The Pipes of Orpheus

Rating:
Summary: A Strange Mixture
Review: Lindskold's book is an unsettling mixture of childlike adventure and gruesome horror. Perhaps the oddest part is the beginning age of the protagonists; the oldest is thirteen. It doesn't seem to blend well with the often violent story line. The wistful is mixed with the grim, and the results are unique. The story of a group of children, enslaved by a mad Greek demigod, leads the reader through the various levels of the Greek underworld. When this quest ends, the story is taken up again by the same protagonists - only in their adulthood. The age of the children does not seem to correspond with the emotions and thought processes the author includes, making them seem rather unbelievably precocious. The reader will undoubtedly be left wondering whether this was an accident on the author's part, or a cleverly-contrived use of imagery and language.