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Okay, the rundown is as follows. This is a brilliant, beautiful work. It's also really huge, but Clive Barker manages to fill each page with something while perhaps not compelling, at least interesting to read. The story is of John Furie "Gentle" Zacharias, a con man with mysterious powers; and his friend, guide, and eventual lover Pie'oh'Pah. It is also about the various people in their lives, and how they may be affected by an event known as "the Reconciliation", the time for which is quickly approaching. The good are the brilliant imagery, lavish descriptions, complex characters, and dense, epic plot. The bad is that this is a slow read at first until it eventually gets going. And the pacing is still weird after that.
But in the end, this is a book well worth your time. And your money. Buy this, read it, and enjoy a hallucinatory fantasy epic with some genuine surreality and darkness to it.
More, as always, below.
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?
