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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not enough meat on the bones, September 30, 2001
This review is from: Convergence: Book One of The Blending (Mass Market Paperback)
I bought this book last spring because I wanted to read something by someone I had never heard of and because Tom Canty is one of my favourite cover artists. I ended up getting the remaining four books in the series from the library because I wanted to know what happened, but I personally wouldn't recommend buying them. This book, and the series, seems to have been designed around its structure. In the world in question, there are five major magical talents -- thus there are five main characters, five books in the series and so forth. While Green does a good job delineating the characters, she is less successful varying their experiences. Throughout the series it seems that she has applied one experiential template to every character; the tests and challenges they face are so infuriatingly similar that you could get a pretty good idea of the entire books by reading a fifth of it. Likewise, while they all have fears and flaws that are sensitively described, there is something very much the same about all of them and the characters' reactions to them. By the end it doesn't really matter whether the difficulty comes from family or from business associates or what. A great deal of the plot seems to rely on miscommunication between the characters. While this is believable at the onset, it becomes less so as the story progresses until I, at least, just wanted to hurt someone. To me it seemed like Green went out of her way to make people stupider than any adult has a right to be. The first book starts with a cutesy narration that continues between every chapter. It appears less and less often as the book and the series progress, but I could have done without it entirely. The strength of the book/series comes when Green stops treating her characters as individuals and focuses on how they function as a unit, "Blending" in her terminology. Unfortunately this happens all too seldom to keep the story interesting to a thoughtful reader. I'd suggest that if you want to read an author who dwells on the subjects' personal problems but can still handle a moving plot, you turn to Mercedes Lackey instead.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fantasy romance title, April 29, 2001
This review is from: Convergence: Book One of The Blending (Mass Market Paperback)
I will never read a Harlequin romance novel and yet, somehow I got hooked on this novel which in many respects fits the romance category almost as strongly as the fantasy genre. In a nutshell, five talented individuals are brought together as applicants for high practitioner of their "aspect". An "aspect" is the area that an individual can influence through mental concentration. Convergeance introduces the 5 aspects of Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Spirit. Each year, those individuals with strong affinities for an aspect are required to go to the capital to test their strength. Every 25 years, "blendings" of 5 talents can compete to become the rulers of the nation. No one really knows what happens to those who fail. Green introduces each character, brings them together for a chapter or two, and then describes their struggles and testing. While sometimes repetitive, I found Green's technique rather comfortable and enjoyable as I watched each character deal with the same types of problems in subtly different ways. Then she brings the characters back in touch with each other again so that they can compare notes and interact in friendship and intimacy. Quite an endearing book. You may want to make sure that you have the second novel handy as you near the end of Convergeance (Book 2 is called Competitions), because Green leaves you hanging.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Warning- you can't put this book down, April 27, 2000
This review is from: Convergence: Book One of The Blending (Mass Market Paperback)
And of course therein lies the problem. This book is a very compelling read, as is the second, even though the idea is a little cliched. The story of 5 talents meeting and being drawn into a group is interesting, and I managed to ignore most of the writing problems in this first book(the sex scenes were pretty bad though)I even dashed off to the bookstore after reading the first 2(from the library) in order to get the next 3. The author's habit of telling the variations of each character's tests is interesting at first, but will become repetitive by the end of the series. And you can't just read one of these books, they each have an interesting cliffhanger that almost compells you to get to the next one. I really did enjoy the story, and there are some unexpected twists, i just think it could have been told in 3 books , not 5. In the end it is rather like eating 6 bowls of ice cream at one sitting- the first ones taste pretty good, by the last one you feel unwell.
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