[Reading Group] August 2014 - The Elfin Ship

[Steerpike]

Homunculus is a strange little book. I enjoyed it. Quite strange, and full of quirky characters. Phil, you might like some of his short stories better. A lot take place in the modern world and are truly weird fiction.

 

[Philip Overby]

Still going along with this one, but I'm reading Red Country and The Emperor's Blades by Brian Stavely at the moment as well, so I'm probably not going to keep up throughout the month. I'm trying to finish what I start in every aspect of my life now though, so one way or another I'm going to finish this book.

 

[Mythopoet]

Well, I ended up misplacing the book for a while and then found it again a couple of days ago so yesterday I finally finished it!

All in all, I'm not really sure what I think about this book. It is certainly unique, in my experience. Despite the fact that almost all of the elements, individually, are often used tropes, the book manages to put them all together in a way I've never seen before. The book starts out feeling like The Hobbit, but veers off in the opposite direction of The Hobbit as the story progresses. Whereas The Hobbit becomes much more serious, The Elfin Ship never stops being light-heartedly ridiculous. Even its animated skeletons can't manage to be frightening.

As characters go, I think Theophile Escargot and Professor Wurzle were my favorites of the main characters. Of the secondary characters I liked Miles the Magician and Twickenham the only slightly less ridiculous Elf. Seriously, the Elves in this book were something other than else. And the linkmen were bizarre. (What is a linkman anyway?)

I don't think I'd ever call this one of my favorites, but it was an interesting experience and something I might recommend as a palate cleanser.