⋙ [PDF] Gratis Golden Witchbreed Mary Gentle 9780451136060 Books

Golden Witchbreed Mary Gentle 9780451136060 Books

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Golden Witchbreed Mary Gentle 9780451136060 Books

Back in 1990 my brother called me about a book he had just finished reading and was positive I would love. He knew that I like the style of UK and Australian SciFi and fantasy writers. I agreed to try it. Mary Gentle has been part of my library ever since and I was thrilled she finally went to e format. Amazing world building, solid characters and a plot that keeps you turning pages !


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Golden Witchbreed Mary Gentle 9780451136060 Books Reviews

Science fiction and fantasy usually take us to worlds that are different from our own, and so the skill of worldbuilding is a must for authors in these genres. There are dangers to this, though, particularly if authors fall too much in love with their creations, and this leads to the common failings of making your novel into a tour guide rather than a story, and refusing to allow the story to change that world.

I think that Golden Witchbreed falls into the former trap. It is certainly an ambitious creation, filled with linguistic and cultural details about the world of Orthe that testify to Gentle's impressive imagination (there's even a glossary in the back to help the reader with the many unfamiliar terms). The trouble is that the worldbuilding is done at the expense of the story, rather than in support of it, a problem that Ursula LeGuin's masterpiece The Left Hand of Darkness, to which Golden Witchbreed is lavishly compared in the blurbs at the front, does not have.

Because there really isn't much in the way of story or theme in this novel. There is an elaborate plot, but it is unmemorable The Earth envoy Lynne Christie has been sent to negotiate with the natives of Orthe, and she gets wrapped up in their politics and rivalries. So she moves around a lot as the political intrigues swirl around her, giving Gentle the opportunity to describe her world in great detail. But there's no real theme here, no real discussion of ideas, as there is in LeGuin's work.

The result is a very long novel that is neither good nor bad, and in which only the setting is really memorable. It's clever, like most successful science fiction novels, since this is a genre that often rewards cleverness over substance. But a little less of the alien and a little more theme would have helped this novel immensely.
I picked this up on the basis of a review that said it was an entertaining read, but I had to push myself to finish it.

Many of the problems I had with it are perhaps typical of inexperienced writers. The protagonist lets herself be carried along by the plot rather than trying to shape it, meanwhile trekking over most of the map, in flabby fantasy novel fashion. Characterization is by a 'tell don't show' method. That was particularly annoying; for one example, Christie (the narrator) tells us that Sethin Falkyr Talkul is 'a neat cold man' as soon as she meets him. We have no idea what she's basing this on---the way he dresses? Parts his hair? Refuses to shake hands? (Okay, he's an alien so he wouldn't shake hands, but you get the idea.) Later I'm pretty sure she described him as 'witty,' but if he ever said anything funny, I didn't notice. You get the feeling that the writer has one idea of the characters in her head but can't quite translate it into giving them distinguishable personalities on the page.

Another thing that bugged me, that's probably also a sign of inexperience, was Christie's way of reporting some events in a dry matter-of-fact fashion when I thought she ought to be having an emotional reaction to them, which made me feel like I wasn't really getting into her head...and then at other times she seemed to have an emotional reaction that wasn't justified by events---for instance, her feelings of betrayal when a guy who was hired to kill her runs off without killing her. (The situation *was* a little more complicated than that makes it sound.)

I did enjoy some parts. The Kasabaarde part was good, and there's a powerful scene toward the end when the head of the conspiracy is revealed...though it would have been more interesting if Christie had tried to engage with the bad guy's arguments. I'm focusing on the negative here because on the balance, I can't recommend the book.

I'm kind of disappointed I didn't like it better, because some of Gentle's other work sounds really intriguing, and I'm not sure I want to take the chance and see if she improved.
Golden Witchbreed is astonishingly good. If you have not read it, you should first read Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, the archetypal SF novel of an ambassador to an alien world where the people seem like us, but are not.
The ambassador here is female and her blonde hair is enough to make the superstitious dark-haired people she meets suspect that she is one of the previous ruling class, the golden witchbreed as they are now known. These aliens are derived from reptiles and still reproduce by laying an egg which the male incubates in a pouch, though the delicate nature of her mission means that the ambassador is afraid to ask right out about reproduction or other personal matters. Instead she travels from place to place around the world of Orthe, observing, experiencing the climate and culture until, like LeGuin's ambassador, she finds herself receiving unfriendly attentions.
The planet is very well described and we really feel what the characters do and fear for their lives. Read it.
The second book Ancient Light is also good but ends unhappily, I warn you. The two are bundled in a book called Orthe.
When I found this and the subsequent novel, Ancient Light, I had to order them for my friend. Quickly shipped and in better condition than advertised I have to say that i would definately order from this seller again and again as i try to rebuild my library! Now if only they were in ebook format....
Enjoyed reading the book on my even though I had read a hard copy years ago
I preferred its sequel, Ancient Light, but this was really good too. Mary Gentle is a wonderful worldbuilder
As good as it gets
Back in 1990 my brother called me about a book he had just finished reading and was positive I would love. He knew that I like the style of UK and Australian SciFi and fantasy writers. I agreed to try it. Mary Gentle has been part of my library ever since and I was thrilled she finally went to e format. Amazing world building, solid characters and a plot that keeps you turning pages !