Book review: the Chronicles of Castle Brass

I was fairly sure, when I picked this up, that I would regret it; and I was right. Perhaps eked out one book at a time; or perhaps better one of the chapters at a time in a pulp mag it would have been quite fun; but as the complete set somehow the content-free fluffy words become sticky, cloying and hard to digest. If you want a synopsis, see here.

Hawkmoon withers around, regretting his friend Count Brass who died in the battle of Londra, and <something something> Count Brass is alive but his two children and wife are now dead, and <something something> we've managed to get his wife back but but his children and friends are dead and <something something> now everyone is alive, except for the spear carriers of course but they have no names and so don't matter.

At a few points one can almost feel something real struggling to emerge; the idea perhaps that you can't have it all; that not everyone makes it to the ships; but in the end mawkishness kicks in. There's a kind of flatness to the overall tone that wears me down, too much hewing to tropes.

Or then again, perhaps I just wasn't in the mood.

Here, however, is a picture of my recently-read bookshelf, although I wouldn't swear it to be complete, or what I mean by recent.