Fiction: December 2007 Archives
For a debut novel, this one's pretty amazing. Duncan mixes mythology, parallel worlds, real-world history, literature references and whatnot into a mess of ideas and intertwining plotlines. Making sense of this book is hard, harder than with most books, but it's well worth it, as Duncan writes well.
He has this habit of recycling characters: most storylines, whether they're set in, say, World War I or the North Carolina in 2017, tend to feature similar cast playing similar roles with some twists involved. I suppose it all wraps up somehow, though reading the book once left me a bit dazzled. A second reading might be helpful.
I know some people will hate Vellum: if you want straight plots, this one isn't for you. Amazon reviews certainly prove this: as I'm writing this, out of 40 reviews this book has ten five-star review and ten one-star reviews. I for one didn't love the ending, which seemed a bit - stale, perhaps? But I'm hoping Ink, the sequel, will fix that. In any case I'm falling towards five stars: I think this is one of the more impressive fantasy novels I've read. [ Vellum: The Book of All Hours at Amazon.co.uk ]
