MICRO-REVIEW ARCHIVE LOG

I was really stoked to dive into SHADOW & CLAW after hearing all the rave reviews. Gene Wolfe's reputation precedes him as a master of complex, thought-provoking storytelling, and I was eager to see what all the fuss was about. At first, it seemed like he'd knocked it out of the park - the main character, Kyreol, is definitely someone you can't help but root for. Her struggles to navigate the weird world she finds herself in are genuinely compelling, and I found myself invested in her journey. Unfortunately, as much as I loved Kyreol, the story itself just didn't click with me. It's not that it was bad by any means - Wolfe's prose is always going to be dense and challenging, but that's part of his charm. The problem is that it's just too weird for my taste. I mean, I'm all for a good dose of surrealism or unexplained weirdness in my sci-fi, but SHADOW & CLAW takes the cake. It's like Wolfe took every obscure mythology and mythological reference he could find and threw them all into a blender, hit puree, and served it up with a side of existential crisis. For me, it was just too much to handle, and I ended up feeling lost and frustrated instead of fascinated or challenged. Maybe I'll try again someday, but for now, I think I'll stick to more straightforward adventures.