I've been reading a lot of reviews on Amazon, commenting on use of magic/soothesaying which say the same kind of thing. This one is from Ben Kane's The Forgotten Legion:
I wonder what other people think.
I'm still reading The Forgotten Legion and enjoying it. The charcters believe in magic, so I switch off my 21st century mind, and I believe in magic for as long as I'm reading.
Thoughts?
Soothsayers. There's a lot of 'soothing' in this book. Every tree seems to hide a soothsayer or druid ready to spring out with a deadly-accurate prediction. In fact a lot of the story is 'foretold' before it happens and provides virtually the only motivation for some characters (the only reason they do things is because it's been foretold they'll do them - which seems to be quite a lazy way of getting people from A to B). In contrast, Bernard Cornwell handles magical thinking in his Arthurian books very well. In these, all the characters believe implicitly in the power of magic; but the reader is never asked to, Cornwell always leaves room for a rational explanation. In this book; no, it seems you CAN tell the future by gutting an animal. But once you start breaking the rules of nature where do you stop? Will our heroes one day find a magic potion that gives them the power of flight? Imagine a Hornblower-type novel where the Captain has an invisible leprechaun perched on his shoulder whispering minute-by-minute weather forecasts. If you'd like that book, you'll love this one.
I wonder what other people think.
I'm still reading The Forgotten Legion and enjoying it. The charcters believe in magic, so I switch off my 21st century mind, and I believe in magic for as long as I'm reading.
Thoughts?