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3 von 4 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich:
4.0 von 5 Sternen
Great Book - But Too Self-Indulgent, 14. Juli 2000
Von Ein Kunde
I just finished reading this book. It is the first Gene Wolfe novel I ever read. The plot is rather absorbing, the characters are diverse and interesting, and (for the most part) the writing is good. The novel is set on Earth in the far, far distant future. Humans once migrated to and from the stars; but those days are now only dim memory (to most). As in many other s-f novels, this provides the stage for a feudal society ruled by high-tech overloads (think twelfth century Europe with gravitic fliers, energy beam weapons, aliens, & genetically-altered plants and animal). The main character is an orphan reared by the guild of professional torturers & executioners (housed in a derelict star ship). Following an act of betrayal, our naive anti-hero is cast out of the guild, and sent on a Campbellian hero's journey of discovery. Overall, this is an excellent s-f novel. Now, a little criticism. Mr. Wolfe vitiated my reading experience (like rat droppings on a chocolate chip cookie) by excessive and pointless use obscure words. Here are just a few examples: abattoir, anacreontic, armiger, bosquets, caryatids, cataphracts, chiliad, eidolon, ephor, exarch, fiacre, flagoet, fulgurator, gamboge, glaives, gnomons, hierophants, kraters, lansquenets, leman, misericorde, omophagists, ophicleides, ostler, oubliette, pagne, pandour, pantocrators, peccary, pelagic, peltast, penetralia, pursuivant, quaestor, quercine, rebec, refulgent, renascent, thiasus, thurible, tribade, uhlan, verdure, vicuna. Also, his many allusions often fail to contribute to the story (or to my reading pleasure) in any meaningful way. I would accuse a lesser writer of being narcissistic and pretentious (an engineer with James-Joycian affectations?). Since Mr. Wolfe is not a lesser writer, I will accuse him of an equal crime: self-indulgence. I suspect that Mr. Wolfe wrote this novel for himself, not for us readers. At the very least, the publisher could have supplied us with an appendix of definitions to these dead words. (I think I hear an "Amen!" from several of you out there.) If you enjoy reading with an Oxford English Dictionary (non-compact version) at your side, then you will be tumescent with joy as you read this novel. I, for one, was so annoyed by the pretentious (whoops! I mean self-indulgent) vocabulary in this novel, I almost refused to read The Claw of the Conciliator. In truth, Claw is one fine speculative fiction novel (well-deserving of the Nebula Award). Even so, if your recreational reading time is as limited (and valuable) as mine, then you should save these novels for your retirement.
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von Gene Wolfe
von Scott Lynch
von Roger Zelazny
von Brandon Sanderson
