Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear

Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


So the draw here is entirely the worldbuilding, to my eye. And it is good worldbuilding; Bear didn’t just say ‘hey, I want to write heroic fantasy about them easterners instead of another damn western European retread,’ she actually thought it through. This is not worldbuilding that relies on exoticized stereotypes. This stuff makes sense, right down to the nutritional advice given to a woman who has just lost her fertility (eat soybeans, which is exactly the advice that would come out of a doctor in this culture, given its real world cognates, and, not for nothing, which is also actually pretty good advice). Tangent.

But otherwise . . . meh. It’s such straight-faced heroic fantasy, and you know when the magical pony shows up and I find it annoying, a book has failed to work on me. I have no desire to read two more books of giant evil birds and sorcerers and weird visions and endless, endless, endless horse travel, mostly because if the entire main cast was slaughtered, I probably wouldn't blink.

Some of you guys will find the worldbuilding far and away worth the price of admission, though.




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