Owen King

Curator

elizabeth

Before I get into the bad, I want to be super clear in saying there are things about The Curator that I really respect, and I think a lot of fantasy readers are looking for. It's off-beat and clearly deeply imagined in King's mind. And its angle feels fresh--it' just as much the story of a revolution as it is Dora's story, with commentary on human nature, power, class, meritocracy...you get the point. 

Okay, now, the less great things.

It was too long. I don't mean that I don't *want* to read that many pages, I just mean that I want each page to be worth it, not wordy. I'm not begging every author to boil down every sentence like Hemingway or anything, but I began to tire at every description and metaphor and blah blah blah. 

Maybe more importantly, I didn't feel as though King made great effort to get the reader's emotional investment. I sometimes thought, "hmm, that's interesting," and that's about as strong as my emotions got. Maybe it was the odd treatment of women. Maybe it was how long it took for the plot to "click." Maybe it was the aforementioned wordiness. Regardless, I leave this book feeling very little about it. 

In a fantasy, I want to be dying to get to the next page because I care about what happens, not because I just want it to be over. Unfortunately, this was usually a case of the latter--the world-building couldn't carry The Curator.

I tried to like it but the constant use of the female character as a symbol for sex for all the male characters made me feel quite sick. The storyline is very hard to follow with constant introduction of new characters and at 100 pages in there seems to be no consideration for the point of the book. I think King tried to develop a very detail landscaping but failed to actually tell a story. 

Curator

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