London Revenant [Paperback]

Conrad Williams (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1904316387 | ISBN-13: 978-1904316381 | Publication Date: January 10, 2005 | Edition: 1st ed

Adam Buckley thinks he knows who it is, but has problems of his own to deal with. Damaged from a recent break-up, his narcolepsy worsening, he learns that his friends have become suicidally obsessed with finding insane, unexplored parts of London. He glimpses figures in the subterranean gloom, half-recognized faces at parties to which he can't remeber being invited, indications of a life lived yet never remembered. As his confusion deepens, so too does the threat of violence. In peeling back so many of the city's faces, he fears that the skull beneath its skin might well be known to him. ""The elegance of his narrative is unfailing.... He is a painter of infernos, his torments always briskly inventive, his grotesquerie always delineated with flair; pure wisionary acid...""-Infinity Plus

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Not for the squeamish, this dark contemporary fantasy explores the rotting underbelly of London, where desperate 30-somethings live out meaningless lives devoted to sex, alcohol and perversity. Adam Buckley, a narcoleptic who suffers horrific dreams, gradually finds the line between waking and dreaming harder to distinguish. Events from his conscious life take on a surreal cast. He meets people from his dreams on the streets of London. Ordinary events transform into Grand Guignol and his friends become obsessed with a new game that threatens their sanity and leaves them covered in unnatural sores. Terrified of the London Underground for reasons unknown, Adam dreams of traveling its many disused and dangerous tunnels, while a madman begins a reign of terror, pushing Londoners under the wheels of the Underground carriages. An unreliable narrator, who's often unclear on what's real and what isn't, Adam is the perfect vehicle for this stylish and bloody novel. Williams (Head Injuries) moves seamlessly back and forth between realism and the fantastic, capably bringing his tale to a murderous and apocalyptic ending. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Do Not Pr; 1st ed edition (January 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904316387
• ISBN-13: 978-1904316381
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,723,293 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like Ulysses on an acid trip, with monsters., August 1, 2009

By 

Lisa M. Mims (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: London Revenant (Paperback)

This author is a little challenging for two reasons: when you start reading, it becomes apparent that there is a rhythm to his English, that is not quite the English we speak in the States. That's not to say it's not very well written; it's just that if you read a lot, you are expecting the next word to be a certain one, and in this author's writing, the next word isn't there. If I had to guess, I would say the author had exposure to a fair amount of Cockney Rhyming slang, because it has that cadence.

The second thing that makes this challenging, is that it's like reading Ulysses set in the London Underground, although it's leprous in a way that Gaiman's Neverwhere never dreamed. Elliptical, existential, depressing, and more than a little nightmarish, this is a work of literature. It's not just a book; it's a small, terrible pub in the Cotswolds and something out there is eating people, or possibly cutting them up and adding them to the soup.

Reviewers say about books, all the time, "I couldn't put it down." This, you won't be able to put down, because it's like a bad dream that you can't wake up from. I hated the ending.

If you miss this book, you've missed one of the most original entries in the apocalyptic fantasy genre in the last decade. Read it, but definitely not in the dark.