Sunday, October 31, 2010

Blue Moon Rising by Simon R. Green

Blue Moon Rising is an awesome, fun book.

Blue Moon Rising (Darkwood)

The story begins with Rupert, the book's amazingly endearing hero, out on a quest to kill a dragon at the end of the darkwood. His noble steed is a unicorn. Hes out to be a hero. Until this point, most readers will think, 'Wow. Stupid cliche fantasy plot #901123'.' And then the world explodes. You get to know that the unicorn is an awesome guy with a biting sense of humor and without a smidge of respect for his owner. (In fact, the Rupert-Unicorn equation is quite similar to the Loiosh-Vlad relationship in Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books, which are also some of my favourite fantasy books ever.) And the book goes on to kill another list of fantasy cliches. The dragon hoards butterflies instead of gold, the second son is sent on the quest to save the kingdom from financial trouble, and the finally rescued princess couldn't be more of a mess. And the fabulous fix-it-all magic swords: well, lets just put it this way, even the worst human in this book wouldn't hold on to them. If you're sick and tired of the regular fantasy mush that novelists seem to serve up - well, pick up Blue Moon Rising right now.

The good parts of this book don't require a lot of explanation. The plot is interesting and complex, the characters are really well-fleshed out (except for the main villians, the 'demons', and even among them the Demon Prince is someone I'd really like to read more about), the suspense is quite hard to guess, and honestly the inter-personal relations of the characters, especially with respect to the choices they all have to make under pressure in this book are beyond description. One has to read this book to accept the enormity of the decisions that these characters make. The kind of books and authors who manage to make this work are really rare, and this book definitely works.

Final thoughts: A fun, and yet at the same time really deep book on how heroes are sometimes made from the most unlikely situations. Definitely a must-read for anyone who has read a lot of fantasy (and its cliches) and almost anyone with a sense of humor.

Other thoughts: Unfortunately, I didn't have internet for nearly a week. In the meantime I've finished reading Julia Quinn's Brighter than the Sun, finished about a quarter of A Thousand Splendid Suns, and acquired some more books to read this diwali. Look forward for a lot of reviews.

12 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing the review.

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  2. No, thank you for visiting and reading. :)

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  3. nice review :)

    btw i'm taking a really LONG time in reading NY because of all the exams.....u don't mind if i have it for some more time right?

    if u want it back right now then temme :D

    but that book is like super-awesome :D

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  4. Thanks Aanal. :)

    You can keep NY as long as you possibly require. Just don't worry and study whenever required. But I agree about its awesomeness.. :P

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  5. Never read a good fantasy in years...

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  6. I think you need to try this book then. :)

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  7. Nice review. I definitely want to read this now... Will go hunting on my next book shopping trip!

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  8. I am quite sure you will like it. :)

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  9. Wonderful. I really admire your pace of reading. Reminds of my regular reading days where I used to finish a book in one or two nights. :( Never ever lose your habit of reading buddy!

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  10. Thanks Sakhi for the wonderful review......
    Never read any fantasy books (I like mystery, thriller and historical fictions, conspiracy fiction, sci-fi and some non-fiction etc).
    I will defntly pick this book (and it would be my first fantasy book ) :)

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  11. @Aditya: I know, I like it when I can quickly finish books. :) I've already finished two more since this review, on my third. And thank you for your wishes. :)

    @aanal: anytime. :)

    @Sayed: Thanks for the great compliment. I sincerely hope you'll like it.

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