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Laddar... Ariel (1983)av Steven R. Boyett
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This is an odd fantasy novel. I bought it in a humble bundle almost three years ago. It is superficially about a young man trying to survive in a world where technology has been replaced by magic. It is, on a deeper level, about love. About how "love at first sight" is about loving the idea of a person, not the person themself. It's about how love doesn't have to last forever for it to have been meaningful. It's a tragedy, without being sad. I'd like to own a paper copy. A pretty good "change" novel. Similar to the work of S.M. Stilling, although this may actually predate Stirling's works. I enjoyed the idea of merging fantasy with the modern world. Almost as enjoyable was theauthors voles in the afterward, where he I quite bubbly :-), tells the story behind the story.
The telling is flat-out brilliant. It never lets up. The characters are likable and vivid, the storytelling fast and non-stop, the tale filled with adventure, bravery, betrayal, swordplay, magic, and eleven kinds of coming of age. Ingår i serienThe Change (1) Priser
"Part post-apocalypse, part road-trip, part sword-and-sorcery . . . One of my favorite adventure novels of all time." --Cory Doctorow At four-thirty one Saturday afternoon the laws of physics as we know them underwent a change. Electronic devices, cars, industries stopped. The lights went out. Any technology more complicated than a lever or pulley simply wouldn't work. A new set of rules took its place--laws that could only be called magic. Ninety-nine percent of humanity has simply vanished. Cities lie abandoned. Supernatural creatures wander the silenced achievements of a halted civilization. Pete Garey has survived the Change and its ensuing chaos. He wanders the southeastern United States, scavenging, lying low. Learning. One day he makes an unexpected friend: a smartassed unicorn with serious attitude. Pete names her Ariel and teaches her how to talk, how to read, and how to survive in a world in which a unicorn horn has become a highly prized commodity. When they learn that there is a price quite literally on Ariel's head, the two unlikely companions set out from Atlanta to Manhattan to confront the sorcerer who wants her horn. And so begins a haunting, epic, and surprisingly funny journey through the remnants of a halted civilization in a desolated world. Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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Google Books — Laddar... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Klassifikation enligt LCBetygMedelbetyg:
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However this time around, some of the setting became questionable: for example, when the power goes off on the day of The Change and most modern technology stops working, not only is this rather selective - guns don't work, or bicycles, but we later discover wristwatches do - but people start to behave very extremely,
The 'gold' in the story for me happens two years later, when Pete meets a unicorn. She can communicate in baby talk, and he is able to teach her English, but she doesn't tell him how she hurt her foreleg until much later. As a virgin, Pete becomes Ariel's close companion: they are each others' Familiar, in the terminology of the post-apocalypse world where other creatures such as dragons, rocs, manticores and griffins have appeared and are sometimes bonded with humans, as are normal animals such as hawks. Since Ariel learns English from Pete she becomes a wisecracking character who swears and is generally not how you'd expect a unicorn to be, and that is one of the strongest elements in the story.
Pete and Ariel continue their aimless wandering until
On the way to New York, they meet a small boy sent on a quest to kill a dragon by his foolish father, and that part of the story is fine; the boy is charming and the working out of the physics of how dragons can both fly and breathe fire is well done. There are similarities in this section, probably deliberate, with Don Quixote by Cervantes, which Pete is reading to Ariel while they travel. However, they also meet an odd young woman called Shaugnessey who becomes a kind of fem fatale. She latches onto them, ostensibly because she is fascinated by Ariel, but soon develops a rather pathetic mooning crush on Pete.
Apart from the rashness of the journey - how can they defeat the forces against them - the story derails severely when the inevitable happens.
There is a focus throughout, and especially in the last half, on Pete's struggle against his sexual awakening (only to be expected considering he is about twenty). He has some embarrassing interludes, and it is clear when they were still together that Ariel was troubled by Shaughnessey's presence. And when they are apart, Pete behaves horribly towards Shaughnessey, coming across as self absorbed and unattractive.
I believe the book has been reissued with an afterword that explains some of the inconsistencies, including the disappearance of most of the human population and the absence of disease, but I haven't seen it. Suffice to say they stand out on this re-reading. Despite the graphic violence and sex, the book is probably more suited to the higher end of the YA age spectrum than for adult readers, which is a shame. The slump after the loss of Ariel - lectures on hang-gliding etc and guided tours of historic buildings in Washington feature - is indicative of the story's structural problems. I had good memories of it, and when I heard there was a sequel was interested to read that too, but am now not sure I would enjoy it. Hence only a 3-star rating. ( )