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What's New
Review Features
S - Science Fiction
F - Fantasy
H - Horror
Complete Listing
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Adams, Douglas (S)
Asher, Neal (S)
Aylett, Steve (S)
Banks, Iain M (S)
Barclay, James (F)
Barker, Clive (H)
Baxter, Stephen (S)
Brin, David (S)
Bury, Stephen (S)
Card, Orson Scott (S)
Cherryh, CJ (S/F)
Clute, John (S)
Cockayne, Steve (F)
Cook, Glen (F)
Danielewski, Mark (H)
Dick, Philip K (S)
Egan, Greg (S)
Feist, Raymond (F)
Gaiman, Neil (F)
Gibson, William (S)
Goodkind, Terry (F)
Grimwood, Jon C (S)
Hamilton, Peter (S)
Jeter, K.W. (S)
Jordan, Robert (F)
Lethem, Jonathan (S)
McAuley, Paul (S)
MacLeod, Ken (S)
Martin, George RR (F)
McMullen, Sean (S)
Miéville, China (S)
Moran, Daniel K (S)
Morgan, Richard K (S)
Nagata, Linda (S)
Niven, Larry (S)
Noon, Jeff (S)
Robinson, Kim S. (S)
Rucker, Rudy (S)
Simmons, Dan (S)
Smith, Michael Marshall (S)
Stephenson, Neal (S)
Sterling, Bruce (S)
Vinge, Vernor (S)
Westerfeld, Scott (S)
Williams, Sean (S)
Williams, Tad (S/F)
Collections (S/F)
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| The Classics |
Bradbury, Ray (S/H)
Burgess, Anthony (S)
Tolkien, JRR (F) |
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| Steve Cockayne |
| Author Information |
Reviewed Books |
Other Books |
| Notes: (L) - Legends of the Land Series |
Wanderers
& Islanders(L)
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 Our
Ranking From what I can tell from the web and
a few other sources, this is Steve Cockayne's first and only book out there right
now. (and obviously along with that, the first one I've read of his). The book
is listed as book one of the Legends of the Land series so it appears that there
will be at least one more book set in this world coming. However, this is truly
a stand alone novel and if it wasn't titled book one, I wouldn't have guessed
that there was a sequel to be written. I have to admit that this was a little
bit of a weird book for me. The writing was fairly simplistic but yet engaging.
The setting was actually quite vague and didn't reveal a whole lot but seemed
to work well enough for the book. The characters were very much the same, not
overly deep or involved but enough to make you continue on. And yes you guessed
it, the plot was along the same lines. Sitting there after I finished the book,
I realized I still had no idea what the book was about. Somehow though, with all
that, I did liked the book. It didn't blow me away, but I enjoyed the read. So,
to give you a little more detail, Wanderers and Islanders is set in a world where
technology seems to be just at pre-industrial revolution but where there still
is a degree of magic floating around so there is a fantasy feel to it. It's actually
a little bit of an interesting time where magicians (and one of the main characters,
Leonardo Pegasus included) are beginning to be phased out by technology, and while
Cockayne doesn't go too in depth about this transition it is one of the sub currents.
The magic Cockayne develops is quite different then anything I've read before
in fantasy and what's interesting is how simple he makes it seem. In this world
a magician is not this man of power, but just a talent, like map making or court
jestering. It's the little subtle things like that, that really make this book
stand out a bit. Through out the book you follow three different characters as
they make their way through their lives, each facing a mysterious (and vague)
challenge. As I mentioned, the characters are fairly simple and straight forward
but you find yourself engaged. Each of the story lines are a little bizarre and
a lot of the forces that force there characters into motion are never really explained.
I'm still not 100% sure what happened (and after reading a few other reviews,
I found I'm not alone with this) and even though the tales do tie together, the
string is loose at best. Overall, I did like this book. Every aspect was just
enough to keep me reading and interested. Somehow this book worked. Its simplicity
and its subtly is what carries this book and to be honest it was refreshing to
read a book that wasn't buried under layers upon layers of complexity and sub
plots. Cockayne was obviously confident enough in his writing and story telling
to just tell a story and it worked. I'm very curious to see what the sequel brings.
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