I suspect a close third would have been a better way for Gregory to fly. Possession is not, historically, a playful realm of inquiry. Things happen, too many, in fact, but they aren't reacted to fully enough. There's too much wink-wink, too many too clever by half one liners, and too many missed moments where one thinks: Jeez, did that event really get caste aside so dismissively? Ditto the other, less lethal but just as available dramatic moments. Why? No one reacts as if there's been a death. Does he himself want this to be a comic book? People die left and right, but the deaths are like the bullets in an A Team episode - not all that impactful when all is said and done. It doesn't work because Del is not to be trusted. What Del says, thinks, and experiences is what we get. The tone of the book is ever in flux, and tone here is a function of character, because the book is written - perhaps mistakenly - in the first person. You get there, but you're hungry, like a man who ate Chinese food an hour ago.Īnd the result is not good on the level of character. Dick (perhaps literally), Chris Carter you name 'em, they are all inside - but not beneath the surface enough for Gregory to be himself as a writer, and so the meat is often decidedly absent. In Pandemonium, Gregory wants to be Anne Rice (he's got a Talamasca), Gordon Sumner, Stan Lee, Philip K. There's a scene in "The Bird Cage" where Robin Williams' character is explaining to his young male performer (who is unsatisfied with his role as "the meat") that he's to do "an eclectic celebration of the dance" featuring Fosse, Twyla, Madonna, Martha Graham and Michael Kidd - but he must "keep it all inside," meaning, he's to be the meat and the meat alone. The homage is at odds with the tale, and the ride is bumpy. It pulls you along, it says what it says and does what it does but it's like the Blues Brothers' police car (gets you where you're going, or somewhere anyway, but). You may ask, why is that so bad? Ineffective? Disheveled? Well, it isn't really any of those things, not to unreadable excess, leastways. Gregory believes he must shoehorn all of the experiences that led him to want to write a sci fi book into the book. There is a quasi-debate about sci fi vs fantasy that simply reads as an artificial writer's graft from writer's life into book. No, wait: he didn't mention "Kolchak the Night Stalker." He missed that one. What do I mean? This book reads like an homage to all of science fiction. is the son, because he wants to eat it all up, that's for sure, or at least, serve it all up at once to the reader, but that impulse of scope is at odds with the novel's form, pace and breadth. They're watching a dozen sheep graze, and the young son says to his papa: "Hey, pop, why don't we run down the hill howling, grab one of those sheep, and eat it?" And the pop says: "Not a bad idea, but here's a better one: why don't we stroll down the hill quietly and eat them all?" I'm not sure D.G. It reminded me of the old joke about two wolves sitting on a hill, the papa wolf and his son. Gregory's first book, but that lack of restraint alone clued me in. I did not know before my reading that this was Mr. The need of the author, any author, to channel his own collective unconscious - not unchecked but perhaps underchecked - onto the page is not restrained enough here. It's missing some of the other certain somethings, though. It's got at least one of those "certain somethings" that a science fiction book requires - a uniqueness of vision, something somewhat fresh, removed by more than a degree or two from what we've seen before. It also doesn't mean you shouldn't read it.
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