Customer Reviews

Stamping Butterflies

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This is one of those novels that some would call brilliant and others would call pretentious. The previous (real) reviewers here are leaning to the latter criticism, and they do have a point because Grimwood's writing is often maddeningly obtuse and convoluted. While reading the book myself I swung wildly between the two camps, often marveling in the power of Grimwood's creativity and insight, only to have my enjoyment derailed again and again by deliberate vagueness and unnecessarily convoluted plot structures. Therefore my declaration is "almost brilliant" or "has potential." One has to wonder if Grimwood writes for readers or for other writers, because he's very high on craft but often lacking in basic readability. This novel is inherently fascinating, somehow connecting 1970s Morocco with a very unique Chinese planetary empire thousands of years in the future, binding them together via a weird present-day creative genius and an intriguing cosmic force that oversees the human condition and its history. The mood of the novel is dark and compelling, and you're likely to stay interested, but Grimwood's refusal to usefully outline his most fantastical ideas can be quite unsatisfying for the reader. There's something to be said for a writing style that remains purposefully obtuse in order to kick-start the reader's imagination, but that only works partially here. For fascinating modern science fiction with a cerebral twist, this book and the other works of Grimwood are certainly worth checking out, but they may only find total success with readers of a certain mindset. [~doomsdayer520~]

This book has three different layers that eventually merge together, however unlikely that seems. First, in the contemporary timeline there's the most-liked US president in the history and the strange Prisoner Zero who tries to assassinate him and after capture doesn't say a word. Then there's the Marrakech of 1970s with Moz and Malika and their messd-up lives. Third, there's the mystic Emperor watched by his 148 billion citizens, waiting for an assassin to arrive.

So yes, it's a strange book. All three storylines didn't work as well for me; I liked the Marrakech, but didn't like the Emperor too much. Then again, I read someone else commenting exactly the opposite, so your mileage may vary. Some of it will get boring before the end, but the final twists make enough sense to make it all worth reading, I suppose. However, there's quite a bit of - perhaps unnecessary - graphic violence, torture and sex; some might find that unpleasant.

In Paris, a vagrant reads in a paper he picks up that the President of the United States Gene Newman will soon visit Marrakech; he decides on the spot to assassinate the American leader. Shockingly the tramp almost succeeds, but is detained by American anti-terrorist agents, who incarcerate Prisoner Zero on a tiny Mediterranean Sea rock. Needing to know who he is working for and who trained him. The espionage crowd assumes Prisoner Zero is the best with his vagabond outfit seeming so real yet a cover. However, the constant torturous interrogation produces nothing from Prisoner Zero. Meanwhile as the tramp ignores and annoys the spies and other VIPs visiting him, he speaks telepathically with the "Darkness" until Zero using bodily droppings writes a ground breaking series of mathematical equations on the application of zero-point energy.

Back in 1969 in Marrakech, street urchin Moz is infected by an intelligence embellishing parasite that finds a place inside his brain. The Moroccan police direct Miz to befriend rock-star and mathematician Jake Razor as they assume the outsider is a spy; the lad succeeds becoming a pal of Jake.

Finally five millenniums into the future a sole survivor of a Chinese spaceship is saved by an alien. This leads to an interstellar Chinese Empire whose fifty-third ruler Emperor Zaq dreams of Prisoner Zero and the "Darkness" that he calls the "Library".

This is a complex cerebral science fiction that grips the appreciative audience wondering where Jon Grimwood is taking us. The story line rotates perspective between the three subplots before tying together it into a fascinating Moebius Ring that is further twisted and cut into a Paradromic Ring. Fans preferring a linear tale need to pass the convoluted entertaining STAMPING BUTTERFLIES.

Harriet Klausner

I have been reading science fiction for about 40 years and the best I can recall, this is one of my least favorite. Although some may like Jon Courtenay Grimwood's style of writing (if this is representative, not having read any before) I found it very hard to follow and very disjointed. Although the central idea of the novel is a good one, the author, in my opinion, seems to wander away from the story line to provide meaningless details that tend to confuse the reader. I have made it about half way through the novel but I am finding it very hard to complete.