Not a book review.

So, I finished reading The Gate to Women's Country. However, I will not review it yet, for three reasons.

Reason the first. I want to let it digest for a bit before I commit myself. The last time I reviewed immediately upon finishing a book, I ended up with a mere panegyric. Worse, I did not realize I had been so careless until I overheard my mom attempting to summarize the plot to the first short story in the book. At which point it became obvious that no, Tuf Voyaging was not a slightly-more-intellectual version of the Medship stories, it was ...

*checks thesaurus*

...

*checks dictionary*

... a prolix, pompous, and preposterous piece of space-opera pap.

Well, that's an exaggeration. It's not really that pompous, and I did enjoy it when I was reading it. But it certainly isn't as superb as I thought it was. Fortunately, reviews of his more recent fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, are uniformly positive, which suggests that he's learned something over the past ten-twenty years. Either that, or he was just writing Tuf for the money he wasn't at his best when he wrote the earlier stories.


Reason the second. My first impression does not correlate with my pre-reading expectations. This could mean one of several things, and until I've had a chance to reconsider for a day or two, I'm not committing myself to a viewpoint.


Reason the third. I have homework to do. Right now, actually. Erm.