The Saga of the Exiles

As I kid, I devoured books. From Arthur C. Clark to Thomas Hardy, from Ellery Queen to Alexander Solzhenitzyn. I worked my way through all the science fiction at our local library, and on to science fantasy.

Recently, my parents have been unloading my books, bringing them over for me to re-read. So instead of reading the books I received for Christmas, or the texts from my course, I've been ploughing through the four volumes of the Saga of the Exiles by Julian May, a superb story of time travel and psychic powers, written in a very readable style, not too convoluted in its plot, with credible use of technology and believable characters.

Following that came the two volumes of Mordant's Need, by Stephen Donaldson. Awful stuff. I know why I bought them - I remember their predecessors The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant as being very good. But these are rubbish! The main character is a woman who has doubts about her own existence, the "technology" is questionable and the literary style revolves around the correct use of punctuation in conversation - you know: speech with no closing commas continues in the next paragraph. But if the arguments are convoluted and the speech goes on for pages a a time, it's hopeless.

So now I'll get on with the more recent purchases - hopefully a more fruitful, inspiring read. In between, I may even blog more often, who knows...