Customer Reviews

Penny Dreadful

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have just recently finished reading the second in Baer's "Poe" trilogy, "Penny Dreadful" --- sequel to the amazingly prolific, "Kiss Me Judas". This novel however creates a world all its own. Baer is certainly a great talent, and his second novel's detail and plot are superb. One can picture the dark, gritty nights in Denver when Phineas Poe, (our anithero,) returns to find himself losing his identity -- or what has become of his identity -- more and more each day. He becomes lost in a "Game of Tongues"...which ceases to blow my mind when I remember how rich in noir detail the "horrific" game was described. (I won't give anything away, especially of the game's nature, I despise reviewers who do this.)

All in all, Baer has great insight when it comes to the mundane, unoriginal surroundings we find ourselves in everyday. Whether it be his describing a homeless man on the street corner, with his nose bloodied, his fingernails bitten to the ends or his describing the dark, dank Denver alleys, he does it well. This novel is filled with everything a reader can long for. Baer pulls off noir with his own sense of style, and he does it with passion.

Writing at its best.

Amid the slick writing, the grimly fascinating characters, plots, and setpieces, it's easy to miss the literary intelligence that's at work here. Baer gives us not only an addictive mystery-thriller, which is genuinely creepy and disturbing, but also a submerged meditation on the slipperiness of identity. There's even some well-placed commentary on _Ulysses_ here. Baer's vision ain't pretty, but it's compelling, and I think he's one to watch.

Enigmatic and sublime. This stark noirish nightmare is as good as they get. Baer makes what almost could be called a surrealist hardboiled novel. Without lossing control of the narrative, Baer does a superb job crossing the border between naturalist crime writing and heady phantasmagoria. Phineas Poe is one of the most interesting, beguiling anti-heros within the noir genre, a tight lipped drugged out sam spade caught up in a underground world of would be vampires.

Just finished Penny Dreadful. Awesome! There were some parts that I questioned and I won't discuss them b/c I don't want to give anything away. I love the way Baer writes Poe. If you liked, Kiss Me, Judas...you'll love Penny. Can't wait for the next book and hoping it won't be the last!

In Penny Dreadful, Mr. Baer switches from smartly noir to sweetly nasty as we continue to follow along in the dreamsteps of the excellent Phineas Poe. This work ups the complexity quotient on Kiss Me, Judas, sending, as it does, the readers' minds spinning off into a glittering p.o.v. mosaic that tips it hat to the signal work of a certain J. Joyce. One can only hope that the third installment of the remarkable Poe Trilogy will not be too long in coming.

Will Baer's 3 books go together in some strange, twisted series. If you like Chuck Palahniuk, and his twisted writings, you'll love Baer's stuff. Crazy plots, great writing style, dramatic twists, crude images, and a little bit of love.
I recommend these books to everyone

Someone has written "Dark Poetry." This could not be more accurate. PENNY DREADFUL is one of the most starkly beautiful books ever to come out. That said, I have to admit that I haven't yet read "Kiss Me, Judas," but plan to get it sometime this week. Back to PD: Surreal and fresh, this book nevertheless disturbs on so many levels---any good book will. But what makes it truly unique is the way the author's mind works-you can literally see the wheels turning; not in a bad way; and it's not at all predictable. If you want a touch-feely "feel-good" book, this is not it. But it is great fiction by a very talented writer who I hope we see more of.

If you enjoy the works of Chuck Palahinuk, Jackson McCrae, Bret Easton Ellis, and other "new age" writers, then this is the book for you.

Baer's fallen ex-cop Phineas Poe reappears in Denver, trying to reconnect with old friends, and finds a number of changes have taken place. His Denver is a cesspool of blood, stink, drugs, and psychoses; his friends such as they are, are more erratic, dangerous, vague and addicted than before. And their personalities, such as THEY are, are splitting in sick ways. Poe is eventually drawn into a (very) popular underground game, one in which eventually everyone in the book is found to be involved, The Game of Tongues, a twisted Goth competition and culture creating an alternate world. While it starts as a game of sorts, the culture is such that one doesn't need to wait too long before people are found to have been brutally murdered and the game is afoot in earnest.

Baer's cityscape is one of stench, disgust, sewers and alleys, quaking with dysfunction and seething with random brutality. Within that world, the characters are for the most part well drawn, though none is sympathetic in any real way, and the story becomes more and more interesting. The disjointed nature of the writing reflects the splintering of the people involved, and the eventual rebuilding and partial healing of some of them. Baer's world is not much fun to read about, but his construction is skilfully done, the book very well written. If you like this kind of topic you will find this an enjoyable read. It is at the very least inventive and imaginative.

This is considered a modern noir book; I would characterize is more in the Goth or torture-punk or anarcho-drug culture vein. There is little here, besides the endless nights, that remind one of Raymond Chandler.

To read "Penny Dreadful" is to experience a surreal nightmare while awake. Seedy neighborhoods inhabited by ghoulish freaks and society misfits - lost souls without hope of redemption. If you are looking for a feel good moment, this is the wrong book. Nothing uplifting here. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has read Will Christopher Baer's first novel "Kiss Me, Judas."

This time Phineas Poe starts in search of a missing detective Jimmy Sky. Through this endeavor Poe unwittingly becomes a participant in a bizarre game in which in the players possess dual personalities - one real, one fantasy. But in this game fantasy soon takes over reality as people become absorbed into their alter egos. Baer spares nothing as he graphically describes their descent into this slimy underworld. Creepy stuff here but, if you can handle it, "Penny Dreadful" will provide a mesmerizing read.

Really when I think about it, I found Penny Dreadful to be a mediocre sequel to Kiss Me, Judas, but that could just be that Kiss Me, Judas was a like the experience with a new drug, one never gets that high you got the 1st time. I was probably just the absence of Jude and the missing descriptive torrid sex that came along with Jude, that failed to draw me in as much.
That's not to say that I didn't think Penny Dreadful wasn't an excellent novel, full of surrealism and noir tendencies, fuzzy transitions and other worldly characters who prance about in a stress, drug and sub-conscious induced haze. Numb to the world around them and their plural indentities, in and out of the game.
Phineas Poe our intrepid hero once again has found himself in a dangerous situation in the dregs of society, caught up in a web of drugs, fuzzy logic and dangerous individuals Poe must see through the B.S. which is much easier for him this go around without the morphine addiction and the whole coming to grips with his only having the one kidney.
Poe as a character seemed much more together, and a lot less confused in the 2nd Poe novel, which I greatly liked, he is a very excellently developed figure and I like him better without quite so much fog. Thats not to say that he isn't confused and disoriented several times in this novel, its just a little less.
Check it out, see what you think.