The Quantum Thief

   

       I have not been able to stop talking about this book for months (yep, two of them now) and I want to discuss it. I first came upon Hannu Rajaniemi when I reviewed his short story collection for one of my compensated gigs. While I didn't think much of The Quantum Thief before then and had written it off as a cyberpunk crime novel (as well as confusing it with M.M. Buckner's War Surf for some reason), I was impressed enough by his short stories to read an excerpt of Quantum Thief, and from there instantly fell in love with it. 

           It's kind of an interesting balancing act to juggle techno-utopianism with fin-de-siecle French pulp novels (the gentleman thief and the master detective archetypes kind of originated with the Arsene Lupin novels quoted as the epigraph to this novel) with a kind of wild high fantasy and some odd quantum entanglement-influenced technological twists. And Rajaniemi nails it one hundred percent. He juggles things with an incredible sense of play that, while the story may not exactly be new to me (I'm wary of any plot that involves someone reclaiming their memory) is exciting in the way it's told. 

And it is brilliant.

More, as always, below.

Light

           

               

                I've tried to write this intro properly multiple times, but I might as well just put this front and center so those of you who are reading this on the go can get it over with:

Light is one of my favorite books of the year, possibly one of my favorite books of all time. 

                             I know, I do a whole ton of positive reviews on here, and significantly less dissenting ones, so every book comes out looking really good, but there is no other way to say it. While good books pass constantly through these halls, Light is special even among them. When I was done, I sat there for a few moments, unsure of what to think now that it was over. Then, because seven hours had passed by unnoticed, I was immediately surprised that it was dark outside. It's an engrossing story, one that transcends the boundaries of a genre people feel unnervingly comfortable filing it under. It's a beautiful, well-designed world that seems immense but moves tautly through its places. 

At the very least, folks, reading that paragraph back, it's caused my language center to break down in joy as I revert to stock reviewer phrases normally seen on book blurbs.

                                Light is crazy, brilliant, and I wish I'd managed to finish it the first time I read it, instead of losing interest somewhere around chapter 2 and abandoning it for books I understood better. M. John Harrison is a unique writer and one who stands out even above such titans as Stephenson, Banks, and other more modern writers, and passing up a chance to read this book is a mistake on par with starting a land war in Asia. You may like it as much as I did. You may like it less. All I know is that it moved me, it's brilliantly written and constructed, and I must share this joy with as many of you out there as possible. 

More, as always, below

The Talisman

           

       

             I really was going to review The Orange Eats Creeps, I promise. It's actually a pretty cool book from what I've read of it. But I realized something: This past Friday was Halloween, marking my fourth year writing for Geek Rage/Strange Library. And this past month? Stephen King month. And these two things led me to remember something I've said again and again, something I should have scheduled into the month, and something on which I should finally deliver. I've been saying "I'll get around to it" for years. Four years, to be exact. I think anyone would want me to, well, finally get around to talking about it. So I decided, emergency executive decision, first to do a video review of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon because I have an awesome collector's-edition pop-up book of that, and then, after that, on the spur of the moment, to finally talk about the book that gave Stephen King and Peter Straub my undying respect. The book that made me a King fan to begin with. A book that has stayed with me for a little under an entire decade now. 

I think it's finally time, dear readers (all two of you) to talk about The Talisman.

                      I think it's brilliant. It's a book I've read more than Harry Potter, topping out somewhere around the mid-double digits. Even though I know the plot, even though every twist and turn in the novel is one I've already experienced, even though I know how the story's going to end. It's lurid at points, yeah. It's really dark at points. There's one section that still really disturbs me, and a section that grossed out my dad when he read it to make sure it was okay for me. The villains are despicable, the heroes are severely underpowered, and the plot-- while a little formulaic-- seems fresh and insane enough to be well worth the read.  It's a book that has affected my life in a great number of ways, and it's a book I couldn't see my life being the same without. While not particularly complex and while the individual elements aren't particularly impressive, this book has affected me in a way that few books have managed to. And I know, it sounds like I'm overselling it here, and maybe I am. But if I wanted to talk about books that have affected me (and I do), I would have to talk about The Talisman, and it would be high on the list. 

Why? 

Well, more, as always, below.

Minifiction Reviews: The Night Whiskey

   

      

           I've had a lot of trouble with Jeffrey Ford in the past. I think part of it was his writing style. The best way I can describe his writing is "doom-laden, melancholic magical-realism" which is just using a lot of stupid labels to say this: The man writes dark. In fact, because of the strange surrealist-painting quality of his work, it's actually easy to mistake his work for a lighter work, only to suddenly realize you've made a terrible mistake. But, for whatever reason, I've never been able to get into Jeffrey Ford. And, given that every time I talk about him people go "...who?" and finding a copy of his fiction debut The Physiognomy is like trying to find a sewing needle in a haystack used as a stash by heroin junkies, not many other people have, either. I get the impression Ford is a "writer's writer", someone who writes their books and is lauded by all the 'heads in the know, but doesn't see nearly as much mainstream recognition. Similar to Ford in this aspect is another fantastic short story writer, Kelly Link, whom I cannot recommend enough, but who does not seem to get read half as much as she should.

