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Title: Tailchaser's Song
Author: Tad Williams
Published: New York: Daw Books, Inc., 2000 (1985)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 57,573
Text Number: 166
Read For: recommended by Kiirlo, checked out from the library
Short review: Fritti Tailchaser is a young ginger tomcat in a world where cats have their own language, culture, and mythology. When his friend and prospective mate Hushpad goes missing, Tailchaser sets out on a quest to discover what distant evil threatens the lives of the Folk. Tailchaser's Song is a generic fantasy questing novel with larger-than-life gods and a feline wrapping—but, unfortunately, Williams knows nothing about cats. Gross inaccuracies and general misconceptions strip away the feline aspect and so destroy this book's only unique aspect. I do not recommend it.
( Long review. )
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
As the writing isn't incredibly awful, I can't be quite so virulently negative about this book as I might like to be while still maintaining some sense of a fair assessment. However: I hated it. I hated it a lot—because if you're so captured by the magic of your first pet cat you should at least pretend to know something of that magic before you write a book about it. Cats don't have gender identities and aren't meant to be feral and, for the love of all that which is good, they do not meow at each other. A basic encyclopedia article offers more truth about the mystical depths of cat nature than there are in the 400 pages of this book. I really, really hated it.
Author: Tad Williams
Published: New York: Daw Books, Inc., 2000 (1985)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 57,573
Text Number: 166
Read For: recommended by Kiirlo, checked out from the library
Short review: Fritti Tailchaser is a young ginger tomcat in a world where cats have their own language, culture, and mythology. When his friend and prospective mate Hushpad goes missing, Tailchaser sets out on a quest to discover what distant evil threatens the lives of the Folk. Tailchaser's Song is a generic fantasy questing novel with larger-than-life gods and a feline wrapping—but, unfortunately, Williams knows nothing about cats. Gross inaccuracies and general misconceptions strip away the feline aspect and so destroy this book's only unique aspect. I do not recommend it.
( Long review. )
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
As the writing isn't incredibly awful, I can't be quite so virulently negative about this book as I might like to be while still maintaining some sense of a fair assessment. However: I hated it. I hated it a lot—because if you're so captured by the magic of your first pet cat you should at least pretend to know something of that magic before you write a book about it. Cats don't have gender identities and aren't meant to be feral and, for the love of all that which is good, they do not meow at each other. A basic encyclopedia article offers more truth about the mystical depths of cat nature than there are in the 400 pages of this book. I really, really hated it.
