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5.0 out of 5 stars
The Divine Comedy Revisited, July 1, 2007
The Crooked Letter (2006) is the first fantasy novel in the Books of the Cataclysm duology. This novel is the prequel to the Books of the Change series. The second novel in this duology, The Blood Debt, will be the sequel to the Change series.
Hadrian Castillo is the mirror twin of Seth Castillo. Although they look identical, Hade has his organs on the opposite side than Seth's body. They are in Europe on holiday, leaving Australia to see the old countries.
Ellis Quick is also Australian -- a student from Melbourne -- and is slightly older than the twins. She meets the twins in Vienna and the three soon pool their resources to acquire better facilities. Ellis is the first to notice the Swede following them.
In this novel, Seth and Hade have a falling out in Stockholm and Hade is chasing through the streets to overtake Seth. Ellis catches up with Hade in the park and tries to talk him out of his anger, but Hade pushes her aside and, bleeding profusely, follows Seth. Ellis leads him down to the underground station and the three finally connect on the train.
Unfortunately, the Swede and his henchmen catch up with them there. The men grab Hade and Seth and the Swede pulls a knife. At first he threatens Hade, but Seth mouths off again and the Swede stabs him in the chest. The Swede carries off Ellis, but leaves Hade and Seth lying in a cul-de-sac.
When they are found, the paramedics treat Hade for his wounds, but Seth is pronounced DOA. Hade wakes up in a hospital and soon meets Bechard the orderly and Detective Volker Lascowicz. He hears people in the beds around him, but the curtains are drawn around him and he can't see the others. He describes his experiences to Lascowicz and learns that the power network is down.
In this story, Hade sleeps and awakens to a strangely quiet ward. A changed Lascowicz speaks to him out of the dark and says weird things. When Lascowicz leaves, Hade gets up and wanders around the ward. Everybody else is gone.
When Lascowicz comes back with Bechard, Hade avoids them and runs down the hallway. Something with claws pursues him, but he evades it and hides. Then Pukje -- a small monkey-like creature -- finds him and sends him off after his brother's body, which has been partially cremated in the hospital furnace. Hade saves a finger bone and then finds his way out of the building.
Although Pukje tries to tell him that a Cataclysm has been initiated by his brother's death, Hade refuses to believe anything so fanciful. Then he starts discovering signs of disaster in his travels through the city. Before long, he encounters Kybele, the goddess of the city.
Meanwhile, Seth finds himself falling through the Bardo into the underworld. He is chased by daevas and helped by a dimane named Xolotl, a former human with a transformed body. Under these conditions, Seth has little argument with Xol's assertion that he is dead.
Seth wanders through much of the Second Realm following Xol and others. He learns of the alien god Yod, a black ziggurat from Outside, and his efforts to slake his hunger in the First Realm. He also discovers that Xol is the mirror twin of Quetzalcoatl.
This story is an aggregation of various elements from folktales around the world. While it is heavily influenced by Germanic and Greek folklore, there are also aspects of Celtic, South American, Jewish and Arabic tales. Initially, Hade only encounters supernatural aspects of Scandinavia -- including Pukje -- but Kybele was originally a Phrygian goddess.
The structure of the world in this novel is three-fold, with the First Realm being our normal universe of matter and energy. The Second Realm is governed by Will, which is expressed as magic. The Third Realm is ruled by Choice, which is expressed by diverging worldlines similar to the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.
These Realms are ruled by dei, both major and minor. They each have inhabitants, some of whom are human. There are places within the Second Realm, but they defy common sense. It is difficult to say whether the Third Realm has places as such.
Since the Books of Change have not yet been published in the US, few people -- not including this reviewer -- outside Australia have read those stories. The Australian editions are available through Amazon in only limited quantities. Hopefully, an US publisher will reprint these books sometime soon.
Without the Books of Change to compare with this volume, it is hard to determine the degree of commonality. Obviously this volume has little in common with any other single fantasy tale, but maybe there are bits of mutual backstory across a wide spectrum of such tales. As the author admits in the appendices, he has been gathering material from various sources over the years. Now he has attempted a coherent presentation of these concepts. Nonetheless, the reader had better be prepared to suspend all disbelief in reading this book.
This book is fascinating, but difficult to understand at first. By the end of the book, one gains some comprehension of the overall situation, but so much is still unexplained. Don't expect the sequel to tie up all the dangling ideas, but maybe it will come to an acceptable conclusion. If you have read any other works by the author, such inexplicable and unexplained concepts should be familiar usages.
This reviewer is somehow reminded of Dante's Divine Comedy by this work. Although very different in style and details, this novel does feature (two separate) journeys through exotic realms. Maybe it is the quest format or the guided tours or the strange creatures or the divine aspects. Yet Dante could never have written this novel.
Highly recommended for Williams fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of convoluted fantasy, initial confusion and gradual -- but not complete -- comprehension, and many very strange creatures.
-Arthur W. Jordin
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