                   Getting back to the subject of Jeffrey Ford, though, I recently picked up a collection of his, The Drowned Life. I didn't quite know what to expect from the collection, I'd just picked it up because I'd gotten the itch for Ford's work lately, having forgotten my previous attempts to read The Shadow Year (six of those), and The Physiognomy (two, maybe three). And, as luck would have it, my library had The Drowned Life and The Girl in the Glass right there on the shelf. So I picked them both up and took them home. Because I didn't feel like reading any of the things I'd taken out of the library right away, I sat down and started looking through The Drowned Life. Three stories later, I was hooked.

                     But while all the stories in The Drowned Life are good, one stands out above all the rest, and that one is "The Night Whiskey". Seriously, I recommend the book as a buy just for this story and "Ariadne's Mother" alone. Why? Well, read on...

The Rook

   
                 Okay, so the rundown is as follows: The Rook by Daniel O'Malley may not be a great titanic work of literature, but it is fun. The dialogue is witty, the detail is in overload mode, the creatures are frightening, and it's one of the few books with sentient religious fungus that I can also describe as "a hilarious read". And for a first novel, while it shows the wear and inexperience of its author, it's one hell of a debut. 

                  The bad is a few pacing issues, a tendency to over-info-dump while simultaneously delivering loads of detail, and the fact that there are loose ends to be tied up and the falling action seems to be setting up a sequel. 

                  But all in all, I suggest finding this book, taking possession of it, and clearing space on both your shelves and in your weekend for it, because if nothing else, it's too interesting a ride to pass up.

More, as always, below.

Sea Monkeys

           

               Okay, so-- 

               No. 

                No, I can't do it. I can't give you "the rundown". Because telling you what I liked and didn't like in such a format would be untrue to the book. It wouldn't do it justice. The only thing I can say in this little cutesy frontmatter part I usually do would be to say this: Sea Monkeys is a book that deserves your attention and your respect. I've underestimated Kris Saknussemm's ability as a writer, and this is coming from someone who absolutely loves his work. This is a book you didn't know you needed to read, or maybe it just hits me on some personal level where I live, and for all of you it'd be for naught. But it deserves a try. 

             But I probably should warn you about some of the dangers of the book. So. There are stories that are disturbing. There are stories that are twisted. There are images you may really not want to see, and there are points that are absolutely wrenching to read. The book is someone's memories on sensory overload, which is very difficult to process and sometimes difficult to hang around. So...be warned, I guess. Not all memoirs are created equal. Some wind up like this.

Full review below. 

Winter's Tale

           

       

         Okay, so the rundown is as follows: Winter's Tale is a literary fantasy novel about New York and a strange series of harsh winters that alter the landscape and the people in them in a various number of ways. It goes back and forth between the beginning and end of the twentieth century and tells the story of the "Just City" of New York and of the people who will shape and alter it into something glorious and beautiful. 

              The good are a vivid, lyrical plotline; a well-imagined and well-built world, and distinct, relatable characters who populate that well-imagined world.

               The bad are an occasional tendency to get disjointed and unstuck in time, and a slight chance of getting lost in all of that beautiful language (oh what a shame, etc.)

                    You should buy this book and read it. You have another few months to do so where its impact will grip you most. It's well worth any time and effort put into it, and will return that time and effort a thousandfold.

More, as always, below. 

Sewer, Gas, and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy

               Okay, the rundown is as follows. This is a sprawling, crazy work about a great white shark, homicidal robots, eco terrorists, and overstuffed with insane twists and turns. The good is that there's a rich world full of colorful characters and a very "comic book" kind of feel to the overall proceedings that works in its favor. 

                 The bad is that there is almost too much here, and definitely too much going on. That's really the only flaw with the book. Sorry to disappoint you, guys, but a) I'm the least caustic critic on the internet, and b) I actually really like this one. It's disturbing in places, but it's wholly recommendable.

                   In the end, this is a "by any means necessary" kind of book. Read it. It's a good, light read despite being four hundred pages, it's a lot of fun, and it goes by quicker than almost any other book of its type. Its worldbuilding is tight, its writing is spot-on, and more people need to know this book. So read it already. More as always below. 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

          

            Okay, so the rundown is as follows: This is my book of 2013. The year isn't over, but I'm feeling pretty good about this one. The good parts are that it's an amazing book, though a little depressing (especially in my current state), a fantasy that mixes fairy tale with childhood memory in a way that's both familiar and entirely unique. The descriptions are fantastic, the dark bits are frightening, and it goes everywhere it can in the relatively short page length it does. 

                The bad parts are that it can sometimes be too on the nose, and when it telegraphs the bad things that happen to its heroes later, it does so in a little of an overwrought fashion. But neither of these are particularly strong reasons. Read the book already. It deserves it and so do you. 

NOS4A2

                  

                Okay, so, the rundown is as follows: Upon opening this book and reading the first two chapters, I immediately thought "Oh, this is Joe Hill doing a sort of Stephen King thing." By two or three hundred pages in, I thought he'd gone soft, gotten kindly in his success. Then his story proceeded to bite me when I was unawares and hang on with razor-sharp teeth. There have been a lot of books that approached the idea of "stolen childhood" and the nature of innocence when it comes to monsters. Few have been as gleefully and delightfully nasty about it as this. This book subverts the usual plotline of childhood magic winning out against adult monsters, turns it inside out, and makes it a hand puppet. And it does it with style and grotesquerie to spare. 

