Comments | coalescent: Vellum

coalescent

Vellum

Sep 15, 2005 20:14

My travel reading over the past week has been Hal Duncan's debut novel, Vellum. It's a book which has been attracting a fairly significant amount of attention in the sf world, and it's also getting a big marketing push from Pan Macmillan (the proof copies, from a limited run of 600, are things of beauty). You can read a very short extract here, and ( Read more... )

sf, book review, hal duncan

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immortalradical September 15 2005, 22:41:46 UTC

I was thinking of reading Vellum. Now I'm not sure I'll bother. :\

coalescent September 16 2005, 06:12:05 UTC

Well, I'd be interested to see what you make of it. I suspect the main things that bothered me wouldn't even register for you, and you'd have different problems entirely. :)

fjm September 16 2005, 08:32:35 UTC

You'd hate it. It would have you writhing at the pretentiousness and pointlessness of it all.

ninebelow September 16 2005, 09:31:58 UTC

To be honest I don't think the pretentiousness would be a problem. The pointlessness on the other hand...

immortalradical September 16 2005, 10:26:48 UTC

It's pretentious if it's pointless. If it has a point, we can usually call it 'depth'. :P

ninebelow September 16 2005, 10:45:38 UTC

I'm not convinced, I don't think there's any reason why pretentious automatically follows from pointlessness. All I was saying though was that I couldn't see you being put off by the "pretentious" bits, rather than the other bits.

immortalradical September 16 2005, 10:51:23 UTC

Well, it's true that as a general rule I don't mind high-falutin'. But of course it grates if the work is essentially hollow or pointless - because then the pretentiousness is just pretentiousness, with nothing to mitigate it. Even I might find that annoying. :P

immortalradical September 16 2005, 10:24:55 UTC

I suspect so. Thank you kindly.

grahamsleight September 16 2005, 08:39:25 UTC

Just out of interest, have you ever read any (good) Gene Wolfe? Say The Fifth Head of Cerberus, or The Book of the New Sun?

immortalradical September 16 2005, 10:26:09 UTC

No. Everything I've heard about him makes me want to put his head in a microwave. I'd put the rest of him in it, too, but assume he wouldn't fit.

grahamsleight September 16 2005, 10:29:51 UTC

What have you heard that makes him microwaveable?

immortalradical September 16 2005, 10:38:00 UTC

That you can microwave him at full heat (850W) and not lose his crispiness?

Niall reviewed those two things he released - last year was it? And I had the good fortune of being one of the guys he bounced his ideas off of. They sounded worth performing a ritual suicide to avoid. Other than that, snippets here and there that lead me to think of him as a fan's writer. I confess I've often thought The Fifth Head of Cereberus sounded like it might be good (but then, so did Eon, which turned out to be execrable). So tell me ... what made you ask?

coalescent September 16 2005, 10:55:07 UTC

It's almost like you trust my judgements. I'm touched.

I liked Fifth Head more than either The Wizard-Knight or Starwater Strains. The other one I keep meaning to try is Peace.

ninebelow September 16 2005, 11:00:02 UTC

It's almost like you trust my judgements.

I was mildly boggling at that as well.

immortalradical September 16 2005, 11:03:49 UTC

It's almost like you trust my judgements.

Never tell anyone.

grahamsleight September 16 2005, 11:54:29 UTC

Nope, no-one noticed that.

*Bookmarks Dan's comment for future evidential use*

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