![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mister B. Gone, by Clive Barker
Jun. 15th, 2008 03:47 pmMister B. Gone
by Clive Barker
248 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/Humor
I picked up this book from the library on a whim; demons aren't exactly an original concept, but the voice was interesting. Alas, I can't be bothered to finish reading because voice is pretty much the only virture I can see. Jakabok Botch is a simultaneously devious and pitiful demon apparently trapped in the pages of his memoir; the plot apparently interlaces him talking directly to the reader with tales of his life up to the current point. Neither conceit, again, is particularly original. Jakabok was interesting at first, but his repetition and complaining gets annoying after a while (by which I mean, after 50 pages). The worldbuilding just doesn't feel like it has a lot of thought in it, and the plotting is subpar. Perhaps this is the wrong genre, though--I didn't realize that this was horror at the time, and so found the macabre descriptions needlessly extraneous.
Verdict: voice alone cannot carry a novel. However, the book design is beautiful.
by Clive Barker
248 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/Humor
I picked up this book from the library on a whim; demons aren't exactly an original concept, but the voice was interesting. Alas, I can't be bothered to finish reading because voice is pretty much the only virture I can see. Jakabok Botch is a simultaneously devious and pitiful demon apparently trapped in the pages of his memoir; the plot apparently interlaces him talking directly to the reader with tales of his life up to the current point. Neither conceit, again, is particularly original. Jakabok was interesting at first, but his repetition and complaining gets annoying after a while (by which I mean, after 50 pages). The worldbuilding just doesn't feel like it has a lot of thought in it, and the plotting is subpar. Perhaps this is the wrong genre, though--I didn't realize that this was horror at the time, and so found the macabre descriptions needlessly extraneous.
Verdict: voice alone cannot carry a novel. However, the book design is beautiful.