               The bad parts are a tendency to lose itself in its own language a little, some nods and name-checks that I didn't really think fit well, and the way it sort of feels too loose. Like it's trying to cover too much ground, or trying too hard to be like something else. But these are very minor nitpicks, and the book is a relentless, nasty, but still fantastic read. 

           This is a book people should be recommending, and if they are, this is a book people should recommend for many years. It'll stay with the people who read it, I guarantee.

Last Call

    

     Okay, so the rundown is as follows: I love this book. I love it unabashedly, I love it with all my heart and soul, it is hands down one of the best books I have read. The characters, dialogue, and the way history and actual mysticism and mathematics are woven into the fiction all work, and even anyone who isn't well-versed in crazy historical minutiae can enjoy the story of a man storming Las Vegas to claim back his soul and his birthright with no difficulty. Add to this the descriptions, some genuine moments of dread and well-conveyed paranoia from the characters, and a sense of danger that never really lets up, and you have a book well worth reading.

       The downside is, there are a few sequences that never really pay off, and sometimes there is just too much going on sometimes on even one page to keep up with. Also, the main character spends a whole section-- possibly two-- of the book doing some really stupid things against the advice of people who clearly know more about this stuff than he does. But it serves as some good character development, and helps create a line between Scott's self-destructive urges and his need to finish his quest. All in all, the book is worth a read, possibly a buy, and a ride you won't regret taking.

My Top Five Books

                 Normally I would eschew these kinds of lists, as it's kind of hard to distill what I like about books into a simple five-point list or something, but I realize I've talked about the books I love and these five in particular without really naming them. So, since I'm getting a year older today, and this is technically my hundredth post (minus the one about my internet going down), I decided maybe I'd be a little self-indulgent and talk about the five books that, while my tastes may change a lot, have stayed my all-time favorites and will probably remain so for the rest of my life. I certainly hope so. Full list after the jump.

Consider Phlebas

        

     So the rundown is as follows: This is an amazing book with great setpieces and tight writing, and cements the tone of the Culture series rather well. Iain M. Banks is a writer whom you all should have read by now, and if not, then here isn't a bad place to start. Consider Phlebas is a semi-affectionate satire of "space adventure" stories with a tone that ranges somewhere around pitch black comedy. The pace is breakneck, the heroes are interesting, if not the usual "good guys" one would expect from the genre, and the overall tone allows for moments that are both horrifyingly violent, and yet still humorous. This is a book that is well worth the price of admission, and one that should be read at any cost.

            The downside comes in that while this is a good science fiction novel, it is perhaps not the best entry into the Culture series...anyone who reads any of the other books first will have the eventual outcome of Consider Phlebas spoiled for them, dropping a lot of the tension the book creates. While this is not entirely important, it is something that should be addressed for budding readers of the series. Also, there are several sequences that feel like padding, though they do illustrate the nature of the books they are trying to satirize-- the author will try to pack as many interesting set pieces between the protagonist and the end of their journey so that at the end, it feels like they've accomplished much. Which Banks then cruelly stabs in the gut.

Gun Machine

              

      So the rundown is as follows: They don't make books like this any more. Or they don't often. But once in a blue moon a really good procedural, one with the proper amount of grit and some intelligence, finds its way to shelves. And it's amazing. The hero is flawed, the characters are colorful, every line is interesting and unfolds the mystery properly, and the dialogue is fantastic. This is definitely one of the books I recommend picking up, even if you don't really dig police procedurals. Warren Ellis has long been a writer to watch, and this, while not his magnum opus, is definitely a book high up in the canon. More, as always, after the jump.

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story

          The rundown is as follows: This is the vampire novel that makes me not hate vampire novels. In a world populated with melancholy pale people bemoaning immortality and sometimes reveling in treating humans like cattle, this book at least turns the tropes on their ear and does them well. It's sweet, sad, a little cute, and manages both some horror and romantic comedy in a lovely style. The worst weakness the book has are that its male protagonist is a bit of a wimp, and that it is followed by two sequels that are regrettably canon. But of Christopher Moore's books, this is the one I believe should be the high-water mark, and the fact that I've read it five times without getting bored of it once means that no matter what, it has a place in my permanent collection, and should at least be attempted by you guys. Unless, you know, you hate fun* or aren't big on romantic comedies or something.


*If you hate fun, why do you even read these reviews?

Pandemonium

          

      So the rundown is as follows: This is one of my favorite books. While it drags at the beginning, and some of the segments seem like they don't go anywhere, Daryl Gregory created a masterpiece of fiction, dealing with family, identity, and creating works. Buy this book, and if you haven't ever read it, seriously consider it, because chances are its much-deserved shelf space in the public consciousness is being taken up by something a lot less fun. 

The Great and Secret Show

"What would he write, anyway? I'm killing myself because I didn't get to be King of the World? Ridiculous."

In my line of work, epic novels tend to be a rare thing.

