Customer Reviews

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I'm not generally a fantasy book afficionado, though I loved the Phillip Pullman books and grew up on Lord of the Rings, but when a friend recommended this book, I thought what the hell, I liked the cover and the first chapter was riveting in an odd and totally original way. Needless to say - I gobbled it up. The characters were fantastically vivid, and the whole imagined world so impressively conceived, I was literally on the edge of my seat. (I read a lot of it riding on the NY subway and found myself missing stops, and in one particular scene which I won't spoil for you, getting very red in the face...) It honestly didn't even feel long, the action moves incredibly fast - the writing had irony, wit and humor - it felt like fantasy wrapped in social satire - the glass books seemed to me to be an allegory for the dangerous force of all power hungry media structures that work on your base instincts and deprive you of your individuality, your critical mind, your creativity. I recommend this book to anyone who wants something really original.

I have a penchant for long, challenging novels, and "Glass Books" is certainly both. But don't let the words "long" & "challenging" discourage you from reading it. It is bizarre and unique, firmly rooted in a universal subconscious, both the author's and our own (by now you no doubt know that the creative impetus of the book sprung from a dream). It is also very visceral, a gothic mystery that you can totally get absorbed into.

After picking up and discouragingly putting down novel after novel looking for a great summer read (I also enjoyed last summer's Dracula epic, "The Historian"), I finally found a winner!

At last! Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle and the Marquis de Sade have risen from the grave and told us a story! Glass BOoks is basically a Victorian Sci Fi Thriller with a plot like a Nautilus shell. It twists and turns and keeps drawing you in deeper. You follow these three odd characters--a resourceful jilted fiancee, an assassin with a scarred face and a heart of gold, a whack job physician--as they pursue the central mystery: What is up with these blue glass books? There's some sort of process, involving women strapped to tables and some sort of political cabal and this weird blue glass that has the property of turning people into hopped up zombies, of a kind--much like our own television sets do, perhaps....
It all takes place in a sort of re-imagined late-19th century Europe. As if it comes to us through the filter of period literature. Velveteen boudoirs, dashing dragoons, hidden passages... It's deftly written and a wild read. In one nice trope, two brass-masked men see an act of violence witn "the dumb inconmprehension of inhabitants from the moon first witnessing the savagery of human kind," a trope that invokes Melies as much as Verne. Most of all it's a world you can live in, and don't want to leave anytime soon. Think MYST. If you've ever played, you'll see what I mean. The world's created, then you move about it in it and its got tricks and surprises and self-consistent rules.

I can't explain Glass Book's attraction by reference to any single other book, which is I think praise in itself. You'll have to read it.

From the first page on, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters plunges the reader into an alternate Victorian world where cabals and alchemy rule. While the details are complex and the book a solid 760 pages, I found it a complete page-turner, the action moves and there is an emotional urgency to it that keeps you involved. Unlike many imaginary world novels, Glass Books does not suffer the problem of flat characterization or thuddingly dull writing. The descriptions are precise and evocative, the characters emotionally resonant.

If you need your novels to be just like real life, Glass Books is not for you. Rather, more, it works more in the way of dreams, alternately beautiful and frightening, darkly erotic and an arch tribute to Victoriana. Dahlquist writes in a deliberately stylized manner. If historical fantasy with an edge (such as steampunk, though this is *not* a steampunk novel) appeals to you, you'll love Glass Books. If you like Diana Gabaldon and Susannah Clarke, you'll like this book, though the sexuality is darker (and stranger) than in Gabaldon. You may not be comfortable, but you'll never be bored.

Now I know what has been missing from the bookstores for ages. With "The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters", the grand adventure novel is back. Set in Victorian Europe, it is a fabulous tapestry of mystery, science fiction, sword play, sexuality and sensuality with a scheme to take over governments by a wonderful combination of sex and memory control. Gordon Dahlquist spins a plot worthy of Alexander Dumas, and his main characters Miss Temple, Cardinal Chang and Dr. Svenson are a wonderful rift on the three musketeers. And their nemesis? I'll just say she is one for the books.

Dahlquist gives each of his triumvirate their own plot line which he beautifully dovetails in variations throughout the story into a fully satisfying climax.

My late mother had a way of describing books like this: "There are too many words on the pages." Now I know what Mom meant. I forced my way through this seemingly endless novel, and it was like pushing a big rock up a long hill. The first-time author has vivid characters and a good sense of adventure, but, boy-oh-boy, is he ever long-winded! Buried somewhere in this 800-page doorstop is a really terrific 400-page fantasy novel, screaming to get out.

Note the interminable amount of time it takes, over and over, for people to get from Point A to Point B. This book is all about transportation. Even the chase scenes seem to be in slow motion. And that coy "this-is-really-London-but-we're-not-going-to-call-it-London" device is truly irritating. With all the endless traveling, we still don't know where we are.

