https://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2022/02/202219-moonwise-greer-ilene-gilman.html ( )

I'm still about 80 pages from the end, but I think I'll put in my review now.

This is a marvelous, imaginative, well-researched book. Anyone who is contemplating reading this book should know that first off. The depth of knowledge of traditional English folklore that forms the basis of this book runs all through it. The friendship between the two main characters, adult women, is deep and rich, and the fact that there is no male love interest makes my heart sing. An imagined world that comes alive is always a wonderful theme of fantasy books.

Still.

I think Gillman's editor could have done her more service to have asked her to write a book of poetry or add poetry to this book, to channel the use of such deep and rich language. While I love writers who channel lyrical voices (Guy Gavriel Kay, Patricia A. McKillip), this book loses its way in its use of overly-descriptive language with every single sentence. Really. Every sentence. It's too much. And the lack of any real action makes the limited action that is written almost dull. There is a lot of tramping through a world covered in snow with very little food or adequate clothing, every character wears some form of a ragged cloak, and the emphasis on folkloric English dialect makes for difficult reading. Leaves are everywhere, the conflict between the two witches is sort of a given with no real history, and the transformation of the landscape almost daily becomes confusing. Again, I think that Gillman's editor could have used a stronger red pen to limit the reader's wading through thick language and emphasized a true story line that, well, went somewhere, or explained why the world of Cloud was formed the way it was.

It's possible to read it in smaller or larger sections, with limited distractions, but it is necessary to read it in a long, continuous stream; if you put it down, pick it up soon! ( )

Once, long ago, I read William Morris's 'The Water of the Wondrous Isles', which begins with the immortal words "Whilom, as tells the tale, was a walled cheaping-town hight Utterhay which was builded in a bight of the land a little off the great highway … hard on the borders of a wood which men held to be mighty great, or maybe measureless", and carries on like that for another 360 pages. This book reminded me a lot of that experience. "Beautiful, poetic and challenging" says one of the Amazon reviews; if it is, I failed the challenge. I will grant it the first two points, but it becomes bogged down in the author's fondness for words – clever words; I feel that many a dictionary word-of-the-day perished to make up this collection. If the words had together added up to more than the slenderest of storylines, then it might have been an altogether easier read; as it was, I struggled with every page. Oh, and whilst I don't fault the author for her fondness for Steeleye Span, she does rather push it to the limit here. ( )

Atmospheric more than plot-driven, but gorgeous language. And lovely to re-read, with more of the depth and wordplay coming to light each successive time. ( )

Strange, dense, not easy to read--but still memorable almost two decades after reading it. Sui generis and a mind-stretching treat for anyone who loves language and is steeped in the substratum of fantasy and legend where good fantasy originates. ( )