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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Strangely Tedious--a Disappointment, November 16, 2000
This review is from: Shadow Moon (Chronicles of the Shadow War, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
Maybe I was "spoiled" by seeing the action and fun of the movie, but I had much higher hopes for a work by Lucas and Claremont. Despite the emphasis on the enormity of the Cataclysm and the creeping evil that has swept the land, I found myself getting frustrated by the fact that NOTHING HAPPENS. Page after page of skippable descriptive text drones along, replete with tedious details about stuff that just doesn't matter, and before you realize it, another hundred pages have been flipped with no discernable plot movement. The writers don't seem to realize the powerful impact a few carefully chosen words, or clipped sentences, can have in promoting tension and excitement for a scene, as opposed to endless paragraphs detailing the exact color of the approaching horror, and how its smell reminds Thorn of someone he once met who had overslept in his bedroll on a long-march military campaign in which the stew was always cold...and on and on and ON! The perpetual flashbacks (a good storytelling tool when used in moderation) are heavily overused; in some sections, you have page after page set entirely in italics. Most of the key information to understanding what's going on is gradually doled out in these flashback scenes. This makes the sudden transition back to the "present" even more jarring. The plot events are also distributed unevenly. For one entire chapter, nothing happens; then, when something DOES happen, it's interrupted by something else entirely, with no real explanation or even acknowledgement that the shift has occurred. In mid-chase through a garden, Thorn suddenly finds himself back in a dungeon he'd escaped from. No one seems to know why (which is fine), but even Thorn himself doesn't seem surprised at this turn of events! Thorn is in mid-battle with Death Dogs, when suddenly he's attacked by someone he (apparently) used to know. He faces the heart-wrenching struggle against his former friend--who we've never seen before, and no explanation of why this is heart-wrenching is given--, and meanwhile the fight against the Death Dogs is...what, exactly? Assumed to continue without him? On hold till he gets back? No one seems to know, and no one comments on it. Part of the problem, I think, is that there is no character interaction. The only personality we get to know is Thorn's, and he spends most of his time on internal ponderings, never talking to anyone if he can help it. (The brownies are such an obvious Voice of Internal Conflict that they don't count; you can practically picture them perched on each shoulder, bearing halo and wings or pitchfork and horns.) When someone else is portrayed sympathetically, their interaction consists of a literally magical intuitive connection; suddenly, he likes and respects Person X, even though they haven't actually exchanged more than six words aloud. Someone, somewhere must've told Lucas or Claremont that dialogue is the hallmark of bad characters, and they do their best to avoid it, or at least leave it up to nameless goons and caricatured villains. I clearly had my hopes set too high when I picked out this book. I can only hope they'll pick up the pace, tighten their prose, and relax enough to allow some character interaction in their next work.
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Loved the movie Willow..., November 13, 2001
This review is from: Shadow Moon (Chronicles of the Shadow War, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
...hated this book. I'll admit that I didn't even make it through the whole book. I was so disgusted, I quit halfway through. About 30% of my loathing for this title comes from the fact that major characters are killed before the story even begins. This is a heavy handed plot device that never fails to piss me off. And I'll admit, Madmartigan and Sorsha were two of my favorite characters, so this one is even worse. Another 30% of my disgust comes from the fact that the characters that remain are so drastically changed that they are virtually unrecognizable. While I didn't mind Elora being a selfish brat, I found myself saying over and over "I don't think Willow/the brownies would really do this..." And the next 30% is for the fact that the book is so, well, dead boring. If you want practice staying awake to read the Wheel of Time series, this book is a good place to start. The text is dull, the descriptions of places and people that don't matter are extensive, and there's just not much going on most of the time. And the stuff that you are interested in because it links back to the movie's story is skipped over with a few paragraphs. The final 10% is my disappointment at the wasted potential. I'd always hoped the movie would have a sequal, was thrilled when I stumbled across this book. Until I started reading it. What this comes off as is Chris Claremont warping the universe and characters that the movie set up to write his own fantasy theme with his own characters. He even renamed the movie's main title character, for crying out loud. While the book might have stood reasonably well if it weren't tied to the movie that came before it, as it is I give it 1 star (I'd give it none if I could) for ruining everything the movie built up.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ummm...What?!, November 6, 2002
This review is from: Shadow Moon (Chronicles of the Shadow War, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
This is one of those books where: I read it. I put it back on my shelf. Someone asked me "How was that book? What was it about?" And I, in all my eloquence, said... "Ummmmm....I don't know." The descriptions became tedious, though they were very well written, and did little to forward the story. Some characters from "Willow" were discarded (aka killed) early in the book and Willow himself had his name changed to Thorm Drumheller. (This was done probably to create distance from the movie.) However, I found it difficult to follow the story between the lengthy pages of description (though well written, they became cumbersome after a few dozen pages of it) and the rapid introduction and exiting of characters. Should be read by: those who like "flowery style," like that of Tolkien, le Guin, etc, which include massive amounts of detail to create a lifelike world, those who adore the movie Willow and want to know what happens NO MATTER WHAT THE CHARACTERS BECOME/DO. Should NOT be read by: those who like faster moving books without lots of description (those who prefer Hemingway's style to Fitzgerald's, for example), those who adore EVERY SINGLE character from Willow, just as they were, and those who need a book to move quickly (from early in the book) and to maintain its pace. This book had its faults and its strongpoints, but it wasn't up my alley. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would find it very enjoyable, but I'm not one of them. More power to those who like it.
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