14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Just not very good . . ., August 3, 2009
This review is from: Amberville (Hardcover)
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Recall the best book you have read this year. Fiction. Well plotted, good characters, etc. You thoroughly enjoyed it. Now, replace every character in that book with a stuffed bear. Does that in any way seem like it makes the book even better?
Now do the same thing, but only in this case it is not the best book you have ever read but a thoroughly below average myster/murder/thriller/horror/fill in the blank book. Would the inclusion of stuffed bears as characters interest you enough?
And here in lies the problem with Amberville. Stuffed bears are just not a compelling enough "hook" to overcome a mediocre story. In fact, stuffed bears actively contribute to the mediocrity. There is just nothing pleasant, interesting, fascinating, in reading about a "seedy" underworld of stuffed animals.
This may work in a visual medium - I am thinking Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And in someways, if the "toys" are used to highlight something or bring attention to things that would be missed using human characters only (The Indian in the Cupboard) it works. But simply having a murder/mystery with grimy bears does not.
All in all a book that tries to be different for the sake of being different - but in this case different is not better.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stimulate your brain, November 12, 2008
This review is from: Amberville (Hardcover)
This highly imaginative story may be the most unusual book I've ever read. I'm not sure I even understand the whole thing. Set in an imaginary town where the streets are painted candy colors, living stuffed animals go about their lives. But this isn't a playful story. Eric Bear has been asked by gangster Nicholas Dove to find the "Death List" and take his name off of it. Eric enlists the help of his old cronies Tom-Tom Crow, Sam Gazelle, and Snake Marek. As Eric searches for the list, the story analyzes the dichotomies of reality vs. insanity, good vs. evil, church vs. state, with gangsters, drug users, and thieves as the doers of the deeds. The story weaves in and out of the players' lives, seemingly on-the-level, but surprises await. Not everyone is as they seem. This book will have you guessing until the very end, giving you some serious ponderings along the way.
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An Interesting Concept That Almost Works, February 10, 2009
This review is from: Amberville (Hardcover)
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Eric, now a grown man and a successful advertising executive, has been successful in putting his reckless and somewhat criminal youthful indiscretions behind him. At least, that's what he thought. But then the local kingpin he once worked for shows up with a non-negotiable proposition. Find the hit list that his name is rumored to be on, and remove it from the list. Otherwise, he will kill Eric's girlfriend. Now, Eric must get the old gang back together and track down the "Death List" at any cost.
A compelling and straight-forward plot. The big twist? Eric, the crime boss, and all of the other characters in the book are stuffed animals. They live in a world completely populated by stuffed animals, in which the young and old are delivered and taken away by pick-up trucks. It is definitely an interesting plot twist. But is it necessary?
The idea isn't completely original (
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse,
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,
The Big Over Easy: A Nursery Crime,
Meet the Feebles), but that doesn't mean it isn't good. It just means that the author might want to approach the concept from an original angle.
The author does, but he unfortunately decides to play it straight. The idea of stuffed animals in a detective mystery novel begs for plenty of sarcastic tongue-in-cheek humor, but Amberville avoids silly humor and instead relies on the subtle absurdities (a small stuffed dove as a crime kingpin, for example) to deliver the humor on their own, which they never really manage to do. Even the author's approach to the way characters are named in Amberville (simply a first name followed by the type of stuffed animal they are), shows a lack of desire to truly have fun with the concept. In short, things that should be comical or farcical are just as boring as they would be in the real world.
The result is a story that could easily be translated into a realistic, non-fantasy setting and written as a straight hardboiled noir novel. Amberville doesn't necessarily fail at making the concept work, it just doesn't fully convince the reader that fantastical setting was crucial to the story.
Amberville is supposed to reveal truths about human nature, morality, religion, and the concepts of good and evil, by having stuffed animals act out the scenarios in which these philosophical debates occur. This is where the book does fail, much in the same way that
White Man's Burden failed. Changing reality in some ironic or absurd way might seem deep and meaningful at first. But unless there are other connections on multiple levels, all that you are left with is an overused gimmick.
Amberville is a good book. It has a compelling story, interesting characters, and enough twists and turns to keep a mystery lover interested until the end. It just doesn't quite manage to be what it wanted to be, and that's what keeps it from being a great book.
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