![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I haven't had a good book binge in a while. I started this one on the train downtown to hang out with David and Lisa and friends last night, then stayed up till 1 AM reading after I got home, then read from around 9:15 this morning until I finished it at 1:20 PM. Ah. I didn't have any breakfast till after I finished the book, which probably wasn't good for me, but it was such fun to binge out on a book.
And a new Robin McKinley is always good fun to binge out on. I was a little worried about how she would handle dragons, but this was extremely well written and the plot was interesting and different. McKinley dragons are definitely different from McCaffrey dragons or Wrede dragons or Yolen dragons or whatever other kinds of dragons you can think of, and I really appreciated the fresh take. There wasn't much of McKinley's trademark Mysterious Magical Climactic Moment, either. There was some mystery, sure, but it wasn't the "Hey, a big a glob of magic suddenly appeared when I waved this sword and now all our enemies are defeated!!" that we've seen in other books. Technically, there wasn't any "magic" at all, just an alienness. I liked that change from her usual. I think a lot of it had to do with the perspective of the narrator, too, which I liked, although he did go on and on a bit. Overall a really good story.
And a new Robin McKinley is always good fun to binge out on. I was a little worried about how she would handle dragons, but this was extremely well written and the plot was interesting and different. McKinley dragons are definitely different from McCaffrey dragons or Wrede dragons or Yolen dragons or whatever other kinds of dragons you can think of, and I really appreciated the fresh take. There wasn't much of McKinley's trademark Mysterious Magical Climactic Moment, either. There was some mystery, sure, but it wasn't the "Hey, a big a glob of magic suddenly appeared when I waved this sword and now all our enemies are defeated!!" that we've seen in other books. Technically, there wasn't any "magic" at all, just an alienness. I liked that change from her usual. I think a lot of it had to do with the perspective of the narrator, too, which I liked, although he did go on and on a bit. Overall a really good story.
