Andy H. reviewed The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
Review of 'The Raven Tower' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I love this rock.
hardcover, 432 pages
English language
Published Feb. 26, 2019 by Orbit.
The Raven Tower
by Ann Leckie
4 stars
(101 reviews)
Listen. A god is speaking. My voice echoes through the stone of your master's castle. The castle where he finds his uncle on his father's throne. You want to help him. You cannot. You are the only one who can hear me. You will change the world. A triumph of the imagination, The Raven Tower is the first fantasy novel by Ann Leckie, New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. Gods meddle in the fates of men, men play with the fates of gods and a pretender must be cast down from the throne in this breathtaking fantasy masterpiece.
Wetdryvac reviewed The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
Review of 'The Raven Tower' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
A very interesting construct piece, and lots of fun.
Jonathan Zacsh reviewed The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
Review of 'The Raven Tower' on 'GoodReads'
3 stars
3 stars for the first half of the book: I was getting bored and had to start speed reading. But the rest of the book was awesome, and I love how things turned out. Really cool concept and universe!! And I loved all the main characters!
Eduardo Santiago reviewed The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
Review of 'The Raven Tower' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Leckie’s Imperial Radch books easily rank among the best SF I’ve ever read but they suffer from two flaws: a bizarre fascination with royalty/caste in human society, and an almost embarrassing preoccupation with gods and religious oracles. When these themes kept recurring in the second and third book I assumed Leckie had just painted herself into a corner and that her next works would be free of those incongruities.
How wrong I was: Raven Tower is entirely about them. Hereditary titles, improbable “gods” (minerals, or talismans, even a roving cloud of mosquitoes) with nothing conceivably resembling a central nervous system yet with completely humanlike motivations.
It doesn’t work. Not as SF: there’s not even a wildly remote scientific possibility for a thinking rock that ”lives” for eons yet develops sentience and then the ability to interact with humans on our timescale. Not as fantasy: even if we accept the impossibilities, …
Leckie’s Imperial Radch books easily rank among the best SF I’ve ever read but they suffer from two flaws: a bizarre fascination with royalty/caste in human society, and an almost embarrassing preoccupation with gods and religious oracles. When these themes kept recurring in the second and third book I assumed Leckie had just painted herself into a corner and that her next works would be free of those incongruities.
How wrong I was: Raven Tower is entirely about them. Hereditary titles, improbable “gods” (minerals, or talismans, even a roving cloud of mosquitoes) with nothing conceivably resembling a central nervous system yet with completely humanlike motivations.
It doesn’t work. Not as SF: there’s not even a wildly remote scientific possibility for a thinking rock that ”lives” for eons yet develops sentience and then the ability to interact with humans on our timescale. Not as fantasy: even if we accept the impossibilities, the story has no other elements of such. And not as literature: the characters are shallow, impossible to relate to (even the human ones); the second-person narration is clumsy and distracting. The language-as-reality parts fizzle completely. I actually abandoned the book shortly after starting it, then picked it up two months later for airline reading. I regret that.
Leckie is a genius. I will not dismiss her because of this, and actually applaud her for pushing into new and uncomfortable territory. I will continue to seek out more works from her. But, yeah, I‘m disappointed.
unicorndeburgh reviewed The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie
Review of 'The Raven Tower' on 'Goodreads'
This is a very quirky book, with two timelines, one a god moving in geologic time, and the other a human protagonist moving through a week or so. I love the characters! The world-building is fascinating and original, without me every feeling like I was slogging through an info-dump, or getting confused. Highly recommended!