              Well, maybe not rare. But when you don't specifically do high fantasy or space SF, they become a rarer thing than most, and since this blog has more of an urban fantasy/strange horror/modern-day SF bent, they tend to be something I don't run across very often. On this blog alone, I can really only think of two actual epics I've done off the top of my head, those being Fool on the Hill and (in its own way) The Neverending Story. And when I find one, it's usually a book I enjoy more than anything in the world, a book I have to buy and re-read over and over again. Which is a nice segue to The Great and Secret Show.

             I found The Great and Secret Show in the library's fiction section about a month after reading The Thief of Always. The first time I'd tried to read it, I got disgusted by parts of it* and then bored by the rest, and went on to give Weaveworld a try instead, and Imajica, and then others**. However, later on in life, when I had decided maybe reading a chapter and a half of a book and tearing it down was maybe not giving it a fair enough shake*** and picked it up again. And maybe it was because I was reading it at an older age, or maybe because it was the first book in a proposed trilogy that actually had a second part, but I actually got through it and finished it that time. And wondered why I'd ever hated it in the first place. It intrigued me, drew me deeper, and made me wonder where it was all going to end. It was the rare kind of book that actually made me believe it was a question of if the forces of good would succeed, not how the forces of good would succeed. And it held my interest all the way to the end, too.

              The Great and Secret Show starts with a murder and a slow slide into insanity for one Randolph Jaffe, who stumbles upon the true inner workings of the universe while sitting in a dead-letter office at "the crossroads of everywhere". Jaffe becomes obsessed with finding a way to somehow harness these inner workings for himself, being a man of great motivation but little work ethic. After a brutal murder sends him away and off on his quest to harness reality, he meets a drugged-out scientist named Fletcher who, under duress, helps him work on a way to harness "The Art" used to work on the engines that govern our universe. 

And then things get weird.

             And I mean really weird. You see, in no time at all, two characters in the first section of the book are raised to near-divine status and start fighting it out over the United States for control of the forces that govern our reality, becoming Good Man Fletcher, and The Jaff, able to draw power and minions from dreams and reality. What follows is the stuff of myths as the angel and devil figures of our story fight it out in dreams, in the bodies and minds of the people of Palomo Grove, and finally in a realm beyond reality itself. But the forces of The Jaff and Fletcher may only be a small sample of a larger conflict, and as more and more is revealed, their fight may be a simple petty struggle in a war encompassing all of existence itself. 

           I think what I like most about the book is the fact that when you get through all the modern-day trappings and some of the horror-movie style tropes, the book is in fact an epic myth in its own way. A crazy epic myth, an epic myth that involves love, death, demonic possession-induced impregnation, demigods, a ghost army, incest, and a scene in which a man is forced to run for his life with a Giger-esque parasite clamped to his spine and eating him, but an epic myth nonetheless. It has tragedy, and heroes, and heroic journeys, and somehow never seems to really lose momentum. Barker has created an entire mythology in a single book, from the creation to the eventual final battle between good and evil, and while it's not tight or claustrophobic or fast-paced, it does the job amazingly well. 

         The plot moves along, unfolding new ideas about the world as it goes, and working in more and more characters, all of whom seem like they're supposed to be there, from audience-surrogate Nathan Grillo and his slightly better-connected partner Tesla Bombeck to Harry D'amour, a private detective who seems to find his way into and out of Clive Barker's work almost at will, and seems to be at the center of more and more paranormal events because of it****. Somehow, the plot manages to juggle a staggering amount of characters and plot elements without ever feeling too overstuffed, which is also a major plus. Even in its looser, less-together moments, the story still feels like it's in control and going somewhere, even if it's not clear exactly where somewhere is*****.

         The descriptions are also intensely detailed, but that's not really a surprise to anyone, especially when Clive Barker is known more for the films he directed (Hellraiser and Nightbreed) than his written work. The Jaff's "army", known as "terata", are fiendishly detailed and disgusting, though one wonders exactly what they have to do with the people themselves. Still, the descriptions are fantastic, allowing you to actually see the action and the horrifying monsters...even if they're repulsive beyond what I'd be able to describe here, and even if some of the events are a little unnerving. 

        And finally, the voice is also important. While there is more or less an omniscient narrator, he does keep a consistent voice for each character. Jaffe is terse, snappish, and often nasty prose. Fletcher takes a more unhinged, desperate, slightly clinical tone. Grillo's story sounds like the usual beleaguered reporter narrative, and D'amour (as befits a private detective) has a gritter, bleaker, Chandleresque tone (though delivered in the third-person, as the narrator does). The voice serves the narrative well, and when it starts to break apart, it's sad to see that it all sort of falls down the way it does.

         And that's the issue with the book. It breaks down. Barker does a great job of handling it all, of course, and the breakdown makes sense within the narrative, but when the last third of the book is wrested back by forces beyond the ones we've seen in the book thus far, leading to an ending that, while it makes sense, does kind of fracture the narrative somewhat, as the idea of "a bigger fish" is brought up, but isn't introduced in full force until then, making the entire struggle between the forces of good and evil seem, well, a little trivial, to be honest. Knowing that these titans are small does push the story into a kind of overdrive, but it completely sidelines the story we'd been following for the whole book.

