What do You think about The Infinity Concerto (1988)?
I found the narrative voice of Michael Perrin easy to relate to, which makes me wonder about his credibility as a sixteen-year-old protagonist -- yet he is a bookish teenager of the early 80's, a novice poet, with ambitious tastes in poetry and adventure, so perhaps that says more about my own inner personas than about his.Bear uses some creative devices from Jungian psychology to fuel some of the magical discipline, and although a few of the sections dragged for my taste, he introduced novel possibilities for influencing manifestation in more flexible worlds like the Realm. His balance of light and dark at this stage is somewhat absolutist, like the latter novels in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Shadow's Gate series.Bottom line, I enjoyed the time I spent with this book, and look forward to seeing the stories unfold.
—Kathleen Porter
a tale about fairies and magic and the power of the arts...short plot description: Michael Perrin, an aspiring young poet, is given a key and instructions by an elderly music composer. Following the instructions he finds himself in a quite different world. The Sidhe are ruling this world by magic and humans (who all somehow are connected to music) are a persecuted minority, only tolerated after a terrible battle which ended in devastation and an uncomfortable truce.Michael gets assigned to the Crane Sisters, three Breeds (half human, half Sidhe) who train him physically and mentally but give him little information why he was brought into the Pact Lands. After the conclusion of his training he wanders out into the Realm trying to find out why he is crucial to events...my thoughts: for one reason or the other I never got into this book. Some parts didn't make sense to me other than as a plot device to reveal some necessary information so we can get to the next part. Mostly I felt as if this novel was constructed using a checklist. The pacing and the world building felt uneven and I didn't care for any of the characters.my advice: for me this was just another fantasy novel, not bad but not really good. There is better fantasy out there...
—holy_fire
I quit at 29%. If this wasn't a book club read, I would have stopped a lot sooner. It's too dark for me. The main character is too isolated, the world too hostile. It's all grayscale in my mind. Faerie shouldn't be ugly and colorless and full of death and despair, even when dangerous to humans. There should at least be an alien beauty to it. But this was all ugliness and hardship.I was forcing myself to continue reading (because - book club), but I was getting depressed even when I wasn't reading it (NOT good, and completely against all the reasons why I read), so I moved onto something else and really haven't looked back since. Not for me.
—Allison
