long-missing birth mother, and realizes there's more to her mother's disappearance than she ever suspected as a child.
Lindskold leads the reader into the mystery slowly, letting the weirdness accumulate until Mira can no longer deny it, which is a different technique than what I've seen in a lot of "urban fantasy" novels. It's more usual to drop a mundance character right smack into a supernatural event and go from there; here, it's a more gradual realization. And it works very well indeed.
The prose is beautiful, and the setting vividly painted.
It was also refreshing to see an older heroine. Not to mention a heroine who's plump and doesn't miraculously lose weight as part of her character development.
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