The good news is Hal Duncan is bursting with ideas. The bad news is he’s packed thousands of them into his very first novel, as VELLUM: THE BOOK OF ALL HOURS combines:
• An epic battle between good and evil (in two parts, no less);
• Sumerian myths;
• Demons and angels walking the earth with dreadlocks and leather trenchcoats;
• An alternate dimension in which people are actual fairies and halflings; and
• Nazis.
The result is a book that’s so close to genius that it can be painful to read. Dimension is piled upon dimension as angels and demons and our main characters slog toward their goals – oh, and different versions of the main characters exist in each dimension. The effect of all this is a plot that just barely – seriously, just by the slimmest of margins – ventures out of the realm of “a tough read” and into the barren plains of incomprehensibility.
The prose is praiseworthy, and the narrative meshes in fits and starts, but there are so many dead ends and U-turns in VELLUM that only dedicated readers will reach the finish line. The book is testament, however, to Duncan’s talent. Great things should be expected from him; VELLUM’s characters are deep and intense and the various parallel worlds are devilishly imaginative. Just a little editorial tweaking could have transformed VELLUM from the out-of-reach abstract tone-poem that it currently is into a fantasy masterpiece. –Ryun Patterson
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