January '14 / Steampunk Reading: Pavane by Keith Roberts

[papayahed]

Just finished. I'm not completely satisfied with the ending but I'll get over it.

[Calidore]

I feel bad that I wasn't able to keep up with this as I'd hoped, especially since I nominated it in the first place. I did start the book last week, but am only about halfway through the first part. I'll still be finishing it, though, and will post thoughts here as I go.

[papayahed]

I feel bad that I wasn't able to keep up with this as I'd hoped, especially since I nominated it in the first place. I did start the book last week, but am only about halfway through the first part. I'll still be finishing it, though, and will post thoughts here as I go.

No worries, this may be the first time I've ever finished a book in a month and a day for book club.

[Scheherazade]

I will start reading this tomorrow, hopefully. Better late than never!

[Scheherazade]

Just found this:

An alternate cover for the book which dipicts the Lady Margaret:

My copy has that cover. And I found it initially confusing as well... I cannot say that I am all that keen on alternative history. It confuses me lil' ole brain.

[Dark Muse]

I finally just finished this book and I find I have rather mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I did feel there where aspects of it that where interesting, and it was fun at any rate to read something different, of which I haven't really read before (beginning the genre of Steampunk and Alternative History). The narrative structure I thought was on the one hand interesting but on the other hand I was hoping for something a little more. I felt the book did not give a wide enough spectrum of this world that the author had created. The book had too narrow of view which made it hard for me at times to understand the context in which certain things where happening, as well there where things of which it would have been nice to have more of an explanation for. I felt this book left a lot unexplained or not fully addressed. As well I did not feel the author really did a good job of tying together each of these different parts of the book. At points I did find myself confused as to just what was happening.

[Scheherazade]

I found this book slow-going for me and was glad to see the back cover!

I thought the structure was good but there was not enough meat on the bone... None of the characters were developed enough for me to feel a connection with and the whole story had a fairy tale feel to it, where everything just happened or people just did things. I am not sure what the author was trying to achieve or where he was heading with the storyline (I know what's happened but why did the author chose to tell this story?)

I cannot say that this book leaves me with desire to read more steampunk.

[Calidore]

In two months, I've only finished up thru the third measure. It must have been longer than I thought since I last read this, because I remember pretty much nothing about the plots. I'm still enjoying the writing itself very much. Even though much of it is scene-setting exposition and mechanical description, he writes it interestingly and blends it in with the action well enough that I never catch myself skimming.

I thought the first measure worked well as a self-contained story, and that's my favorite of the three so far. The writing kept me interested in the second measure, but the ending seemed to make it pointless. The third was somewhere in between, though the bigness of the subject at least left the feeling that these events would figure into the overarching story later.

I feel bad that I'm the only one who really likes my recommendation. Sorry, folks; I'll try to do better next time.

[Dark Muse]

I thought the first measure worked well as a self-contained story, and that's my favorite of the three so far. The writing kept me interested in the second measure, but the ending seemed to make it pointless. The third was somewhere in between, though the bigness of the subject at least left the feeling that these events would figure into the overarching story later.

I felt pretty much the same way. After reading the first two measures I thought this book was written almost as a collection of short stories which are set within the same world/reality. But the ending of the 2nd measure did seem to make the whole story a bit pointless, and it left me expecting it to somehow become more significant later within the book but it never really did.

I did enjoy the 4th measure though by then it was getting difficult for me to keep track of what characters where related/connected to who and how. But I liked the story within that measure but the ending of the book was kind of a let down.