Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Strangely Tedious--a Disappointment, November 16, 2000
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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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very enjoyable., October 31, 2000
I've read some of the reviews for this book and a lot of people seem confused. Some of the reviewers were complaining that this book just stopped without a "true" ending. I want to make clear that this is the first book of a trilogy. The second thing that struck me as odd is the fact that some reviewers are saying that Lucas and Claremont should have left well enough alone and not butchered the "original" book, WILLOW by Wayland Drew. Let me just say that Drew's book was just an adaptation of the film from the screenplay (which was, in turn, based on Lucas' story idea, just as this and the two following books, SHADOW DAWN and SHADOW STAR, are).Now, on to the review of the book. I was amazed at how well Chris Claremont's writing style adapts to fantasy writing. His prose is beautifully crafted and his descriptions and characterizations are both vivid and forceful. His descriptions of being aboard a ship on a storm tossed sea had me feeling as if I was actually on the boat. His characters were all varied and had unique motivations (although, by the end of this book, we are not at all sure of what some of these are). Some people have commented that Willow (now called Thorn Drumheller) and the brownies, Rool and Franjean, don't even act like they did in the movie. Well, there is a very good explanation for this: this book takes place 13 years after the movie. They have survived a cataclysm of unimaginable proportions and have lived in a dark and dreary world for those years. Anyone living in those conditions would undergo a personality change. Not to mention the fact that Thorn hasn't seen his family in 12 years. Lucas came up with a classic fantasy story with a unique twist. A dark and ugly evil is upon the land. However, unlike most fantasy novels where it is well known (at least to the protagonist) who he must fight in order to defeat this evil, the characters in this book have no idea who or what is causing all of the trouble in the world. This provides a unique challenge for the heroes of the book. Not only do they have to defeat the being responsible, but they have to figure out who and where this person is. It makes for very enjoyable reading because you are just as in the dark as the characters are. I applaud Lucas and Claremont on the fine job they did in crafting this book. I found it nearly impossible to put down. I only have two complaints about it. The first is the fact that the first chapter takes place only a year after the end of the movie. However, once we're through there, we get thrown 12 years into the future. We are given these characters as they are and the reasons for their personality changes are not clearly explained until later in the book. What has happened to the world? What has happened during that time? These things are not explained right away. It makes the reading a little frustrating. Second, Claremont sometimes lets his descriptions get away from him and they begin to take on a life all their own. Once a description of a scene becomes too long, it begins to lose both its meaning and its effectiveness. Other than that, I thought this book was really well done.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ummm...What?!, November 6, 2002
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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