Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Doubleday (1990), Edition: 1st, 342 pages
Description
Jack, a Walker, has learned a secret-one that could mean the end of all the worlds, not just his own. He has earned an enemy-and the Mage of Four, Mage of Luck, is a powerful enemy indeed. Jack must flee to our world, where he gathers a small group of unlikely, sometimes unwilling allies. In the ultimate confrontation, their efforts will determine the fate of the universes.
User reviews
LibraryThing member susan402
excerpt from my blog:
Ok, so the book starts with a prologue that it is possible to skip. And I tell you this because WARNING: the book starts with the death of an animal. A lot of people are sensitive about that sort of thing and the book should have a warning label. So there. One from me. The
The book then goes on to introduce us to a homeless guy name Geebo who cleans windshields in the city. From this point, the book is really good for quite a while. The voice is very good and I enjoyed the descriptions of places and the characters of the street people. Geebo has some kind of amnesia, and that provides a bit of mystery. He meets the King's Tramp, Jack, and starts to get pulled into Jack's mission- whatever that is. Another set of characters is introduced, Money, her rich lover, Eugene Bowman, and his driver, Herb. So there's a whole other plot there running along.
When the various plots start to come together is where the book lost me. Not because it got hard to follow, but because it was like- shrug- yeah, whatever. I didn't feel any sense of momentum. Most of the explanation of Jack's mission is saved for too long, I think, so that by the time that part of the story gets related I'm like- oh. So? The bad guys didn't interact very much with the good guys, except when they were trying to kill each other, so I didn't get much of a handle on them and they weren't very scary to me.
There is a human bad guy who seems to be taken directly from real headlines with his name changed, and then this diabolical post-headline history made up for him and worked into the story. At first it seemed that the character was loosely based on the real person which was like, oh, interesting idea. Then as the story started to move it was like there was this big sign that said: Hey, this guy is really Blank Blank. Get it? Guh. Whatever. It was annoying. And lot of readers younger than I probably won't even get it.
By the last third of the book, I really had to push to finish. Nothing was happening that I cared about, and I didn't expect anything to change my mind, and nothing did. There were things that happened and I was just thinking- oh, setup for sequel, set-up for sequel. Like I'm going to read the sequel. The end sort of just happened all off camera. After all that lead-up. What was the point?
Ok, so the book starts with a prologue that it is possible to skip. And I tell you this because WARNING: the book starts with the death of an animal. A lot of people are sensitive about that sort of thing and the book should have a warning label. So there. One from me. The
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prologue is set in the "other" world and gives just a bit of flavor and background, but it's not necessary to understanding the story so if you still want to read the book, you can safely do it without reading that part.The book then goes on to introduce us to a homeless guy name Geebo who cleans windshields in the city. From this point, the book is really good for quite a while. The voice is very good and I enjoyed the descriptions of places and the characters of the street people. Geebo has some kind of amnesia, and that provides a bit of mystery. He meets the King's Tramp, Jack, and starts to get pulled into Jack's mission- whatever that is. Another set of characters is introduced, Money, her rich lover, Eugene Bowman, and his driver, Herb. So there's a whole other plot there running along.
When the various plots start to come together is where the book lost me. Not because it got hard to follow, but because it was like- shrug- yeah, whatever. I didn't feel any sense of momentum. Most of the explanation of Jack's mission is saved for too long, I think, so that by the time that part of the story gets related I'm like- oh. So? The bad guys didn't interact very much with the good guys, except when they were trying to kill each other, so I didn't get much of a handle on them and they weren't very scary to me.
There is a human bad guy who seems to be taken directly from real headlines with his name changed, and then this diabolical post-headline history made up for him and worked into the story. At first it seemed that the character was loosely based on the real person which was like, oh, interesting idea. Then as the story started to move it was like there was this big sign that said: Hey, this guy is really Blank Blank. Get it? Guh. Whatever. It was annoying. And lot of readers younger than I probably won't even get it.
By the last third of the book, I really had to push to finish. Nothing was happening that I cared about, and I didn't expect anything to change my mind, and nothing did. There were things that happened and I was just thinking- oh, setup for sequel, set-up for sequel. Like I'm going to read the sequel. The end sort of just happened all off camera. After all that lead-up. What was the point?
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Awards
IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award (Finalist — 1991)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
342 p.; 8.3 inches
ISBN
0385260393 / 9780385260398