Spindle's End Book

Spindle's End (a retelling of Sleeping Beauty) is odd in a lot of respects, and therefore a lot of people aren't going to like it. To outline these:

1. Most of the book is narration. There is very little in the way of dialogue, even when it comes to things that most other authors would have left for characters to say.

2. It is hard to say who the main character really is. The person who you would assume to be the central character at the beginning is very peripheral by the end.

3. While based on a fairy tale, the resolution of the novel seems to be anything but formulaic. Even by regular fantasy novel standards, a lot of this comes out of left field.

4. It takes a very long time for things to happen (in the sense of action), and when it does you may miss it if you aren't paying attention.

5. Random facts about places, people, and customs of the fictional kingdom are dropped in sporadically. This adds a great deal of richness to the book, as well as causing a bit of confusion (some tidbits about customs, for instance, are dropped chapters before they are explained).

All of that said, I really liked this book. The narration that makes it so odd is engaging enough to make up for the fact that you can go for pages without a character saying something. The descriptions were some of the best I've read in ages from any genre, and I was so happy that the novel ended in a way you would not guess from the start (one aspect of the ending was a given, but otherwise...completely offside). Overall, I would recommend this to a lot of people...with a big caveat regarding the narration. If you need a lot of things to happen very quickly, and a ton of witty banter from your characters, you may want to skip this one.