Weaveworld (Spoilers within)

nyarlothothep

I don't think this book is all it's made out to be, I think it's distinctly average. I felt the plot was hampered by going back and forth between the real world and weaveworld, the attempts at horror mostly involved gore as opposed to any real sense of horror, Uriel became a bit of joke, he was meant to be this terrifying, alien creature but in the end it turned out he was just lonely and needed another of his kind to hang out with, then he simply returns to his "home planet". There were some really great ideas in there but overall I felt it was a bit contrived, yes it's emphasised that the Cuckoos are blind to the imaginative landscapes that temporarily surround them but it's like they are removed from the action that does transpire in their world. And for that matter you could reasonably expect governments etc to get involved but then it would get tedious and cliched, which is why I find it problemmatic that it was split half and half between two different worlds. Also sometimes the inhabitants of weaveworld were annoying, it was such a hippie dippy, everything is marvellous, frolicking in the grass type place. The best section is when they're in the desert searching for Uriel, that was engaging. In addition I think my reading of it is tainted by the fact that it's very similar to South Park's imagination land episodes though it obviously precedes them by about a decade.

shockwave

I found it a real slog tbh, gave up about halfway through.

nyarlothothep

At times I felt like giving up too but kept reading it in the expectation that it would fulfill the promise of being this great literary invention, I mean all the high ratings on goodreads have to be true right? While it had certain good elements I found the modern day England setting offputting, it would have been better set in Renaissance Italy with Cal as some demented alchemist who accidentally discovers the Weaveworld due to his Faustian quest for knowledge. I mean the fantasy setting Barker creates had a lot of Baroque elements so that's why I'm thinking of this. I thought it reflected the problem I have with novels in general, overlong, waffley, inconsistent. I don't think I'm going to read another novel after The Dispossessed (which is even more boring) or The GoT books which are incrediblydull. As a medium I thoroughly dislike novels now, I haven't read one good novel in 3 years and that was A Scanner Darkly.

Paddy Samurai

Me too.One of the few books that I have never finished.Got to over 50% ,so gave it a good try before giving up.

Wabbit Ears

It was garbage. The whole premise made absolutely zero sense and its not terribly well written at all.

The only thing I can think of is its very similar in that way to Feist's 'Magician' series in the sense that its so popular and get such high ratings. It was the first book many read of a particular genre as a young teen and they have whimsical memories of it. Go back and read either of these as a grown up and you'll quickly see that nostalgia is really all they have going for them. You can be guaranteed that many people gave those stars read it many many years previously.

Example, Review by 'emma sea' here:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43916.Magician