          But that's a trivial point. This is an epic book, and not "epic" in the overused way we use the word now. It's about the forces of Good and Evil clashing over a small California town, it's brilliant in a way books need to be, and it manages to wrap itself up in a way that while having to salvage a breakdown in narrative, manages to tie up as many loose ends as it can while leaving bits here and there open. I own this book, and for a very good reason. Find this book. Read this book. Hell, buy this book. The Great and Secret Show is well worth the price of admission, possibly even more. It outdoes King's epics, it matches Gaiman (it may even outdo him, but that's a matter of opinion), and it's stood the test of the eight years since I've read it. Seriously, read the damn book already.

Next week: 
- The Town that Forgot how to Breathe

And sometime in the near future
- LARP 2012
- Batman Trilogy
- The Demi-Monde: Winter
- A return to Stephen Hunt with Secrets of the Fire Sea
- K.W. Jeter's Noir

And more to come




*In particular, the description of a character's breath as smelling like "a sick man's fart"
**...I'm not sure I actually found a Clive Barker book I could get through until I read Coldheart Canyon, though I could be wrong. His YA books and short stories are a little tighter, usually, from what I know.
***Or maybe I just wanted to read Everville, a mistake I'll get to at some point.
****The Scarlet Gospel, Clive. The Scarlet freaking Gospel! Where the hell is it?! I've only been waiting six bloody years.
*****You will not guess the ending. I'll try to get around it without spoiling it.

11/22/63

   "You're disgusting!"

  True. And sometimes it's such a pleasure.

   - Jake Epping

  
              I have to be honest with you all, Dear Readers, I thought my first Stephen King post on this blog would be a different post entirely. That post would be The Talisman, which I still haven't gotten around to yet. But I should at least let on that Mr. King and I...we go way back.
  
             The first time I encountered Stephen King's writing, I was in middle school. A lot of the girls in my grade (who, surprisingly, I had no interest in...that'd come later when they got better at backbiting) were reading It and Cujo. For me, King was just some trashy horror writer with a lot of work to his name...I'd tried It and been shocked and weirded out by the bathtub suicide in the early chapters but that was all I knew, really. But one afternoon I sat in the town's bookstore shelving copies of books while I waited for a carpool and I hit upon the books that would make me a lifetime fan: The Dark Tower. 
   
              These weren't the trashy-looking novels people carried to the beach. They weren't the horror novels meant to terrify and to give other people the author's nightmares. They sounded like very, very dark fantasy novels about a cowboy (oh, all right, a gunslinger) trying to find the titular tower. So I decided, being all of ten years old and sure I could handle reading such an adult book, that I was going to read the Dark Tower series. Sadly, I couldn't find the first book, so I had to start with book two, The Drawing of the Three.
My parents didn't agree with me.
  
           Mostly my mother, who played the role of moral veto far more strongly than my father ever did. But either way, within moments of my bringing the book home, it was analyzed, flipped open to a random page, and taken out of reach indefinitely due to a major character abusing heroin. So my dad reached a compromise and said that if he could find a book that was more appropriate, he'd let me read that. The book he found was The Talisman. I instantly fell in love with it, and it's had a place on my bookcase ever since. And eventually Talisman led into more King, and I was a fan. I am a fan. I read my way through his work with a fervor I'd not experienced since my love of conspiracy theories. Which, of course, leads me to11/22/63.
  
           11/22/63 is the story of one Jake Epping, a divorced English teacher who spends his time marking up the essays of GED candidates in a small high school. It is here he reads the essay of one Harry Dunning about the time that changed his life the most: when Harry's father murdered his family with a hammer, almost killing Harry but instead giving him severe brain damage. It is an essay that moves Jake, rocking him to his very core. While he ponders this (as he calls it) "watershed moment", something else happens that turns his life forever on a dime.
And then things get weird.
  
          Jake frequents Al's diner; a trailer where the burgers are cheap, there's still a smoking section, and Al holds sway over an almost-empty establishment he runs practically at cost. One night, Al decides to show Jake a secret of his: In his pantry are a set of stairs that lead to a September day in 1958. Every time you enter, it's like someone hit a reset switch. Every time you leave, only two minutes have elapsed in the real world. And Al very much wants Jake to use it.
  
            Al, you see, has a specific purpose: He's got his own watershed moment to fix. He wants to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from shooting John F. Kennedy. But Al's not as young as Jake, and cancer's starting to take its toll on him, especially after his first attempt-- after his forays into the past, he's now terminally ill. So Jake is enlisted to go back in time and severely change history (he assumes) for the better. Between his need to try and fix Harry Dunning's life and Al's meddling to make sure he quits dragging his heels, Jake embarks off on his quest to make the world a better place.


        But of course, it isn't that easy, and Jake will have to tangle with several major players as well as fighting the past itself if he ever hopes to succeed.


---...---
  
                 The first thing you should know about the book is that it isn't quite Stephen King's usual thing*. It's mainly historical fiction. Yes, Jake is a time traveler and uses this to his advantage, but the book isn't preoccupied with that. It's as much about exploring the past and the social climate as much as it is about Jake and his mission. Make no mistake, all of King's touches are there...the sense that the world is really a lot stranger than anyone gives it credit for, the strange nonsense words with ominous significance...even the call backs to earlier works**.
  
