From archive (archive) Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uupsi!rpi!uwm.edu!rutgers!psuvax1!swatsun!hartman From: hartman@cs.swarthmore.edu (Zorn of Zorna) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers Subject: Review: M. J. Engh's _Wheel of the Winds_ Summary: I didn't like it, but maybe I didn't get it. Message-ID: Date: 20 Aug 90 01:13:06 GMT Sender: hartman@cs.swarthmore.edu (Zorn of Zorna) Organization: Ninety-nine-hour Gemhunters, Inc. Lines: 61 I read Engh's first book, _Arslan_, a few weeks ago. I thought it had problems, but on the whole was very well-written. I had also read a short story of hers in _IAsfm_ ("Beyond Aurin Tree," I think), which I had similar feelings about. So I decided to go ahead and read her second novel, _Wheel of the Winds_, to see if she'd improved. I was put off from the start by the subtitle/blurb on the front cover: "An epic of planetary circumnavigation." That and the swirling clouds wrapping around the spine didn't look too promising; but you know what they say about books and covers and judgment. So I settled down and started reading. I was further put off by the section title at the very beginning: "The First Turn." They're going to go around a planet more than once? The book itself begins promisingly enough, with two pages in italics in second person. Nice descriptions which make it clear from the start that this is not Earth (". . . the light never rose, never sank; the night would never follow") but that someone associated with the story is from Earth or an Earthlike place. Unfortunately, that's about as promising as the book gets. The premise is an extremely standard Earth-person-stranded-on-another- planet-as-seen-by-the-natives setup. The characters are interesting, but their motives are completely inexplicable; over and over again, with perfectly reasonable and in-character other courses of action open to them, they decide to follow the plot around the world. The style of storytelling is fairly interesting at first, and quite readable throughout; the 377 pages of the book went by quickly. But it stopped being interesting for its novelty early on, and left only an odd taste. It's a style I've seen before but can't quite place, full of indirect speech and somewhat mannered: opening to a random page, I find sentences like "Now the Exile looked at her a little sickly, as one who faces a worse hazard than any he has passed; but he agreed cheerfully enough, saying only that with the Warden's permission he might contrive . . . [to do a certain thing]. And indeed there was sense in this, if he could do it; . . . ." (p. 200) The animals are not quite like Earth animals, nor are the people quite like Earth people, but they're all referred to in Earth terms, and since they're seen entirely from the natives' point of view it's difficult to tell quite what separates a native "dog" from an Earth dog (other than the eventually-revealed fact that some native "dogs" can climb trees). On the whole, it seemed to me not worth the time and effort to get through the book. There was little if anything new in it. And yet, I can't help the feeling that I missed some important fact that would have made the book clearly a brilliant piece of writing; I expected much more from Engh. On the surface at least, she did a better job with the "Aurin Tree" story in portraying a native society dealing with advanced Earth technology. On the back cover of _Wheel of the Winds_, there are a couple of misleading quotations; apparently, Samuel R. Delany said "Wonderful and terrifying SF" about _Arslan_ rather than about this book. But the quotations are formatted in such a way that it's not obvious which book is under discussion. At any rate, I'd say not to bother with this book. If I did miss something, I'm sure someone will point it out to me; in the mean time, if you want to see Engh at her best, try _Arslan_. --jed -- {hartman@{campus.swarthmore.edu, swarthmr.bitnet}, ...!bpa!swatsun!hartman} "Quoth the master to the confused metaphysics student: 'That was Zen; this is Tao.'" --Dave Friedland