[Rich the Great]

Found the style quite frustrating to begin with, and that coupled with the story in the middle made it, as Morgoth said, a little slow in the middle. Definitely a book made for rereads, as I plan to do soon, try and smooth out some of the confusions you start to feel from the first few pages.

[Abyss]

Been eyeing this for a while. Will add to The List.

- Abyss, scrolling along.

[Cnai?r]

I finished reading this book very early this morning and I found it to be simply the best book I've read this year and one of the best ever. One of the things that I noticed is that the more familiar you are with the myths and situations being examined, the more powerful the work becomes. A re-read will certainly be in the near future, but I had absolutely no problems with the style. Duncan had many points to address in this novel and he nailed them, for the most part. I don't know about others, but that one scene near the end of Part I moved me:

Spoiler

The one where little Matthew Shepard's brutal beating and crucifixion was mixed into the larger story

Shall be interesting to see what the reaction will be as more people read his works based on the positive reviews (I can almost hear the cries of 'pretentious,' 'self-indulgent,' 'too full of himself,' 'boring,' 'what's the fuss?', and perhaps even the odd 'misogynic!' tossed in ), but I think the future (and present) bodes well for Duncan.

[polishgenius]

I finally finished it, after a long slog through the first half. And now I have to wait for Ink. As I said,

And I have to say if anyone does try it, you will be bewildered. Some people reckon Gardens of the Moon throws you in at the deep end. Not so, this makes it look easy. But read on, and there comes a moment (I can pinpoint it pretty well for me, it's a definite moment in the book) when it all starts to draw together and make a bizzare sort of sense.
It's not flawless though, aside from the dizzyingly complex structure. The biggest flaw is the aforementioned moment divides two parts of the book which could almost be seperate novels, the tip on the emphasis of the story is so unsubtle. Although, bear in mind, this is only compared to the rest of the book. It defies comparison to anything else.

[polishgenius]

Hal Duncan's blog is awesome. He praises Poland a lot. >_>

http://notesfromtheg...w.blogspot.com/

[temp]

After reading this review for Vellum:
http://www.sfsite.com/11a/ve235.htm

...it sounds like it's a difficult read. Not that I shy away from things that require thinking, do others who have read it agree that it's not an easy read?

[Sir Thursday]

Saying Vellum is easy reading is like saying that running a marathon is a short sprint...(Yeah, laugh all you want, I couldn't think of a better/more humourous simili).

It is weird, strange, and parts are a slog. But ultimately, when you start to understand what is going on, it all starts to make an odd sort of sense, and by the end you are in a state of albeit confused awe. You could actually regard it as a collection of short stories, but where the various different stories are told concurrently. If you can get into, it is very rewarding.


Sir Thursday

[Morgoth]

the story about the first city especially is incredibly good

[GingerBreadMan]

Didn't really enjoy the book...maybe that is my fault in the same way someone who doesn't like a Da Vinci painting but it is what it is...

Thought it was confusing, seemed like someone was trying to hard to write great literature as opposed to a great book, storyline was hard to follow and like I said confusing...

[caladanbrood]

Actually started this last night, despite not being supposed to read while I concentate on NaNoWriMo. Wasn't bad, but impossible to tell how good it will be without reading further...

[Wry]

I bought it a while ago and found it very hard to get into, possibly because i haven't had a chance to sit down and read it at length, just a page here and there. I will give it several more tries though.

[amphibian]

I came by a preview copy last summer and took it home, did some research on the author and then went at it. Finished it after a couple days.

I didn't like it.

I will stipulate to the good quality of the writing and the existence of some fine parts. Despite all the pros, the story itself doesn't really go anywhere. I spent a few hours and didn't feel like I got enough out of that time to put in more time on this author.

In general, I felt that the disorganized style was fine, but it didn't move much beyond relatively shallow anger at the unfairness of the world (in particular, the persecution of gays) and a mystic threat. One specific criticism:

Spoiler

The Vellum (or the Book of All Hours) ends up not being important. This irked me.

If you read his blog http://www.halduncan.com/, you'll get a good sense of what the book is like. Odd details, run-on sentences, in need of tighter editing and maybe the story isn't really worth your time.

My opinion: There are books out there more deserving of the "Next" slot in your reading list.

[polishgenius]

amphibian;131076 said:

One specific criticism:

Spoiler

The Vellum (or the Book of All Hours) ends up not being important. This irked me.

Eh?

Spoiler

The whole thing took place in the Vellum and was about rewriting it and travelling in it and the rest. The Book of all Hours I kind of see your point though, hopefully it comes in to proper play in Ink. I liked his journey though, especially the early parts.

[werewolfv2]

Ive been working one it for a couple days... it isnt doing much for me yet.

[VigoTheCarpathian]

I just finished reading Vellum around a week ago, and thought it wasn't too bad of a book. Some interesting ideas, and a decent blend of mythos/sci-fi.

For some reason, it reminds me a lot of the Dark Tower books by Stephen King, and there's also a mix of the Lucifer and Preacher comic books, and after finishing the book, I'd have to say that either because of the structure of the book, or some of the characters/settings, it almost seems like it was a sort of patchwork of other peoples' works.

Not bad, though.

[caladanbrood]

Not particularly getting into it so far... its a very confusing writing style.

[Murrin]

VigoTheCarpathian;132452 said:

I just finished reading Vellum around a week ago, and thought it wasn't too bad of a book. Some interesting ideas, and a decent blend of mythos/sci-fi.

For some reason, it reminds me a lot of the Dark Tower books by Stephen King, and there's also a mix of the Lucifer and Preacher comic books, and after finishing the book, I'd have to say that either because of the structure of the book, or some of the characters/settings, it almost seems like it was a sort of patchwork of other peoples' works.

Not bad, though.

Much of the book did begin life as seperate short stories and such. There were, I think, one or two major storylines that Duncan wrote from scratch for Vellum, and the others were built upon from work he had been doing for the past decade.

[caladanbrood]

Finished the book now, and overall very dissapointed, considering what I'd heard about it from others. The writing style was painful at times, and it was glaringly obvious that it had started life as unconnected stories - they stayed unconnected, despite the attempts to blend them which were about as subtle and well-written as a sledgehammer. On the up side, some of them were very good ideas, and when he stopped jumping about every few paragraphs, it was very enjoyable.

Would have worked much much better as a short story collection than a single story, I feel.

[QuickTidal]

I've begun it, and am about 50 odd pages in. I have to agree that I haven't read anything this slowly in a long while. That's a great trait for a book to have....Savouring it, and to simply understand it...or what I can of it.

I find that it isn't necessarily sci-fi, but rather fantasy ala Final Fantasy, and the mind-fu** of let's say Neon Genesis: Evangelion, and I am by no means equating a multi-dimensional book to the Human Instrumentality project (Third Impact), I am mearly stating that it feels like a jolt to the senses in the same regard, and that in itself is a good thing. I feel like it is unconventionally written on purpose to "unseat" the reader. If this story was told to appease the great masses, and be linear in style, I don't think we'd get the idea he wishes us to get. That being said, the Reynard bits seem to be the most linear easy bits, and they seem to be that way as sort of breaks for the reader.

Anyway, so far so good.