Wolf Tower
by Tanith Lee

I enjoyed this book when I read it—it got a little star in my book notebook which is the equivalent of about a four star rating—but now that I’m thinking about it later, I’m realizing that this was essentially an apathy rating. I wasn’t blown away by it but it was solidly good. There were a few quibbles I had.

First, Claidi’s voice seemed a little unsettled to me, like the author wasn’t quite sure how old she was or how old the readers were. Sometimes it seemed very young adult, sometimes a couple of years younger. I suppose you could make a case for that given that Claidi was both very protected and forced into adulthood. However, it felt less like a device and more like an actual problem.

Second, what with the beautiful gardens and the Waste and the balloons, I kept making these connections to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was extremely distracting. I was expecting the whole way through for it to suddenly fall into some sort of back-story for the Oz books. When it didn’t, I was just confused. Now, granted this may be the fault of my mind making connections where it shouldn’t. But really, when you start talking about an oasis in a desert called the Waste and then add in balloonists, I start to get suspicious.

All in all, I enjoyed this, despite these issues. I’ll be interested to see where the series (four books) goes.

Recommended.