"At Winter's End"

At Winter's End (Robert Silverberg)

I have a rule that books I read have 50 pages to give me a reason to keep reading; by the time I hit page 20 on this book with nothing interesting happening I knew I wasn't going to finish it, and the next 30 pages just draaaagggggeddddddd. The book's premise is that the Earth was devistated by falling meteors 700,000 years ago, and as it opens, one of the surviving tribes of humans prepares to leave its cocoon. I say "prepares" because this is one of the most slow, boring, ponderous books I've ever read. Maybe Silverberg wants us to really feel that 700,000 years as he meanders around, stopping in to visit with various groups of charecters as nothing happens to them. It's a bad sign when a book you're reading is less interesting than watching your wife play Skyrim, and this book's pacing is so glacial that she asked me to stop reading it to her, preferring to just listen to the grunts and groans of her shooting arrows at bandits. Do not read this book.

Grade: F