I finished up J Gregory Keyes Age of Unreason series. Empire of Unreason and Shadows of God didn't fix the problems that I'd had with the first two books in the series. There wasn't enough character development, and the books felt to hectic. I think a lot more could have been done if instead of stuffing in plot points and including as many "real" historical figures as possible Keyes had expanded the series and fleshed out his main characters a bit more.
A case in point: Franklin and his wife's marriage issues. They crop up suddenly in the third book, remain a major problem throughout the fourth book, and are magically solved in 2 pages near the end. It made the people feel far less real than the setting, which is a major problem for a book of this type. If you make an alternate future/past book you need to limit changes as much as possible. The draw in these books comes from the "those people are real... that city exists..." and that draw is killed if the people don't seem real, but are instead one dimensional dolls made to advance the plot.
As an aside, I've been lending out my copies of A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. It's quite a good series. I should probably reread and write up the books. In the meantime, I'm pondering who Jon Snow's parents are. Current best guess: Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen.
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A friend asked what I was reading, and I excitedly told him about the Neal Stephenson Baroque Cycle. He grew as excited and told me about the Age of Unreason. I was surprised to hear him compare something, anything, to the Stephenson, and he seemed to think the books were on par with one another. I checked out the first volume when I had a chance.
I'll never get those two and a half hours of my life back.
--hza
I find that they really suffer against the Alvin Maker series by Card. I'll need to hit the library for the Neal Stephenson though, I'm running out of books to read
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