Rosetta Key is Made of Wood
The Rosetta Key
William Dietrich
Release Date: 04/2008
This book came out in April. I’ve had it since April. I’ve been trying to make myself read it since April and I just can not. (This attempt to force myself to read something I was sick of after the first chapter and dreading after the third caused me to be rather late in reviewing a much more interesting novel by David B. Coe.)
The geographical area Rosetta is set in and the type of adventure reminds me of the Mummy movies with Brendan Fraser (Which I loved. It looks like the third one is going to be good as well.) but that’s the only resemblance. The writing is not plodding, exactly, but trying to read it is like repeatedly walking head first into a tree. The main character has nothing redeeming about him. He’s supposed to be a charming scoundrel, but Dietrich’s writing – first person narrative, by the way – does the character type no justice.
The character, Ethan Gage, besides being a good-for-nothing layabout with too much “witty internal dialogue” (assuming that is what the author is going for) is also hung up on his lost love from the first book (Napoleon’s Pyramids) and I have to say, even though he trusts her love absolutely, it sounds like she tossed him over. Yet, instead of Gage coming across as charmingly lovesick, he reads like a complete and utter fool.
One page in to chapter four, I gave up and could not bring myself to keep reading. Not even the Middle Eastern exoticism Dietrich has attempted to inject into his story could keep my attention past the wooden writing. As much as I’d love to give this book a proper review, I didn’t finish it, so I can only recommend it if you’re both a fantasy-adventure and a Napoleon era history or Middle Eastern culture and geography buff. Otherwise, save yourself a headache and spend your time and book money elsewhere.