On the other hand, the story has its charms, and the "glass books" are a great concept, and the three main characters are a perfect team. If you have a great deal of patience, you'll be reasonably entertained. But this sure ain't the fantasy blockbuster the ads are claiming it to be. There is no magic here--it's been drowned in an ocean of words. The only word that's missing is economy, something a novelist can only learn with experience (and editing). Maybe next time....

I purchased this book based on teaser info from an ad about the book which I read elsewhere. I couldn't wait for the book to arrive, and when it did I dived into the books pages immediately. The first chapter was a curious puzzle to me. I could already tell that I liked Miss Temple, but the extra long sentences made me want to close the book and stop right there. I had already PAID for the book, though, so I decided to keep going until at least the end of chapter two.

By the time chapter two had ended, the sentence structure had improved tremendously, and I was already falling under the spell of both Miss Temple and Cardinal Chang. By the end of the third chapter, I was hooked and couldn't read the book fast enough to suit my need to know what happened next.

I finally finished reading the book last night. I LOVED the ending, although I confess that I may need to reread the book again to keep straight all of the subplots which were being revealed by the time the book reaches its conclusion.

The book isn't meant to be realistic, but the characters are wonderful because they do sometimes have human flaws which show up at the worst times. I also love the main trio because they are people who might have been overlooked by both others and themselves, but when put to the test, the main trio rises to meet the test.

This book reminded me of books which I read when I was much younger, books which would take me on an adventure. I loved the adventure and the characters. Bravo!

This was an absolutely delicious romp of a novel. It took hold of me and would not let go. Exquisitely written, without being precious or overworked, it races along like a great adventure tale in the style of Wilkie Collins or Neil Gaiman. At first, I read it for the "what happens next" factor, but then I really fell in love with the characters. (My boyfriend read it as well, and we've argued over which character is the best; he is a "Svenson-ite," I am a Chang-ite). More than just a thrilling story, it turns into a novel with surprising emotional heft. The end is unforgettable.

I was fortunate enough to read this book as an advance reader last winter. Recently I picked up the book again, not planning to reread it, but just to skim through the first few pages. Several days and late nights later, I put the book down.
Somewhere in the first chapter, if not the first page, this book grabs you by the neck and doesn't let go until the last page. It is an exhilerating experience, much like that of the glass books within the novel. Though, when Dahlquist lets go of you, instead of emerging as a hopped up zombie, as someone else aptly put it, you are left wanting more. More, more, MORE.
Luckily, Dahlquist is working on the sequel.

I'm a big fan of Victorian lit, as well as historical thrillers, so when I saw this book I figured it would be a great read. Many hundreds of pages later I think that it's a great first novel, but perhaps an editor with a firmer hand could be found for novel #2. First of all, the Publisher's Weekly reviewer who alluded to Eyes Wide Shut was on the money--the parts of the novel that veer into erotica seem awkward and overly modern in tone. I know that Victorians were certainly not as prudish as their reputations suggest, but it seems like someone let an overly-libidinous Anne Rice take a crack at the book somewhere between the publisher and the printing press. The author has admitted that he wrote much of the novel without planning, which may account for an interesting pastiche of genres (the detection novel, the historical erotic, etc etc), as well as several awkward phrases: "The air of solitude intruded into her thoughts...the earlier excitement...somehow supplanted by brooding disquiet, the kind that leads to midnight cruelty." OOOOgie Boogie boogie--midnight cruelty? Also, some of the similies could be rethought: "The [train] station buzzed with activity like a wasps' nest kicked by a malicious child." Lively, but it seems rather random. On the plus side, the protagonists were wonderful--fascinating and complex and never dull. The book is an aesthetic paradise, full of broken down greenhouses and green leather boots and underground laboratories and blue powders and all the stuff to make the novel a sensational one. The refusal to call "London" by its proper name was annoying and overly coy, however--I suppose it allowed the author to name characters and places without worrying whether they sounded English enough (Harschmort Manor and Orange Canal and Lacquer-Sforza can live without fear). I was certainly never bored, and the length was not an issue--I've read longer books, and shorter books that SEEMED longer--nor was the adjectivitis. I think Hemingway and his descendents (don't get me started on Cormac "Look at my Style!" McCarthy) have caused many readers to develop allergies to compound sentences and all but the barest of descriptions. Mr. Dahlquist, you keep describing. I did think one or two of the 1.2 million daring escapes could have been cut--although since each capture results in the reader learning new information, it didn't really strike me as repetitive at the time. Anyway, thought the book was great, we need more well-written novels of adventure and suspense. And I certainly hope that Mr. Dahlquist sets his next book in the same era--or perhaps a bit earlier, in the rowdy pre-Victorian days?