Customer Reviews

Glimmering

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

The book never unites. It operates in strobe. Glimpses, snapshots, snatches of imagery, implications of plot. It's hard work to stay with the characters, to remain curious and invested in their activity with minimal help from the author, who deals scenes like playing cards with quick flicks of the wrist.

One of the miracles of style in the story is the recurrance of characters passing like ships in the night. Passing blindly almost without exception, because not one of the characters realizes the serendipity, the proximity, the intersections; not one of the characters seems to see the thick fog of fate or destiny that blankets everything.

So the reading is difficult. The visuals come and go. The myriad descriptions of drug-induced moods and visions mix unreliably with what is trying to be description of the real world. But it was hard for me to tell, while reading the book, whether the lack of coherency was the author's mistake or the author's point. You know?

I have long been a die hard fan of intense science fiction. The one star I'll give Hand for this book is for her excellent use of deep imagery in the work to invoke almost physical responses from the reader.

However, the rest of what makes a story into a novel is missing. The characters are lackluster (at best), having no real passion or direction, and gaining none as the story progresses. For a while I was truly enthralled by the read, one page pulling me into the next until I had burned through the first three hundred pages in as many minutes.

And then it died...not in a blast, or a convoluted plot twist, or even in any way that could be defined as heroic, romantic, philosophical, or otherwise. It faded as if it had never been. The story just seems to stop (like a car stalling silently on a fast highway) the story coasts in neutral for about 150 pages, flares like the engine sputtering to life for a heartbeat, (but not really) and then sliding onto the shoulder, making you wonder why you got in the car at all!

Even if you like the occasional anticlimactic plot twist, this takes the concept a step further, where the only characters who receive any sort of finality die in ignoble, boring ways. I am also a male reader, but unlike one of my fellow reviewers, I don't need a huge hollywood style ending.

I would, however, like an ACTUAL ending.

With the discovery of Brite as a replacement for fluorocarbons, rejoicing scientists believe that they have saved the ozone layer. However, the expert scientists were quickly proven wrong when a mining expedition off the Antarctic coast released an enormous amount of methane gas coupled with Brite into the atmosphere. A solar flare charged the compound producing a surging electrical current that altered the magnetic field and shredded large chunks of the ozone layer. Thus the atmospheric glimmering began. Electricity failed; communication became erratic; transportation was almost non-existent; manufacturing almost came to a complete halt. The atmosphere had become a constant array of florescent glowing colors bathing the planet in 24 hour light while virtually hiding the stars and the moon from view. Climates and ecosystems change for the worst as droughts, floods, famine, and plague become an everyday occurrence.

The world is divided as to how to deal with the man-made catastrophe. Some people believe that the apocalypse is now. They use drugs and other stimulation to revel in the final days of doom as they feast on the death throes of a dying civilization. While others like John struggle to keep the decaying world out of his enclave. This is the world entering what appears to be the final millennium.

This apocalyptic fiction is for hard-core fans of "end of the world" science fiction. Though well written and exciting, Elizabeth Hand paints a depressing picture of a future destroyed by scientific haughtiness. This novel is not for everyone, but those who enjoy reading about the planet Earth imploding need to peruse this tale of dread. The novel has a haunting quality that makes it near impossible to forget and a lyrical writing (in spite of its gloomy topic) that seems almost poetic in nature.

In Glimmering, Elizabeth Hand imagines an apocalyptic, but not cataclysmic, end of the end. It's like the difference between dying on the sidewalk from a massive heart attack & dying in inches from Alzheimer's in your own bed; the destination is the same, but the path is pretty different.

This is not a book about plot. If you need your reads to be tightly plotted, this isn't the one for you. If, however, you love character, place, time, & beautiful descriptive writing you'll enjoy this.

I'm very fond of Hand. Waking the Moon is one of my all-time favorite reads - one I return to again & again for it's beautiful story of what it's like to lose that one true love & survive it to love again. Sounds way cornier than it is since that leaves out the college setting, the ancient orders of paternalistic vs. maternalistic societies, The Benandati (the paternalistic movers & shakers behind the scenes of the world since ancient times), & the simple pleasures of Washington, DC.

