I'm very glad that the more literate types exult over this book. I was not impressed. Full disclosure: I've been reading all sorts of speculative fiction for over 45 years, and I've gotten pretty picky, and perhaps more than a little snobbish.

Riddley Walker, an uber-precocious 12-year old, wanders around southeastern England roughly 4400 A.D. In Riddley's world, they scorn A.D. as "all done," and have reached 2347 O.C. ("our count") after the nuclear war and the Bad Times. I can well imagine that Anthony Burgess enjoyed surfing on Riddley's broken English narration, some of which is quite amusing ("curse roads" for cross roads). If you read it out loud, Hoban's work is nowhere near as difficult as "A Clockwork Orange." The book reminds me more of Edgar Pangborn's "Davey," which was also a much-praised post-apocalypse novel, but in the course of which nothing much happened. It does bug me just a little bit that they don't know how to say "Canterbury" any more, but refer to the various "tracks" they travel by the common, modern highway numbers, like the A20.

Make no mistake: for the most part, Mr. Hoban imagines this world in breadth and in depth. If you're looking for that sort of atmosphere, you've come to the right place. If you're looking to build to a meaningful climax, though, you will perhaps be as disappointed as I was.

In the fullness of this story, two things of old are revived. Mr. Punch is reborn, though "Punch and Judy" is now "Punch and Pooty," Pooty being a lascivious pig. Despite some serious miscalculations, it also seems that gunpower is about to be rediscovered. On that score, I would refer anyone to H. Beam Piper's "Gunpowder God," aka "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen."

I started this novel once, years ago, and threw it aside. This time I plowed through the whole thing, and wound up feeling I'd wasted my time. So, what's your opinion?

I hate to be a contrarian, but add me to the relative few who didn't care for this novel. Other than the post-apocalyptic English, there's not much to sink your teeth into - the plot and ideas are unoriginal and and the characterizations are pretty standard. This book came to me highly recommended, and I really looked forward to reading it, but it was a slog to get through.

The idea of the English language changing and evolving after a cataclysm is good and true, but at least in book form I think it works better in theory than in practice. When you're watching Shakespeare, you usually get to the point where you forget the archaic phrasing and just begin to enjoy the beauty of the language; that did not happen for me here. Reading this seemed like a tedious intellectual exercise as I read and reread paragraphs trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

I read this from the point of view of someone who likes thoughtful and artfully done post-apocalyptic stories. Riddley Walker might have more appeal to someone who comes at it from a literary perspective especially if they've had limited exposure to the ideas in science fiction. But I suspect this book is of limited appeal to most genre fans.