Hal Duncan: Ink : The Book of All Hours

Vellum was pretty amazing. Ink picks up the pieces where Vellum left, ready to blast the reader through a heavy mist of literary references, stylistic experimentation and archetypical characters playing their roles, repeated through the many-folded landscape of Vellum.

Ink is a clever book, so clever it hurts sometimes. I don't pretend I got most of it, but nevertheless, I enjoyed it a lot. The plot is interesting, though once again, probably not in the leading role after all. The parodies of literary genres, the play within a play structure, all the adventure, sex and violence - it's a delicious book, all in all.

This time the storylines wander through the mess of World War II, the Palestine in 1929, futuristic Kentigern, who knows where. Jack is Jack, Joey is Joey and so on, despite the setting and the characters they seem to play. I quite liked that. The ending is less stale than the last time, yet still not... perfect? Hard to say. I'm reasonably satisfied, and looking forward to reading these two again later. [ Ink: The Book of All Hours (Book of All Hours 2) at Amazon.co.uk ] [ Ink : The Book of All Hours at LibraryThing ]