Typical Stasheff--kind of fun, but really tedious.
He does, however, get points for using St. Genesius as a character.
Okay, so my biggest problem with this book is that most of it isn't a coherent plot.It's a lot of side stories connected only by the fact that some character asks St. Vidicon for help and the actual protagonist accordingly either watches the proceedings or helps in Vidicon's stead. Said protagonist also has his personal life to deal with in a subplot that's remarkably unsuspenseful. (Romance is really not Stasheff's strong point.)
I would have been really happy if all the side stories had ended up connecting in some way. There were hints of that at the beginning, but unfortunately my theories about what was connecting them quickly fell apart, and nothing replaced them. It could be argued that though they were disconnected in plot, they were connected in theme, but that's really not enough considering that's already the in-universe reason for them being part of the story at all. Does that make sense? It's justified within the story, but there's absolutely no reason for me, as a reader, to accept that justification.
Stasheff is always a little hard to get into--he likes connecting matters of the church with whatever other interest he has. If you don't share at least one of those interests, a lot will probably go way over your head. I can appreciate, if not enjoy, his church-play (as it were), but the same thing in all of his books gets a little tiring.
I really only read this book because it's been years since I read Stasheff. I guess it'll be a few more before I read him again.
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