Sunday, May 15, 2016

Nebula Update: Uprooted

While I haven't made any progress on my project of reading all the Nebula-winning novels, at least I haven't fallen further behind. That's because Uprooted, which won this year's award, is a book I've already read. My Goodreads review from last summer is below.

UprootedUprooted by Naomi Novik

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The fantasy is based on Polish folklore. I found the perspective refreshing, and I was impressed at Novik's ability to shift from the Temeraire series to a very different type of story. The plot was good, and the characters were well-formed.

I had two quibbles, one more serious than the other. I found sections of the book creepy, and I'm not big on creepy. More seriously, the parts of the book that described how magic was done did not click with me -- there was a lot of trying to convey how it felt to do magic, and I would have like to have skipped those parts. Unfortunately, those parts ended up figuring prominently in the climax of the novel, which took the shine off what was otherwise a really enjoyable read.

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