Customer Reviews

Shamanspace

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

My (limited) understanding of what transpires within Shamanspace goes (something) like this: there is a God (who resembles a titanic black insect floundered on its back at the centre of an infinite nerve net, fiddling a million legs amid the ferocious stench of vomit and scorching wires), and there are forces at work (opposing forces known as the Prevail and the Internecine) who wish to destroy God (by entering his ethereal body like an ethereal virus and detonating his ethereal heart).

Aylett explains (in the epilogue, after the trip is over, as you come down): The splinter group known as the Prevail  formed by those who considered that god was a thing separate from its works, and that the universe would persist after gods assassination  began a series of splinter skirmishes against the Internecine (or, as they began to call us, the ashers) which soon became a full cult war . . .

The book begins with Melody and Sig (a kind of teacher and pupil) discovering Alix (a mythical, semi-legendary being now white-haired and golden-eyed) in an abandoned (house?). Alix tells them how he got there over the course of the novel: basically, there was an attempt upon his life, he fled to Paris (or rather he valved to Paris, spilling like hot metal across what William Gibson would probably call nodal points) where there was a second attempt on his life (a mad chase across the city, endless valving and spuming and blurring, phantoms spilling in and out of gutters and grouting); he is captured, betrayed, freed and escapes to make his attempt upon the life of God. I dont think he succeeds (but Im willing to be convinced otherwise).

As with William Gibson, it is not always clear what is going on (you cling to the words, despite the fact that the words sound like metal bees clunking against the insides of your bucket head), and there are times when you lose yourself (the book spirals up and away into some abstract place, rehearsing the relationship between hot air and smoke) yet still you read.

Im not entirely certain as to why (but maybe its because this is a reading experience you do not control, this is reading experience as intoxicant, reading experince as trip).

If the idea of a trip in the company of Burroughs or Gibson (or Chris Morris, at times) in which you are propelled through the action of The Amber Spyglass at lightspeed doesnt fill you with terror, this is the (book?) for you.

A psychedelic romp through the etheric soul of eternity, `Shamanspace' reads like a recipe for a psychotic episode of mass proportions. At long last we have proof that God exists and the race is on to take revenge on the supreme maker of life, death, and cheap whiskey. The edgeman Alix is the favored to win as he sidesteps through time and space on his quest to drive the bullet home. God is the target, Alix is the gun, and the stakes are high as the very existence of humanity perches on the cusp of oblivion. Steve Aylett has created a masterwork of speculative fiction written in a hybrid English perhaps best described as Cyberspeak. The book is fast paced and unrelenting and it keeps the reader riveted right to the last page. Read this book and prepare to be dazzled and dazed and altered on a cellular level. `Shamanspace' isn't so much taken in through the eyes as it is injected into the veins. This book is a drug delivered on a dirty needle. It will leave you mind-blown and wasted and craving still more.

In this mind blowing novel, Alix, a metaphysical assassin tells us about his attempt to kill God. Alix, his allies, and his opponents are all capable of moving etherealy through time and space, and this makes for some interesting action. Aylett's prose is eloquent but stripped down, so it is occasionaly hard to see what he's saying, but worth the effort. Aylett draws on a number of scientific, philosophical and spiritual traditions to create this world, and the questions that this book ispires are deep ones. The book is short and the print is large so this is a quick read. If you like books that deal with the metaphysical in an unusual way, you owe it to yourself to check this out.

If you like to have intense visualizations when you read books, this book is great. At times this book reads like one giant metaphor, but it is impressive and entertaining. The orginality and creativity factor used in the writing is really high. If you like Jeff Noon, Chuck Palahniuk, and the Matrix, definitely check this book out. You'l read it, tell soemone you just got your mind blown away, tell all of your friends about it, and then read it again. Get it.

I recently reread this book and loved it. I didn't like it the first time. But I felt like I was missing something and gave it another shot. I'm glad I did.

It seems like I have to be in a particular mood to enjoy an Aylett book, and this one more than the others. It's drastically different from his other work: no jokes on every page, no over the top wackiness. This is a serious book and it reads like a modernized version of an epic poem. I would really like to read another book of this kind from Aylett. The prose is marvelous.

...it feels appropriate enough to quote Matthew Arnold's words on Shelley here. If you come to Shamanspace looking for a completely assured, furious gagfest you may be disappointed - or perhaps not: the line between comic and tragic is never that impermeable, and real insight is often readable both ways. (Could you really imagine a production of Waiting For Godot that elicits no laughs?)

Shamanspace is novella-length, treating the subject of an assassination attempt on God by organisations scalding with rage at the universal suffering that comes with sentience. The exposition is handled slightly, even off-handedly at points, and often the action, motivations and themes are conveyed more through descriptive, allusive language than straightforward narration. This approach is suggestive of half-veiled meanings and significance, almost like reading an ominous dream. My only problem with it is one of balance; although the style generates more real poetry than I can locate in many poems, it isn't in every single instance fully successful at propelling the plot, occasionally giving an impression of a slightly over-ornamented short story, or perhaps an idea for a full-length novel incompletely realised: hence only four stars instead of five.

Nevertheless, these ambitious traits contribute to what makes Shamanspace interesting and atmospheric rather than blandly action-oriented, and Aylett's felicitous phrasing and startling acuity combined with a compelling central concept make this well worth reading. Afterwards I found myself wondering whether it was glorious or terrible that humans are left with nothing to worship but one another. Any author that makes you have such thoughts while you are trying to eat your lunch really is a star.

For the past year, I had come across Steve Aylett's name several times; it had been crossreferenced with the names of authors about whom I'm particularly avid, such as Ballard and Ellis. This prompted me to pick up SHAMANSPACE. What a bitter disappointment. It is shameful that I invested money and time in this drivel---121 pages of nothing, in BIG PRINT so that your grandmother could read it.

Even at 121 pages, in LARGE PRINT, the book is too long.

I have no problem with linguistic expansion or inventive/neologistic writing, but this is mere verbal waste: one empty, meaningless sentence follows another, with no connection between them. The surrealistic experiments (SOLUBLE FISH, THE MAGNETIC FIELDS) had a formal consistency to them; this "book" has none. In other words, it doesn't follow the logic of the world, but neither does it even have an INTERNAL LOGIC.

The prose poetry is lifeless, graceless, and bad; Alett dispenses with the usual cliches and invents his own, which are infinitely more insipid.

SHAMANSPACE resembles the "work" of Mark Leyner without the humor or occasional cleverness (I do not say this to praise Leyner, who is nearly as execrable a writer). If any good could come from this trifle, it will be an enhanced feeling of self-confidence on the part of ordinary readers who will now be emboldened to publish their laundry lists.

A complete throwaway.

If by "mind blowing" other reviewers meant that this book will make your brain want to spew chunks because it is so bad, then yes. It is mind blowing.

There is nothing unearthly, mystical, or genius about this little book. It is a collection of posturings and pseudo-poetic drivel.

There is no great imagery or prose in it. Just self-conscious phrases attempting to sound cool by being nearly completely obscure.

The book isn't worth the calories wasted by the act of picking it up.