And the Angel With Television Eyes [Hardcover]

John Shirley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 19, 2001

"...And the Angel with Television Eyes" explores the region where fantasy meets reality. This surreal journey of self-discovery and transformation at once questions the nature of our world, and redefines it in the context of 21st century pop culture and technology. It takes a writer of John Shirley's talent and audacity to bring together elements as disparate as Shakespeare, Nietzsche, on-line role playing games, soap operas, and classic mythology - binding them together, creating a heady melange on, above, and below the streets of Manhattan. "...And the Angel with Television Eyes" follows the life of Max Whitman, a successful, yet unfulfilled soap opera actor, as his life begins to fall apart. Strange, murderous events suck Max into a maelstrom that leaves him questioning first his own sanity, then the nature of reality. As he is dragged further into a battle between mythic forces that threaten to destroy him and his world, Max must first try and understand the nature of these forces and then find the strength to overcome them. At once a rousing adventure, and a bitingly insightful metaphor for our times, .And the Angel with Television Eyes is sure to keep you at the edge of your seat.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A semi-talented television actor is an unlikely channel for gnostic mysticism and pop phenomenology in this loopy dark fantasy from Shirley (From Hell; Darkness Divided). Max Whitman, star of a hit soap opera, is poised to claim his first serious role on the New York stage when he's overwhelmed by visions of mythical monsters and voice-overs calling him Prince Redmark. A mysterious fan named Carstairs convinces Max that he's one of "the Hidden Race," whose souls are highly developed "plasmagnomes," capable of independent, invisible life after the body's death. The plasmagnomes, which have schismed into factions that either protect or exploit humankind, manipulate the course of human events to serve their ends. The revelation awakens Max to a sense of "tucked-away worlds, living alongside one another, intertwining, and struggling in secret places each to assert its own agenda," and Shirley enhances it with adroit explorations of dualism involving Max's screen persona, a sensory deprivation tank experience and a back-talking interactive computer game. Though clever, the story disseminates its philosophy in preachy monologues that read like college lecture crib notes and suggest there may be less here than meets the eye. Still, the riot of incongruous images that Shirley plucks from our cultural consciousness to incarnate his wispy plasmagnomes adds ballast to his glib satire and shows one of the most energetic imaginations in modern fantastic fiction rising to the challenge of the material.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

As a star in a popular soap opera, Max Whitman desires to expand his acting abilities to include serious parts. A series of strange occurrences, however, sidetracks Max's ambitions and sets him on an eerie path toward insight or insanity as the boundaries of reality collapse and he receives glimpses of a hidden reality populated with monsters and heroes. The author of Wetbones and Dracula in Love continues his exploratory approach to sf and fantasy with a raucous modern fantasy that revels in the shocking and the explicit. Purchase where the author has a following.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books (August 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892389134
• ISBN-13: 978-1892389138
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,819,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some hell of a ride, February 22, 2002

By 

jdkuchen (Cologne, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: And the Angel With Television Eyes (Hardcover)

Admittedly this might sound like straining an old blurb cliché, but John Shirley's latest novel really IS a tour de force on the darker side of literature (dark but not without humor). It's one of those rare books so crammed with astonishing images, bizarre scenes and brilliantly written passages (some of them just begging to be read out loud) that it leaves you breathless and absolutely satisfied. On a stylistic level the author has combined the neo-baroque images of his earlier works with the condensed, razor-sharp language of his more recent fiction. Shirley always writes on the edge of reality but with such a controlled and experienced voice that he can make the most weirdest things seem natural and plausible. His menagerie of oddities is described as vivid as if the author has personally met the hybrids of ancient mythology and industrial materials which populate his novel: the vinyl harpies, Thanatos, the angel with television eyes and all the others. And if you think that the Weaver from China Miéville's "Perdido Street Station" was a strange fellow, wait until you meet Vega, the discoball guy who overdoses on e-guitar chords.
"...And the Angel with Television Eyes" has an unbelievably fast-paced plot, some cool narrative gimmicks (just look at the chapter titles) and also profits from its author's insider knowledge of the media business. Definitely some hell of a ride.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars DON'T TOUCH THAT REMOTE, September 10, 2002

By 

Worldreels (MANKATO, MN) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: And the Angel With Television Eyes (Hardcover)

John Shirley constructs a concealed world, existing side-by-side with the world visible to the normal human eye. We all know that a similar world must exist within the sub microscopic, quantum realm of which we are all composed. Shirley populates his concealed world with creatures who feed off the souls of mankind. Environmentally, these creatures are vulnerable to the electromagnetic emanations man uses in his radios, cell phones, TVs and radar. Their message to mankind is `clean up your environmental act.'

Max, the main character, begins as a soap opera star whose ennui drives him to quit his TV role playing. He accepts the larger task of unraveling the role concealed within his being. The Angel with TV Eyes changes Max's perspective of his dream like visions describing a concealed world. At an earlier date Lord Greymark had been dissolved into pure information and implanted in the womb of Max's mother. Max's pursuit of a larger than life role triggers his revelation as Lord Greymark, a 12 foot entity concealed within the jaded actor's soul. Lord Greymark possesses great power that he uses to extinguish the fires of Thanatos, a character representing death and vowing destruction of all that is good in man.

Just as the pictures on a TV are converted from unseen waves, the vision of the Angel with TV Eyes flows via holowaves from within the quantum realm. This posits a reality which few can either detect or receive on their vision screen. By personalizing a character with TV eyes John Shirley creates an entity directed from within this hidden reality. A story that begins with a cast of bud-like human characters soon blossoms into a bouquet of revealed Spirits constructed of plastic, metal and electronic switches. As the evolution of man is expressed through DNA, so the Spirits evolve by means of vibratory packets-a non genetic form of evolutionary record keeping. Thus the author posits another method the unseen Spirits are using to throw the evolutionary dice. What the Spirits seek is the same as what man seeks-companionship.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Acid for my Imagination, November 15, 2004

By 

Katie McConnell "Little Planet" (Worthington OH, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: And the Angel With Television Eyes (Hardcover)

I LOVED this book. The imagery and the mysticism fit together in such a beautiful dissonance, I couldn't put it down. John Shirley is an expert wordsmith. The way he described the sculptures, I felt like I could close my eyes, reach out and touch it in my mind's eye.

There were a few places where it moved a little slowly, but hey, what book doesn't have it's more plodding passages? I have to give this book 5 stars.