I suspect I bought Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear more than ten years ago - the price tag on the back is in NZD … and obviously I’ve read it at least once before …

… however, as always, I could remember nothing from the previous read. Actually, in this case, really nothing: at no time while reading this book did I even have a sense of deja vu, and perhaps that’s because I’ve recycled those brain cells because they could be better used for other tasks (like remembering who scored what when in some random game of rugby). From which you can rightly infer that I don’t think this one of Greg Bear’s best books, not even close.

It’s actually two books, based around the premise that there is one particular parallel world that intersects with Earth in various ways, and on that world most of the faerie live … until that world starts to decay … We have one hero who gradually grows into the recognition that he is special (eventually really special), and soon he’s a super hero, dealing with the faerie (and the most powerful magical faerie) as an equal, and then a superior. It’s a harmless enough book (or pair of books), significantly better than any of my previous foray into fantasy this year, but I suspect I’ll not bother reading it again (primarily because my shelves really are groaning, and something has to go, and given I’m not overly enthusiastic about this one, it might as well be one of the discards).