Empire in Black and Gold
Oct. 1st, 2008 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katikatI'm sorry but I just had to drop Tchaikovsky's book. The premise was rather interesting - in this fantasy land, people had insect-like abilities and were divided into various "kinden" (Beetle-kinden, Wasp-kinden) and then, the Empire of the Wasps started annihilating its neighbors...
So yeah, interesting but! And there's a big BUT! The setting. Imagine old Greek democracy with city-states set in British-like Lowlands/Highlands and somewhere at the beginning of the 19th century with Jules-Verne-like machines. A real mess of styles. VERY complicated names, titles, backgrounds, settings... Sometimes, I had to re-read a sentence twice or three times to understand it properly with all the innovative words and terms. The idea itself was rather innovative, there was no need to complicate it even further *wrinkles nose*
So yeah, interesting but! And there's a big BUT! The setting. Imagine old Greek democracy with city-states set in British-like Lowlands/Highlands and somewhere at the beginning of the 19th century with Jules-Verne-like machines. A real mess of styles. VERY complicated names, titles, backgrounds, settings... Sometimes, I had to re-read a sentence twice or three times to understand it properly with all the innovative words and terms. The idea itself was rather innovative, there was no need to complicate it even further *wrinkles nose*