                 But Jake spends a lot of time working out how the past, well, works and less time agonizing over how his part of things are supposed to work. King put a lot of research and time into the novel, and it really shows-- from the first page to the last, you can get immersed in the world, and it helps get you involved in the story. This is a book that needs its immersion, and the amount of detail King manages to cram into every page-- authentic detail, I might add-- really helps out. The pace never seems to drag, and the ideas never really lose their sense of wonder. 
               
                 Another reason to read this book is the tension. You're never sure Jake is going to make it, and that constant sense of tension is kept up through the whole book. As each new plot detail unfolds, it just adds to the suspense like a group of ball-bearings on a wet paper towel. You're sure something is going to give, and each time Jake scrapes by, there's a sense of relief for a few seconds until you remember the book is still going on. And then the tension starts to build again, slowly but surely...
  
               And finally, the characters are all very well-realized. But this is Stephen King. If there's one thing the man knows how to do other than give people nightmares and make them paranoid about their bathrooms, it's characters and dialogue. This, combined with a sense of pacing not seen since his earliest novels, makes for one hell of a good ride. Jake is snarky and jaded, but somehow maintains a good sense of wonder. His lover from the past is someone very real and very human, which shows when she gets upset over Jake's having to lie to her about being "George Amberson". Each of the characters has very clear motivations, even Lee Harvey Oswald (who of course has to make an appearance)
  
             However, the book does have its flaws. Well...one or two big ones. Chief among those is the entire section that takes place in Derry***. Yes; Derry, Maine: Home setting for IT, Insomnia, and a great many other books makes an appearance here for an entire section. It's where Harry Dunning grew up, and where his father murdered his family. So Jake spends several chapters trying to clean up the mess in Derry. During 1958, which is a significant year in King's timeline****. Cue the avalanche of references to previous books and the peculiar nature of King Country's second-creepiest town (the first of course being Jerusalem's Lot), including cameos from Richie Tozier and Beverly Marsh from IT, as kids. And, unlike previous nods and mentions, this one keeps going, pointing itself out with neon signs. 


              Second big flaw is a rather personal one. Just once, I'd like to see time travel succeed. It doesn't have to be an all the time thing, or even a constant thing. But I want to see time travel actually work for once, instead of everyone going "But you can't kill (Hitler/Oswald/John Wilkes Booth)! Otherwise history will be all lopsidedy!" Really, I don't care. It's fiction. It moves by its own internal logic. I want to see history dramatically changed in a story and I want to see it stick. While this isn't the point with King's book, it's still something that I think has remained a certain way for a long time, and it's time to shake up the status quo. Lord only knows, I ain't gonna do it, but someone should.
  
              And finally, after writing what some might argue is the same essay on John F. Kennedy's assassination for a few years now, I have to say that the idea of Lee Harvey Oswald acting entirely of his own accord is ridiculous. Even if he shot the president, the political climate was too lopsided for him to have done it all on his own. And yes, I know, people have tried to hammer this point home. But people are schmucks. Considering the number of enemies Kennedy had, and the number of those enemies who had ties to Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald, it's almost simpler for a conspiracy than it is for him to be a lone man.
  But both of those points are minutiae. This is a fantastic book. If you aren't a Stephen King fan, you should read this and give him a go. If you are a Stephen King fan, you should definitely read this, as it's him at arguably his best since he stopped writing The Dark Tower*****. I'm glad I took the time to read this book, and even more glad I actually wound up with my own copy, thanks to my Uncle Dan and the recent holiday season (And since I know you read this...thank you. Thank you very, very much). So...yeah. Find this. Read this. You won't regret it if you do.


Next time: Retro-futurism begins as Caius tackles Adam Christopher's Empire State. And sometime in the near future: The Pilo Family Circus.


Notes:
* Which, honestly, is pretty cool. The guy's writing what he wants to, and he's not afraid to experiment. I'm glad he's at this point in his life. The only thing as good as a hungry writer is a writer who's having fun.
**And we'll get to those in a moment. 
***See? I told you!
****The basics: It's where the first section of IT takes place, when a group of kids take on a gigantic spider-monster that feeds on fear and force it into hibernation. Yeah. I know. Just...just look up the book if you're curious, yeah?
*****His magnum opus. A divisive series, but a) I like it, and b) It's freaking amazing. So there.

The Thief of Always

“I’ve heard a little good magic is always useful. Isn’t that right?" 

    - Mr. Swick

When I was twelve, my taste in books was driven by what I wasn’t allowed to read. It was a long list, as no one wants to be the parent who let their twelve year old kid read A Clockwork Orange, or even more unsettling work. But there were loopholes in the parental rulebook. Fun loopholes. Loopholes like authors they didn’t really know outside of maybe a few books here and there, or stuff I’d already read. At the time, R-rated movies and I were no stranger, so the rule felt a little weird, but there it was. And one of these loopholes was Clive Barker. This is, actually, the book that made me a Barker fanboy for a little while. I’ll get to the book that made me stop another day.

I discovered The Thief of Always on a spring day in the library at my middle school, a place where I was treated warily by the head librarian*. I was bored and wanted to find a new book, and somehow the name “Clive Barker” called to me. It may have been that I’d heard it before connected to horror movies of the decidedly weird kind. Or it may have been the Marvel Comics line in the early 90s, Clive Barker’s Razorline, which I always enjoyed. But no matter what it was, the author’s name and the blurb “a fairy tale for adults” on the back cover meant I walked out with the book and didn’t look back.

