Worlds Without End Blog

Thom Denholm (Thomcat) works in the software industry and as a baseball umpire. In his spare time, he has kept up a steady stream of reading, fiction and non-fiction, since he was old enough to enter a library “summer reading” contest. He first read “A Wrinkle in Time” before it was extended into a series, only coming back to read the subsequent books recently. He joined WWEnd last year, too late to really dive into the GMRC but signed up for the WoGF challenge immediately, and he’s looking forward to a functioning “random author picker”. : )

This is a story about a young wizard and a gambler, thrown together and sent on an adventure. They encounter a dead girl and her living elderly father, a wizard in his own right. Descriptions of Mythic Russia include people, places and creatures – including that of the title.

From the author’s description, “A rusalka is a Russian ghost: a drowned maiden who dies for love will become a rusalka, haunting the river where she perished.” A few other Russian beasties appear in this story – including bannik, leshy, and vodyanoy. The interactions of these between themselves and with the main characters form much of what I liked about this book.

Unfortunately there was a lot I had difficulties with. The thought processes of each main character were overly detailed, slowing any action to a crawl. I’ve read Heinlein’s chapter-long discussions between characters easily enough, but found myself distracted or worse, nodding off during thought-filled paragraphs in this book. When the characters conversed, the dialogue wasn’t much better, and could be repetitive at times. The book does contain a few action sequences, including most of the first chapter. These went by quickly, perhaps because the characters were focused on actions instead of thoughts.

Rusalka is the first book in a series of three, though it definitely stands alone as a complete story. I read the paperback version, from Del Rey and Ballantine. The rights have reverted to the author, who has rewritten and republished the following two books, Chernevog and Yvgenie. If I were to read the rest of this series, those are the versions I would seek out.

And that’s the rub – I don’t think I will, or at least not in the near future. C. J. Cherryh is an award winning author, and this book was nominated for a Locus Fantasy award in 1990 (losing out to Orson Scott Card’s Prentice Alvin). I just don’t have the stamina to work through another book like this one. After spending more than three weeks with these characters, Rusalka rates just 2 out of 5.

Posted in Reviews, Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge