I read this one over the Christmas holiday and my copy is boxed away right no so I can't pull any quotes. But you included one of the good ones: "All of history up to the moment of his conception had conspired to create Victor." It read like someone saying to Cormac McCarthy "describe the Kwisatz Haderach in one sentence." And that's how I would describe this. McCarthy writing Dune but with a word limit.
I was going to say something about it being set in the Warhammer 40k universe but I have not read any of the Warhammer novels so I shouldn't try to speak to that. And anyway McCarthy brings enough grimdarkness on his own. No knock against the author to describe his work in terms of the work of the greats. As ol' Cormac says, books are made out of books. Blood Meridian was really just the novelization of a kid's diary after all. Anyway. I'll get the sequel but I don't quite think Steelstorm nailed the execution. Thomas777 was aiming very high and coming up a little short is better than aiming low.
His prose feels like Quentin Tarantino: low-culture, incredibly confident and aggressively in-your-face, with a surprising amount of style and thought behind it. Sex, violence, sleaze, disease, cruelty, disgust... a Nietzschean predator's view of the underbelly of life.
It feels very weird because normally this amount of style and planning is reserved only for "high-culture" glamorous escapism, and good artists tend to be embarrassed to write about these themes under their own names. So the automatic heuristic is to say "low-culture means low-quality" and then something like this book comes along and breaks the pattern.
Have you had a chance to read the second volume yet? I think it's a strict improvement. I also wrote a short review. Not sure if you are still taking guestposts or if I should shill it elsewhere.
I read this one over the Christmas holiday and my copy is boxed away right no so I can't pull any quotes. But you included one of the good ones: "All of history up to the moment of his conception had conspired to create Victor." It read like someone saying to Cormac McCarthy "describe the Kwisatz Haderach in one sentence." And that's how I would describe this. McCarthy writing Dune but with a word limit.
I was going to say something about it being set in the Warhammer 40k universe but I have not read any of the Warhammer novels so I shouldn't try to speak to that. And anyway McCarthy brings enough grimdarkness on his own. No knock against the author to describe his work in terms of the work of the greats. As ol' Cormac says, books are made out of books. Blood Meridian was really just the novelization of a kid's diary after all. Anyway. I'll get the sequel but I don't quite think Steelstorm nailed the execution. Thomas777 was aiming very high and coming up a little short is better than aiming low.
His prose feels like Quentin Tarantino: low-culture, incredibly confident and aggressively in-your-face, with a surprising amount of style and thought behind it. Sex, violence, sleaze, disease, cruelty, disgust... a Nietzschean predator's view of the underbelly of life.
It feels very weird because normally this amount of style and planning is reserved only for "high-culture" glamorous escapism, and good artists tend to be embarrassed to write about these themes under their own names. So the automatic heuristic is to say "low-culture means low-quality" and then something like this book comes along and breaks the pattern.
Loved your review!
Have you had a chance to read the second volume yet? I think it's a strict improvement. I also wrote a short review. Not sure if you are still taking guestposts or if I should shill it elsewhere.
A lot of stuff you review seems to be pretty dour and pessimistic. I need some optimistic sci fi. Any recommendations?
Hey can you please check your DMs on Twitter. Some important info. Trying to reach you.