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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An unsung American master, October 11, 2005
This review is from: Otherwise: Three Novels (Paperback)
Crowley has made a career of being one of the most underrated masters of American fiction. Only one book, "Little, Big," has ever been a modestly big seller. His "Aegypt" tetrology, not yet complete, is a piece of visionary work on an epic scale. His only fault is that the writing is unclassifiable, so it has fallen between every conceivable crack. Bad for sales.
"Engine Summer" is the first of his novels, though the last of the early three to be published. It leaves the others behind as a work of astonishing originality and almost hallucinogenic vision. (Crowley admits that his first draft was written at a time when he was smoking a lot of, well, you know.) In this elegant and beautifully understated work (if it goes a little slowly at first, stick with it: it will sweep you away) the Crowley themes have a true beginning: a world constantly transforming in which the only way that the history of the human as the strangest of races can really be kept alive is through the stories we tell.
He has an enormous talent for inducing laughter of utter delight and rolling tears simultaneously. His gift is in his humanity, his innate understanding of the deep pathos and utter ridiculousness of being self-conscious creatures in a world that is not and will never be wholly comprehensible. Thus it is our stories that keep us sane. Barely.
The future which he envisions (this is not the kind of future fantasy that even pretends to forsee the world as it might actually turn out) is one in which the split between the natural, instinctual half of our human dichotomy and the mental, synthetic one actually become separate species, with no real capacity to comprehend each the other. How this plays out through his richly detailed imagination and alchemical control of the Engish language is something to be experienced, not described. The narrative device, which leaves us guessing until a breathtaking revelation at the end, is alone, worth the price.
Get this book. Read it. Please. The later Crowley may be greater, but never more brilliantly imagined than this.
Oh, yeah. "Beasts" and "The Deep" are mighty fine, too.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Crowley's early masterpieces, August 10, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Otherwise: Three Novels (Paperback)
It is about 20 years since I first read "Engine Summer". I don't know what made me buy it, since it's the sort of book which I would not have been likely to pick up even then, when I was in my late teens and read a lot of science fiction. However, I did buy it, and did read it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and have had fond memories of it ever since. These days, two decades later, I almost never read science fiction, and certainly never read fantasy. But when I saw that "Engine Summer" had been reissued with two other early Crowley novels, I decided to buy it and see if it lived up to my memory of it. It did. "Engine Summer" is still a thoroughly engaging book. It's pastoral, summery feel makes it ideal to read while sitting in the garden, with your feet up, on a warm, sunny day. Next I read "Beasts", which I hadn't previously encountered, and which was something of a disappointment - it read as though it was written to fulfill a contractual commitment. Perhaps I'm being unfair, but it was nowhere near the standard of "Engine Summer". Finally, "The Deep", a short novel I remember looking at twenty years ago but not being motivated to read. This time, however, I did read it and it was almost as good as "Engine Summer", although very different. While "Engine Summer" has a breezy, pastoral feel, "The Deep" has a darker, claustrophic atmosphere. Although a short novel, I often had the sensation that its depth (trying to avoid a pun on its title) exceeded its length. There are many passages of great beauty, and I found it a very compelling story. It is an unusual book, but it is not nearly so weird as some reviewers have suggested. It also hs nothing to do with the English Civil War or the War of the Roses, as some people have suggested, although it does have many echoes of Norse mythology and the Nibelung saga. My only criticism is that the names of the characters (many are variation of "Red" and "Black") are confusing. Both "Engine Summer" and "The Deep" contained worlds I was sorry to leave behind. If Crowley ever wrote sequels to either, I would eagerly buy both. As it is, this collection of three early novels by Crowley contains two absolute gems, "Engine Summer" and "The Deep" which I would recommend highly to anyone interested in good writing and with a taste for the unusual.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chow, March 22, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Otherwise: Three Novels (Paperback)
The first three novels in one package. The first, "The Deep", is a touch different from Crowley's normal work, but he comes into full form in the second book, "Beasts, and truly flowers in the third, "Engine Summer". The last book is arguably one of Crowley's very best (for which I believe he was predicted to become 'the next Bradbury', a rather unfortunate title for him in my opinion), while the first two are not in the same league. That said, as with all of Crowley's work, The Style and The Meter of the first two are eminently enjoyable. Not to mention the creativity. All three books are very worthwhile and necessry reads for Crowley fans. Like all of Crowley's novels up until the Aegypt series, all three are wondrous self-contained universes when compared with the majority of 'literature' that gets written.
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