The Domino Men [Hardcover]

Jonathan Barnes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 2009

A young man discovers a manuscript and so begins a bizarre tale that brings together his grandfather, every conspiracy theory you've ever heard about the royal family and the true story about where the power of Number 10 really lies. Readers of The Somnambulist may well recoginise the characters kept within a chalk circle in a cellar beneath Downing Street. With a gallery of vividly grotesque characters, a gleefully satiric take on modern life and a playful and highly literate style, this is an amazingly readable literary fantasy. In his sequel to the crazed Victoriana of The Somnambulist Jonathan Barnes brings his invention, reality, grotesquerie and curiosities bang-up-to-date.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Barnes's second novel, a compelling supernatural thriller, shows his impressive debut, The Somnambulist (2008), was no fluke. Shadowy figures working for a covert government agency called the Directorate inform Henry Lamb, a clerk with London's civil service archive unit, that his grandfather, recently felled by a stroke, was once a major player in their secret war against the House of Windsor. In 1857, Queen Victoria promised the souls of the people of London to a monstrous Lovecraftian entity known as the Leviathan. Now the bill is due. Since Lamb's grandfather held the secret to the whereabouts of a woman named Estella, who's critical to containing the Leviathan, the members of the Directorate regard Lamb as their best hope for locating Estella. Thanks to Barnes's evocative prose, readers will easily suspend disbelief. Those who enjoy the grafting of fantasy elements onto contemporary urban landscapes will be more than satisfied. (Feb.)
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Review

“A comic extravaganza, deftly plotted, fiendishly clever, and wonderfully funny. Jonathan Barnes combines a love of Victorian absurdity worthy of Edward Gorey with the surrealistic invention of a London-obsessed Garcia Marquez. This parody penny-dreadful is one of the classiest entertainments I’ve read in a long, long time.” (Christopher Bram, author of Exiles in America )

“Macabre wit and stylistic panache. Parliament should immediately pass a law requiring Barnes to write a sequel.” (James Morrow, author of The Last Witchfinder and The Philosopher’s Apprentice )

“Sneaky, cheeky, and dark in the best possible way, Jonathan Barnes’ massively entertaining The Somnambulist manages to make the familiar daringly unfamiliar. I enjoyed the heck out of this novel.” (Jeff Vandermeer )

“Nothing about Barnes’s follow-up to The Somnabulist is predictable....The grotesque fantasy world is a riot.” (mX Brisbane (Australia) )

“A fantastic novel.” (Denver Rocky Mountain News )

“Strange, outrageous, and wonderful … There is much that is strange, magical, and darkly hilarious about this book … An original and monumentally inventive piece of work by a writer still in his 20s. Barnes seems to leave himself room for a sequel—a consummation devoutly to be wished.” (Washington Post )

“A wonderfully original concoction of grotesque humour and sparkling prose.” (The Guardian )

“The best fantasy novel of the year.” (Rocky Mountain News )

“This promising debut subverts its 19th-century predecessors amusingly. Inventive and often witty. A cabinet crammed with curiosities.” (The Observer )

“Barnes’s second novel, a compelling supernatural thriller, shows that his impressive debut, The Somnambulist, was no fluke. …Thanks to Barnes’s evocative prose, readers will easily suspend disbelief. Those who enjoy the grafting of fantasy elements onto contemporary urban landscapes will be more than satisfied.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

“Marvelously imaginative.” (The Onion )

“If you only read one black comedy with the brains and labyrinthine twists of Vedantic hair-splitting, make it this one....a gripping yarn.” (Chicago Sun-Times )

“A comic extravaganza, deftly plotted, fiendishly clever, and wonderfully funny. . . . One of the classiest entertainments I’ve read.” (Christopher Bram, author of Exiles in America )

“Old school entertainment in the penny-dreadful tradition that almost succeeds in being as sublime as it is ridiculous.” (Entertainment Weekly )

“Kudos Barnes for another winner that is as funny as it is creepy, as thought provoking as it is entertaining.” (Colorado Springs Independent )

“Another remarkable outing, an infectious blend of wit, wonder, and the bizarre presented with remarkable style. This is literary fiction for the genre fiction set, or possibly the other way around...genuinely shocking and inventive.” (San Antonio Express-News )

“Unmatched life and verve.” (Washington Post Book World )

“Magical, dark, beautifully odd–and utterly compelling–this is an astonishing debut.” (Michael Marshall, author of The Intruders )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (January 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061671401
• ISBN-13: 978-0061671401
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,069,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ashes, ashes, all fall down!, February 5, 2009

By 

Susan Tunis (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Domino Men (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

London is engaged in a secret civil war. It's been raging for more than a century between the people of London and their rulers, the Windsor family. Okay, it's not really "the people," it's a shady group called "the Directorate" fighting on their behalf. And, yeah, the royals don't really rule anyone today, but you get my point. The Windsor's have sold the city's soul to an inhuman entity called Leviathan, and we are warned: He is coming.

Conscripted into this secret war is our protagonist, the aptly named Henry Lamb. Henry is a file clerk at the Civil Service Archive Unit. Shortly after his grandfather falls into a sudden coma, strange things begin to happen in Henry's life--such as his work transfer to the Directorate and his new (and very welcome) relationship with his landlady. Slowly at first, but eventually with greater and greater understanding, Henry comes to realize that everything he knows about the world and even about himself is now called into doubt. It is all much stranger and scarier than he previously believed.

