The Way to Babylon
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Michael Riven—a successful author and former soldier—has fallen off a mountain. Broken in both body and mind, racked with guilt and loss by the death of his wife Jenny, he withdraws into himself in the rural hospital where he painfully recovers. His readers are desperate to know what will happen next in the fantasy world of his stories, but neither writing, nor living, are of interest to him anymore.
But there are others seeking the scribe out. Men of Minginish have begun a quest to rescue their blighted homeland, and have come between worlds. Riven will be asked to travel to a land both familiar and terrifying, which he once thought his own creation. The author must take up the companions of his stories—grim Bicker, fierce Ratagan and sly Murtach—and find a way to mend what was sundered.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Exquisite prose meets paint-by-numbers fantasy in this reissue of Kearney's 1992 novel. Newly widowed author Michael Riven finds himself drawn into the world he created, and learns that only by saving that world can he save himself. If the premise is unassuming, Kearney largely pulls it off with aplomb thanks to his lush rendering of the novel's geography, from the Isle of Skye to the fantasy world created by Riven's imagination. Characterization is Kearney's downfall. The characters are archetypes, not people, and the few female characters are idealized creatures whose only role is to appeal to or repulse Riven. Additionally, while Riven accepts his new reality a little too easily, the reader can't. The scenes set in our world have a vivid cruelty that the rest of the novel lacks, making it impossible to truly believe he has stumbled into a wish-fulfillment universe. Ultimately, the reader is left with the sense of a strong narrative voice telling the wrong story.
