Book Review: The Winds of All Worlds, by Mikal C Johnson

Some of you might remember how, after I blogged about trying to teach myself to read cuneiform, I received an email from claidheamdanns asking for help writing a birthday (and later, also a name) in cuneiform for a novel that would shortly be published. As I blogged at the time, I thought it would be either a five minute google, or completely beyond me, and hence completely failed to predict it would be somewhere in between and suck an entire evening out of me. At the end of the process, I had a page of wedge-shaped marks, a promise of a dedication in the book, and, in the fullness of time, a gratis copy of The Winds of All Worlds by Mikal C. Johnson, with handwritten thank-yous from claidheamdanns and the author:

( View piccy )

(aviva_m: "That's your Limmud presenter blurb!" YHN: "Not any more; this year it's also going to have '...and created the cuneiform texts in a recently published novel.'" :o))

( Read review )

In summary, despite all I said above in criticism of the book, I'm reminded of rysmiel's comments to me on The Armageddon Blues: "about as good as one can expect [for being] written by a [novice] with more imagination than wordskill. He's gotten much better since." And indeed, three books down the line, I was rating the author of that book as excellent; so, assuming his writing likewise improves over time, I have high hopes for Johnson!