(Amy) So, I have been doing my best to reserve judgment on this series throughout the first and second books. After all, I could sense a good story hiding right around the corner, being consistently just missed by the author - but I thought she might manage to pull it together in the end.

Yeah, not so much.

I think I am going to have to conclude that while Julian May's ability to build worlds is pretty impressive, her ability to tell stories is, well, less so. Whether the former is sufficient to coax people into reading books that may leave them cringing at ham-handed storytelling techniques from time to time is, really, up to them.

Anyway. This book has all the flaws of the first two, in that Key Plot Points are mused over at great length and repeatedly spelled out by multiple viewpoint characters, just in case the reader was too stupid to pick up on them the first four or five times. Also, it does not end, it just stops, and then a half-assed epilogue attempts to quickly baste down the flopping loose ends.

Actually, I'm really not going to go into the book at length, because it's just depressing. It's a pretty nifty world, with an awesomely convoluted magic system, full of characters who would potentially be interesting if we could just get to know them - and she missed the boat entirely on making me give a crap about any of it. Well done, Ms. May. You have again succeeded in inspiring the sense of "enh" I had upon completion of the Pliocene Exile.

I think she needs to get herself a decent co-author.
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/ze... )

Anyone looking for a fantasy novel equal to May's SF 'Saga of the Exiles', should look elsewhere. The first two volumes of the Boreal Moon Trilogy were competent enough and nicely written in places, but this concluding volume gives the impression of a book written for the sake of it, by an author who no longer really cares about her characters.

With badly explained plot devices, a total disregard of probability, and a final fifty page section that brings a sweeping, multi threaded narrative to a grinding halt in order to tie up everything neatly in time for tea, Sorcerer's Moon is a disappointment. Which is a shame, given that we know May is capable of much more.

New readers are advised to start with 'The Many Coloured Land', or even the co-written Trillium series. Those who've read the first two volumes of the trilogy might as well read this one, but need to temper their expectations. ( )