Henry is writing his story for posterity from some point in the future. Right from the opening, Henry tells us that "time is now very short for me." About 100 pages in, suddenly the text becomes italicized, and a new narrator is telling a concurrent story. That is the story of the heir to the British throne, Prince Arthur Windsor. Arthur has his faults and weaknesses, and is being preyed upon by the mysterious Mr.Streater--a character with dialog so distinctive that I could literally hear his voice in my head. Arthur and Henry's stories fight for prominence through the rest of the novel, the struggle itself supposedly an indicator of Henry's eventual fate.

The Domino Men is rife with foreshadowing, but Jonathan Barnes has done a masterful job with the novel's construction. As I read, realizations would come to me--I am sure--exactly when Barnes intended for each epiphany to happen. Suddenly the light-bulb would snap on and I'd understand something important. And time and time again I'd flip back in the book to see all the exactingly placed clues. They were all there. Sometimes when I finally "got it" everything would be so right and so obvious, but all revelations came in their own time. Aside from the well-timed epiphanies, there were more than a few twists that managed to take me completely by surprise. By the end, I was extremely satisfied with all the major questions having been wrapped up, while still leaving a bit of room for a sequel--though I really don't believe that one is necessary.

On the subject of sequels, I had absolutely no clue The Domino Men was a sequel to The Somnambulist. I remembered being interested in reading The Somnambulist when it was first released, but I never got around to it. (I definitely will now.) The Domino Men was so deftly plotted however, that if I missed anything important by not reading the first book (set more than a century prior), it's not at all obvious to me.

The book is well-written, in a distinctly British style. The vocabulary alone is a joy to read, and though some turn their noses down at genre fiction, the use of language here is quite wonderful. Many times I paused to linger over a turn of phrase or sentence. There is a lot of humor that buoys the story as well. My biggest criticism, and the reason for the loss of one star, is that I believe that the novel could have been shorter. It dragged a bit in the middle and through the end. I'd find myself very caught up in what certainly felt like a dénouement, and I'd find myself thinking, "There's another 150 pages? No, not possible!" The book was never boring, but I do think it could have been slightly condensed.

I'm extremely grateful to have discovered this young author at this time. I am very much looking forward to now reading the first part of this tale, and will likewise be very interested in seeing where Mr. Barnes goes next. This novel is highly recommended for fans of Neil Gaiman and other writers of contemporary fantasy.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Than "The Somnambulist"!, February 5, 2009

By 

Brian Baker (Santa Clarita, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Domino Men (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

It's not often that a sequel surpasses the original work from which it derives, but in the case of "The Domino Men" that's definitely the case.

At the end of "Somnambulist", London was in ruins at the end of Queen Victoria's reign. This book picks up the story in present-day London, as the opposing forces of the epic struggle have used the intervening decades to restore their powers, so badly depleted in the previous battle.

This time, a milquetoast file clerk is the fulcrum of the Directorate's strategy, as well as bringing into play those two anarchic demons - Hawkins and Boon (the Domino Men) - who sowed so much destruction at the end of the last book.

Told in modern dialect (as opposed to the Victorian lingo of the previous work), all the verve, panache, and devilishly clever twists of the original continue in this sequel. Rich characterizations (the Domino Men are an absolute hoot!), tight plotting, and vivid scenery will keep you hooked from first page to last.

In many ways this book reminds me of Swift's "Gulliver's Travels": using dark satire to lampoon the current socio-political climate.

If you liked "The Somnambulist", you'll love "The Domino Men".

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Continuations of Pandaemonic London, June 2, 2009

By 

C. S. Ivanyi (Arizona) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Domino Men (Hardcover)

Barnes's first effort, The Somnambulist, was a great beginning, albeit with an ending as dissatisfying as the aftertaste of a bad diet cola. His newest returns the reader once again to London, though a modern London, and once again, nasty things are afoot (and underfoot). Henry Lamb, the very appropriately named main character, is a mild mannered filing clerk about to take the trip of his life.

Barnes populates his London with all manner of human (and demi-human) oddities, and The Domino Men is every bit as filled with chaotic beings who seem just at the threshold of losing control, just past that threshold, or so far gone we have no idea what doorways they have traversed (nor would we want to). His writing is like a smooth bit of drinking chocolate or an after dinner cognac: It slips right down and warms the spirit, but one suspects that an overdose might leave a bad result.

The Domino Men, Hawker and Boon, Boon and Hawker, those frightful, cartoonishly demonic daguerreotypes of Angus from AC/DC, replete with school uniforms and reeking of a hell only Clive Barker might want to visit, form a small centerpiece de resistance around which whirls the crisis the throes of which London has supposedly been in since Victoria's time: The war between "The Directorate" and the House of Windsor. No good can come of the Domino Men, and it certainly doesn't.

As in his first book, Barnes masterfully creates characters whose humanity is as touching for its frailties and failings as it is wrung out by their heroic and anti-heroic abilities. Beautifully styled prose, intricate and complex dialogue with plenty of British sardonic wit and humor, and a genuinely compelling pathos, moves the narrative forward. As we walk, drugged as it were by Barnes's verbal talents, we encounter the problem of the unreliable narrator, and we must at times wrench our sentiments free of their inclinations to consider just what the author is doing to us here.

Unlike The Somnambulist, The Domino Men has a satisfying (euphemistically so) ending. The book, hard to categorize but perhaps best called Steampunk Conspiracy Opera, gets into your blood, grabs hold of your nerves and keeps you turning the pages even when it would be nicer not to (oh, how the characters suffer, and in so many ways).

In the end, satisfied, I found it a relief to finish this beast of a book. It is a verbal trompe l'oeil, because as you read it, you become lost in it, and I found its heavy character and spirit toll weighed down my emotional perspective even as its brilliance buoyed up my imagination. A bit like something one might find in the library of Mephistopheles: Goes down easy, but grabs hold once its in.

Ware the ampersand!