That was honestly one of the best decisions I made. The book took me a day and a half to read, and I was rapt all the way. When I was done, I took it back and then later took it out and read it again. The author illustrated it as well as writing it, and his creepy pen-and-ink drawings added something to the text, though it also outlined a glaring flaw I’ll get to later. The book is beautifully written, moves at a pace that seems leisurely yet almost too fast, and the emotions are genuine and evocative. This is a book that should be treasured somewhere, and it makes me sad when I realize I’ve only ever found three copies of it.

The Thief of Always is the story of young Harvey Swick, a boy who finds himself rather bored during the humdrum midwinter months and wishes for adventure and something interesting to happen. His prayers are answered by a small grinning man named Rictus who takes him to the magical Mr. Hood’s Holiday House, a place where he can have whatever he wishes and the weather is always pleasant and perfect for the season. Winter mornings, summer afternoons, halloween nights, and Christmas evenings happen almost every day but fail to get boring, and no one children ever leave because it’s far too perfect. 

Except.

Except as you may have guessed, all is not perfect at the Holiday House, at least, not as much as it seems. There are horrors as well as delights (I’m not about to spoil them, but come on, you saw the “all is not perfect” thing coming a mile away because you are classy and intelligent people), and to survive them and escape the House intact, Harvey will have to call on all the power and cunning he can muster to confront Mr. Hood once and for all. 

What really makes the book succeed is the mood Barker sets for the piece. The tone is bright and cheery when it has to be, with notable touches of melancholy when it calls for it. Harvey is exposed to the idea of loss again and again as the book progresses, and each time, the world he inhabits grows noticeably darker and sadder. That isn’t to say it’s completely without its beauty, as even at its darkest, the Holiday House has a strange, alluring quality to it. But it’s the growing feeling of melancholy throughout the book that drives home the tone and the message in the story. This progression makes it easy to feel what Harvey feels, creating an easily identifiable hero— we know why he does what he does because we experience everything he experiences and understand why we’d do the same.

Another way the book shines is in its images. Not just the pen and ink drawings, but the descriptions. This book is description porn in the best way possible. Everything is described in detail, from the food in the kitchen to the heavily-wooded lake to the roof where the house’s more eccentric residents make their home. The drawings accompanying each chapter (and occasionally the text) further aid one to imagine the various sights and sounds, giving a better picture of the house and its inhabitants. Barker has a certain way with evoking images, and he puts it to work especially well here, showing us both the good and evil of what goes on.

The book should also be applauded for its sense of loss. This is a book, after all, about growing up and losing innocence, of losing friends and loved ones, of seeing them move on. Every death, loss, and sad event serves to turn Harvey into the more mature, more capable boy we see at the end from the perpetually bored and slightly-surly youth we see at the beginning. The Thief of Always is a book about taking back what someone steals from you and dealing with the losses you cannot fix. In the end, while the specter of adulthood and Harvey’s future loom uncertain on the horizon, he seems to have dealt with his misgivings and become a stronger, more confident person.

And finally, there is the characterization. In a remarkable change for a “fable” or “fairy tale”, particularly one that seems to find its way into collections for young readers, the motivations of the characters are actually just as important as the actual characters. In the end, it’s not so much that Harvey fights as why he fights— he’s fighting to save his friends, the people he loves, and even himself. He’s fighting to keep from losing everything he’s ever had, and that makes what he does, be it the final duel that closes the book or his storming the House in the final third of the novel, right. It’s odd to see this sort of thing in a fable where usually the character lines are clearly drawn, but that Harvey fully adopts his role as a “thief” or a “vampire” makes his choice to do good that much more meaningful.

However, there is a major flaw that must be discussed. Barker has very little sense of pacing. While the book moves quickly anyway, instead of the slow build and the eventual shocking revelations and the horror of things, he starts building the creepy right from the moment Harvey enters the house and just keeps building from there. For the most part, this is mainly my reaction to reading the book multiple times and knowing what lies in store, but I felt after rereading it for this review, that things got a little sinister too fast, with the obvious hints a little too obvious and the occasionally unfortunate events a little too constant. The illustrations were no help here, either, the most obvious being the Christmas tree with the monstrous grin about six or seven chapters in, and the cover of the hardcover edition, which features a nightmarish face grinning below a picture of the titular house.

In the end, though, the book should be forgiven for its pacing and spoiling of rhythm. Why? Because it’s a fantastic book. It moves quickly, creates an interesting atmosphere, and its visuals continue to haunt and tug at one long after the book is closed. The final struggle is a question of if, not why, and is much better because of it— the chance that Harvey won’t succeed makes the battle all that more important. This is a beautiful book you should know about already, and if you don’t, you have no excuse now not to go out and find your own copy. Read it once. Read it twice. Pass it on to anyone you think would like it. I love this book, I cannot say that enough, and everyone else should, too.

Next time:

- my LARPing article

- Stephen King

- The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker, as well as others by him.

