The Count sighed. "The way you people use words, it's a wonder you understand each other at all."
#78: Butcher Bird: A Novel of the Dominion by Richard Kadrey:Shrike smiled and sliced the wax and cork from the top of the bottle with the edge of her sword, then handed the wine to Spyder. It tasted like wind felt at the top of a hill on a summer night. He handed the bottle back to Shrike. "Wow," he said.
Shrike took a long drink. "Don't forget to eat, too. Give it a chance, and this wine will leave you half naked, shoeless and wearing a dog collar, with only a vague memory of how you got that way."
"Does the wine have a sister?"
"You wish."
Synopsis: Pissing behind bars in San Francisco can lead to a trip to the underworld. You've been warned.
This is the book Sandman Slim should have been. It has the lyric quality and heart that Slim was missing, and while Slim was good enough for me to forgive a multitude of sins (and I'll read the sequel, Kill the Dead, based on its cover alone, which is stark and stunning), I remember being left with the feeling that it could've been a much better book.
This is that book.
After a night spent drinking with his childhood pal Lulu and her bartender squeeze, Spyder Lee steps out the back to take a leak and is saved from a giant flesh-eating demon by a diminutive blind swordswoman who promptly disappears into the foggy San Francisco night. All fine and good except Spyder wakes up the next morning able to see between the worlds: angels and demons tormenting the citizens of his fair city, pursued by a cabal of face-ripping suited businessmen (Buffy fans think "Hush") and seemingly oblivious to their spiritual tortures. And then there's Lulu.
From there, things get complicated but remain lyrical and mythically interesting. So let us dust off our
SPOILER PANTS, THE PANTS WE WEAR WHEN WE ARE SPOILING THE STORY FOR EVERYONE WHO HAS NOT READ IT.
SPOILER PANTS!
Look! They're freshly back from the dry cleaners!
Spyder falls for the mysterious blind swordswoman from another dimension, and discovers that his own true-blue Lulu is being slowly devoured by the businessmen. The cure? A trip to first one dimension then another, where he meets a rotting and plotting doyenne who demands Spyder and his companions rescue a mystical book from Hell. Which they do.
ETA: And at the last possible second, Spyder outwits everyone, including the Devil, by turning out to be some mystical poobah in disguise and going all ninja on everyone with his powers. Just...no.
There are some stunning storytelling moments here. Moments where my jaw just drops at Kadrey's sheer chutzpah--who lives, who dies, who does what to who. Love and betrayal both make strong appearances, and one of my favorite things in the story is the relationship between Spyder and Lulu, which is devoted and fraternal. And things go wrong, and there are consequences and it is beautiful.
It's not without flaws, however. About halfway through, I developed what I'll call Quest Fatigue Syndrome, where I was just worn down by the sheer epicness of everything, that everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. And at the climax of the story, shit just falls right the fuck apart. Kadrey, I call bullshit. Bullshit bullshit bullshit. It's like you wrote yourself into a corner and then the rabbit you pulled out of that narrative hat was dead, dude. I just flipped the pages with a frown, so confused as to how any editor let a lot of the flying, leaping logic fails pass.
But in a nutshell, this is really some of the most creative writing I've seen in a very long time. There are a lot of ideas crammed into the book, a lot of stunningly novel and breathtakingly clever ideas. And y'all know how I feel about clever.
So it boils down to this: there are so many great ideas, so much good storytelling and then at the peak of it, ultimate betrayal with the dead rabbit of narrative suckage. Man was I angry. For like, the rest of the book. It was really really bad.
Does this make for good reading?
I'm still undecided. I'm also sort of derailed by the tension of the following unique situation: there are two good strong female characters in this, one of whom is openly LGBT, but ultimately when I sat down and thought about it, this book didn't pass the Bechdel test: the strong female characters never actually talk to one another about anything other than the swordswoman's relationship with the big ole male character.
There should be a rar here, but frankly I'm too disheartened to do so. Wtf, dude?
Shrike took a long drink. "Don't forget to eat, too. Give it a chance, and this wine will leave you half naked, shoeless and wearing a dog collar, with only a vague memory of how you got that way."
"Does the wine have a sister?"
"You wish."
Synopsis: Pissing behind bars in San Francisco can lead to a trip to the underworld. You've been warned.
This is the book Sandman Slim should have been. It has the lyric quality and heart that Slim was missing, and while Slim was good enough for me to forgive a multitude of sins (and I'll read the sequel, Kill the Dead, based on its cover alone, which is stark and stunning), I remember being left with the feeling that it could've been a much better book.
This is that book.
After a night spent drinking with his childhood pal Lulu and her bartender squeeze, Spyder Lee steps out the back to take a leak and is saved from a giant flesh-eating demon by a diminutive blind swordswoman who promptly disappears into the foggy San Francisco night. All fine and good except Spyder wakes up the next morning able to see between the worlds: angels and demons tormenting the citizens of his fair city, pursued by a cabal of face-ripping suited businessmen (Buffy fans think "Hush") and seemingly oblivious to their spiritual tortures. And then there's Lulu.
From there, things get complicated but remain lyrical and mythically interesting. So let us dust off our
SPOILER PANTS, THE PANTS WE WEAR WHEN WE ARE SPOILING THE STORY FOR EVERYONE WHO HAS NOT READ IT.
SPOILER PANTS!
Look! They're freshly back from the dry cleaners!
Spyder falls for the mysterious blind swordswoman from another dimension, and discovers that his own true-blue Lulu is being slowly devoured by the businessmen. The cure? A trip to first one dimension then another, where he meets a rotting and plotting doyenne who demands Spyder and his companions rescue a mystical book from Hell. Which they do.
ETA: And at the last possible second, Spyder outwits everyone, including the Devil, by turning out to be some mystical poobah in disguise and going all ninja on everyone with his powers. Just...no.
There are some stunning storytelling moments here. Moments where my jaw just drops at Kadrey's sheer chutzpah--who lives, who dies, who does what to who. Love and betrayal both make strong appearances, and one of my favorite things in the story is the relationship between Spyder and Lulu, which is devoted and fraternal. And things go wrong, and there are consequences and it is beautiful.
It's not without flaws, however. About halfway through, I developed what I'll call Quest Fatigue Syndrome, where I was just worn down by the sheer epicness of everything, that everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. And at the climax of the story, shit just falls right the fuck apart. Kadrey, I call bullshit. Bullshit bullshit bullshit. It's like you wrote yourself into a corner and then the rabbit you pulled out of that narrative hat was dead, dude. I just flipped the pages with a frown, so confused as to how any editor let a lot of the flying, leaping logic fails pass.
But in a nutshell, this is really some of the most creative writing I've seen in a very long time. There are a lot of ideas crammed into the book, a lot of stunningly novel and breathtakingly clever ideas. And y'all know how I feel about clever.
So it boils down to this: there are so many great ideas, so much good storytelling and then at the peak of it, ultimate betrayal with the dead rabbit of narrative suckage. Man was I angry. For like, the rest of the book. It was really really bad.
Does this make for good reading?
I'm still undecided. I'm also sort of derailed by the tension of the following unique situation: there are two good strong female characters in this, one of whom is openly LGBT, but ultimately when I sat down and thought about it, this book didn't pass the Bechdel test: the strong female characters never actually talk to one another about anything other than the swordswoman's relationship with the big ole male character.
There should be a rar here, but frankly I'm too disheartened to do so. Wtf, dude?