Glimmering is a very different novel than Waking the Moon, but it has many of the elements that make Hand's writing a pleasure - strong imagery, coherent worldview, words that taste good. She has an uncanny ability to mix goth, raver, & cyberpunk elements while retaining a sense of inclusiveness that makes this work a pleasure to read.

I also appreciate that she writes frankly & honestly about homosexuality without stereotyping or caricaturing or delimiting. In Hand's books, homosexuality is normalized as just another fact about a character rather than put on display as a centralizing & defining trait. She isn't necessarily using homosexuality to illustrate a point, but rather creating a world where it's as much a part of life as heterosexuality. Since that's the world I choose to live in (real or not), I appreciate this element in her books.

Glimmering doesn't provide any comfortable answers nor does it wrap up any simple plot twists in a bow for presentation to the reader. Instead it takes us on a journey through what the end of the end may look like. To quote Kurt Cobain, "Here we are now. Entertain us."

I love almost everything by Elizabeth Hand - she is probably the most unique writer working today. I really didn't like this book, though. It is a true postmodern novel focusing solely on characters to the exclusion of any plot. In other words, almost nothing happens in the book. There is no real beginning or ending to it. The characters don't change much, there is no interesting conflict, and they will have virtually no effect on the environment.

Some readers seem to mistake this for shoddy writing, but in fact it is almost certainly intentional. Hand is breaking all the rules that crappy writing texts give you. Unfortunately, that doesn't make it readable. If you are an English graduate student interested in style you might like this book. Otherwise, there is plenty of other stuff out there (including more enjoyable Elizabeth Hand work) that you can read.

I see that this book has only a 3 star rating and I wonder why. It's an adventurous style of writing with fascinating characters. This may sound strange, but I compare it to watching a King Crimson concert (one just don't always know what's going to happen next so one is sitting on the edge of one's seat) or listening to the live music of people like Coltrane, Davis, and other such jazzmen. One doesn't know where they are going to go either. Comparing a book with music! What the hell! They are different but connected arts. This is a ten star book!!

It seems like Elizabeth Hand's Glimmering was a little to intense for some. Profanity, homosexual intercourse, etc. I disagree. I like the fact that Mrs. Hand took a risk and made her excellent novel stronger by using adult themes. I'm not gay, nor do I use drugs, but Mrs. Hand wrote her characters so well that I could identify with them and their struggles. I implore the science fiction readers out there to put down your Star Trek novelizations and try a real novel, one with characters that ring true and a world that will haunt your dreams.

I read this book around 2 years ago - having been a fan of previous books. What an extreme disappointment! No plot - no resolution and a feeling when I was finished of I'd like to return this book because it wasn't worth the money I'd spent.

Props go first to Hand's writing. She writes, albeit differently in some areas, with an ease that you don't find too often. Her images are appealing and imaginative.

Beyond that, though, this book doesn't do much. The first 300 pages leave you wondering if the storyline will ever go anywhere, and then it jumps head long and connects the characters, only to leave you with a feeling of incompleteness. Sex scenes were thrown in haphazardly, for no real reason at all. I don't mind a good sex scene, when it adds to the story, but, for the most part, the sex scenes in this book didn't do for much. Leonord's character seemed to play a large role in the happenings of this book, but you don't see him too often. Additionally, he had one good chapter that made him look the cool character (the underground party), but other than that I couldn't care less for him.

All in all, I was disappointed, because her writing was good but the story had no purpose at all. Even the characters, Trip and Jack, were connected together so loosely that it detracted from the story rather than brought the story together. Because of her writing, a three star.

Though it didn't disturb me quite as much as "Winterlong," this novel still set my teeth on edge. The tragedy seems to be too drawn out to maintain any depth of connection with the characters, but still, this is a scary, often unnerving glimpse into a dark and unforgiving future--yet, somehow, the futile masquerade of society and the ghosts of those restless dead manage to mingle and create a promise of something brighter in the future. "Waking the Moon" remains my all-time favorite, with "Black Light" on its heels: lighter social commentary, more supernatural thrills.