- The Magicians and The Magician King by Lev Grossman

* But less warily than my high school’s head librarians, who talked to my parents about me because they thought I was reading too much. No lie. Thankfully, they weren’t long for the school come Junior or Senior year.

On Stranger Tides

"You used it up too fast."

- Benjamin Hurwood

Due to it being just as easy to post up here, I will be updating both the Tumblr and this simultaneously when I have a post. It's just neater for me.

Sweet Hell. That is all.

      Okay, maybe not all. As long-time readers of this blog may know, I am a Tim Powers fanboy for life. I've read his worst (the stable time looperiffic The Anubis Gates takes top prize, in my opinion), I've read his best, and I've read everything in between. And none of them-- that's right, a grand total of none of them knocked me on my ass the way On Stranger Tides did. I once said that a writer's job is done when he or she makes the reader feel anything at all, even revulsion. Not only has Tim Powers done that, he did it so well and so frequently that even at the book's most manipulative, I have nothing but the utmost respect for him. The man is a genius, and more importantly, a genius who continues to write to this very day. And this is easily one of his greatest works, one of the two best things I've ever read by him. The ripples it has made in pop-culture further cement it as a classic, and if I didn't own it myself, I would be kicking myself again and again.

      On Stranger Tides is the story of John Chandagnac, re-christened Jack Shandy after he was captured by a rather liberally-minded (and possibly anarcho-syndaclist) group of pirates crewed by a man named Phil Davies. Shandy is on the trail of his uncle, the nefarious Sebastian, who ruined both his life and his father's. Soon, he finds himself embroiled in sorcerer's duels, reincarnating pirates, zombies, voodoo curses, and the Fountain of Youth. To survive and rescue the woman he loves from her vile personal physician and other evil forces, Shandy must survive all these things, win a duel with Blackbeard, and contend with powers beyond human control or understanding. And all of it is fantastic.

Part of what makes it so fantastic is Powers' copious research into his topics. From very early on, he makes it clear that he's done all the research he can on large sailing ships, voodoo, and the politics of the Caribbean area. None of it feels rushed or handwaved, and all of it is very, very authentic-feeling, even when it's fictitious or the details are fudged. Powers also handily sidesteps the problem of having historical characters interact in his universe by way of the copious research. I never had time to think "But Blackbeard never acted like that..." because between the realism of the setting and the way the characters act, there's really very little room for doubt. 

       Another area with very little room for doubt is the characterization. All the characters are very three-dimensional, partly because Powers understands that it's not enough to have one's characters do things because they're good, or evil, but important to understand the why of their reasonings. Shandy may be one of the heroes, but he is forced, both by Davies and by his love for the book's romantic interest to occasionally do terrible things, to the point that he no longer recognizes himself. Davies may be a dashing pirate, but he's also a brutal murderer, because that's what he has to do to survive. One of the book's major villains performs actions that border on mind rape and are definitely unconscionable, but by understanding his motivation and the point that he's reached, you understand a little more of why he felt it was necessary, making him a more effective villain by showing that he'd reached that point (trying to resurrect his dead wife). 

       The magic in On Stranger Tides is also handled fairly well. Instead of "this is power over everything", it's a more practical approach-- eternal life means magical postponement/reincarnation (a common theme in Powers' work), rituals handle things instead of incantations and handwaving (though the minor spells are that), and everything is geared towards asking the loas, or gods politely "Could I please bend the rules of reality?" While there are a few exceptions (Blackbeard being a big one, the sorcerer's duel with Friend being another), most of the magic is very low-key...people gesturing a little, or tossing a ball of dirt into the air, or saying the proper rhyme. Because it isn't a high-magic setting, this also helps keep it believable and all the characters nicely grounded. 

And lastly, the book has a remarkable sense of humor about itself. Most of this humor is delivered through the character of Philip Davies, who snarks his way through the book while both embodying and deconstructing the lovable dashing rogue stereotype. Some of it comes from Jack figuring out how to interact with the strange world he's been dropped in. All of it is as dark as one would expect for a setting this creepy, but it makes sense that the humor should match the tone of the book and not run counter to it. 

      On Stranger Tides is not without its flaws, though. Well, flaw. The book leads its readers on a merry chase through the Caribbean, but falls short in the last three chapters with the final confrontation. After watching Shandy pursue his goals tirelessly through the book, sometimes doing absolutely grotesque things in the name of love and justice, to have the book resolve Shandy's revenge and his rescue of the damsel in distress in such a way is a bit of a let-down. While Powers recovers nicely, the flaw is too glaring not to at least bring up. Also, calling the final chapter an epilogue when it doesn't really tie up any loose ends but just ends the book is a bit of a strange move. 

      But this flaw is negligible. This book is a classic, one that should be read and remembered for decades to come. Read it. Buy it. Request it for your libraries. Do whatever you have to so you can read this book. It is important that you read this book. It is equally important that this book survives. It has made it easily to the top of my list of things to read, managing to surprise me and engage me, usually at the same time. Read this book. This is too good a book to be remembered by thePirates of the Caribbean movie based on it. You will like this book. You must read this book.That is all.

Next up:

- I try an anime Live Action Roleplay

- Either Electric Barracuda or Nuclear Jellyfish by Tim Dorsey

- Other things as they arise

- Hopefully, the tenth-anniversary edition of American Gods.