Young fans thrilled, but reviewers take dim view of latest Potter book

LONDON, Sunday (AFP)

It may have flown off the shelves as the fastest selling book ever, but not even Harry Potter's magic could deflect the withering verdict Sunday from some British literary critics on his latest adventure: "wordy, flabby and badly edited".

The launch at one minute past midnight on Saturday of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", the sixth book chronicling the eponymous boy wizard's adventures, was a global phenomenon unprecedented in publishing.

As multi-millionaire author Joanna "J.K." Rowling read from the novel live on television at Edinburgh Castle, around the world many thousands were queuing outside book shops to grab the novel as soon as possible.

Many readers tore through 600 or so pages as soon as they bought it to discover the many plot twists in the penultimate book in the series.

Several British newspaper reviewers did the same, but their verdict, delivered on Sunday, was not always so flattering.

Perhaps the most scathing came in the Independent on Sunday, whose literary editor Suzi Feay was less than impressed following her marathon read.

"It's wordy, flabby and not very well edited -- perhaps a bit less inventive than the previous ones," she concluded.

The book "could have done with some better gags", she complained, noting that one humourous passage appeared to be largely based around constipation.

"There's a disjunction between the teenage angst and the humour, which seemed to be aimed at much younger children," she added.

"My long, dark night with Harry," read the headline in the Observer, above a description of the novel known in the publishing trade as "HP6" by the newspaper's literary editor Robert McCrumb.

"How good is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince?" he concluded.

"The short answer is that, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, people who like this sort of thing will find that this is the sort of thing they like."

Rowling had "three tasks to perform" with the book, he noted.

"She had to manage the brand she has created, and develop a complex plot for the climactic confrontation with Harry's nemesis Voldemort in the final volume, HP7. Finally, she had to deliver a book that works on its own terms," he said.

The first two were accomplished without trouble, but the final task was more troublesome, he said.