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A review by changeablelandscape
The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
I read this once on an airplane in the late 90s and remembered nothing about it except that Richard III showed up and that there were vampires , so I am glad I took the time to reread it! It's an interesting alt-historical world in which Christianity didn't take hold in the west but the rest of European history happened on track, which honestly doesn't hold up *at all* if I think about it -- but whatever! Ford wanted 15th century Europe but with magic and Mithras, and so that's what he did.
My challenge with this book is that Ford famously had a horror of being too obvious in his writing, which means this is not a straightforward book -- what happens plot-wise is complex enough, with lots of intrigue and double-crossing and jumps in time and space, but what happens emotionally for the POV characters is even more complicated. At times a character would have a huge emotional reaction to an event and I'd be completely at a loss to understand why, needing to go back and reread several times to pick up the tiny hints Ford drops about who loves/hates/wants whom, which makes for a very un-immersive book! When I was younger I used to love that about Ford, and I hope I still will in some of my favourite work by him, but this time around it made things slog -- I'm not sure I'll reread this again, or at least not for a long time.
My challenge with this book is that Ford famously had a horror of being too obvious in his writing, which means this is not a straightforward book -- what happens plot-wise is complex enough, with lots of intrigue and double-crossing and jumps in time and space, but what happens emotionally for the POV characters is even more complicated. At times a character would have a huge emotional reaction to an event and I'd be completely at a loss to understand why, needing to go back and reread several times to pick up the tiny hints Ford drops about who loves/hates/wants whom, which makes for a very un-immersive book! When I was younger I used to love that about Ford, and I hope I still will in some of my favourite work by him, but this time around it made things slog -- I'm not sure I'll reread this again, or at least not for a long time.