Vellum: The Book of All Hours (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: soiled sackcloth, holy priestess, Madame Iris, Slab City, Seamus Finnan (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Scottish author Duncan's challenging SF debut, the first in a two-book series about an epic battle between good and evil, reveals the history of the advanced, ancient and powerful civilization of Kur through Egyptian, Babylonian and East Indian myth as well as bitmites, cyber-avatars and warring bands of fallen angels. A book, The Vellum (aka The Book of All Hours), is both portal to parallel realities and guide to a language of power that can be both inscribed in the skin and on the soul. Since individual characters like Seamus Finnan, Jack Carter, Thomas Messenger and Thomas's sister, Phreedom, whose lives are destroyed, prolonged and forever scarred by contact with a realm called the Vellum, tend to appear and reappear at intervals often 20 or 40 years apart, their adventures in the human, parallel and cyber universes can be hard to follow. Readers who persevere will find this a truly rewarding read. (May)
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From Booklist

Following the trail of a family legend, Reynard Guy Carter finds The Book of All Hours, aka the Vellum, a blueprint for all creation written by the scribe of God after the word was spoken. Carter thereafter wanders the strange, deserted worlds of the Vellum, while angels and demons, the Covenant and the Sovereigns, battle for control of the order of everything. Within the Vellum, Phreedom Messenger is on a quest to find her brother that will lead her to the very depths of the underworld in a movement parallel to Innana's descent to the underworld of Ereshkigal; and Seamus Finnan, her brother's betrayer and an old friend, is, like Prometheus, bound for his sins. The paths the three characters follow become a scintillating web of journeys across worlds and through the three dimensions of time. Duncan's version of a battle among the messengers of divinity proves fascinating as it takes unexpected turns within the framework of ancient myths. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; 1st Ballantine edition (April 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345487311
• ISBN-13: 978-0345487315
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #354,680 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vellum, Not for everyone, May 22, 2007

By	Shlepzig (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews

Vellum is a non-linear re-imagining of the world's myths and religions through an end-of-the-world scenario, intertwining many thematic elements of horror, science fiction and fantasy. I loved reading it, it was challenging, grand, audacious, and engaging. If you enjoy reading challenging fantasy/sci-fi/horror and can tolerate non-linear narrative than you will love reading this novel. Though as a reader that enjoys non-linear narrative it is not without its literary criticisms. Warning there is a lot of homo-erotic imagery (which doesn't quite cross the line of gratuitous).if you have problems with that, best to avoid this work.

Overall Vellum follows the story of six or seven characters through different incarnations and histories which are intertwined through myth and history and legend through to the end of this world and the next. The overriding thread that ties these characters through all of their different incarnations is the Vellum, the Book of Names, the Book of all hours, in which all that exists or will exist in this existence, or the next (or the existence next-door) is written. The characters are members of the Unkin whom have the word of god, or their mystical names placed on their very being. These characters are the incarnations, re-incarnations, and re-iterations of the various gods, spirits, angels and demon archetypes. They play and re-play their parts throughout histories both real and imagined from the beginning of the world to the end, through this world and the next and are inferred in an infinity of other worlds throughout the book. Hal Duncan has drawn parallels of the different spiritual archetypes and strung them together into a narrative that encompasses the genres of classic and contemporary horror, post-modernism, cyber-punk and pulp sci-fi-fantasy. The cast is a who's who of "Finches Mythology" from ancient Sumer to Contemporary Gothic Horror archetypes with a heavy reliance on your catholic Angels, Fallen Angels and Demons. The main theme of the novel is the duality of good and evil, the connectedness of all the world's faiths, and the place of man in the scope of reality between faith and science. The main characters defy fate and religion and pay their prices as they are fated as they experience Armageddon, Ragnarok, or whatever end of the world scenario you subscribe to. Other than that, explanations are either too short to give justice to the depth of the narrative, or so long that the map becomes the territory (pun just realized, but apt). The novel begins, has a middle and a satisfying ending (which is better than many novels) though not necessarily all in that order.

The bad:The DNA of this book is all over it. Styles are largely cribbed from other authors, the influence of William Burroughs, HP Lovecraft, and Kurt Vonnegut are the most obvious (Joyce is also quoted by other reviewers and I will take them at their word, I haven't read Joyce so I wouldn't know), other influences read like the best of SF library of Phillip Dick, Phillip Farmer, William Gibson, Neal Stephanson, Anne Rice to those Myst novels (though Hal Duncan's imagining of the literary mechanism is so far superior to those disappointments it is not hardly worth mentioning). The transitions are often jarring, the parallels are sometimes tortured and not all of the ideas fit together in one neat package. Sometimes the novel seems to wander from the main story to be a love-letter tribute to a favorite author (Lovecraft dominates the whole middle of the story).

The good: The characters are engaging, likable, hatable or inscrutable as necessary through all their incarnations. The story and characters and the interplay between them defy labels without becoming convoluted (possibly confused). What is bad about this novel is also what is good, (there is a hypocritical element here) though the styles and themes have been explored before the author executed them deftly without ringing as just a derivative of other authors work. This is almost something new, the post-modern pure sci-fi/fantasy/horror novel (without all the heroin and navel-gazing) that still holds together as a complete story. The audacity and the scope of the novel is also encouraging. That it is written with great heart makes this a great read. Hal Duncan is a hell of a writer and I hope he is able to visit the same muse for his following works (Ink is out now, and I intend to read it). If you are a fan of Vonnegut, Pynchon, Burroughs, Lovecraft. you will probably really enjoy this novel.

Buy it; if you like being challenged by good literature. If you love scrutinizing Vonnegut and Pynchon, unraveling Burroughs or imagining the unspeakable horrors of Lovecraft, you will probably enjoy this.

Avoid it; if you are not a fan of non-linear narrative, or just want a distracting page-turner. If you have issues with the homo-erotic, you will want to steer clear. If you are intrigued pick up Pynchon's "Crying of Lot 49" or Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions" as a trainer.

The Crying of Lot 49 (Perennial Fiction Library)
Breakfast of Champions
Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Joseph Campbell meets James Joyce, December 31, 2005

By	David Reimer "DReimer" (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Vellum: The Book of All Hours : 1 (Book of All Hours 1) (Hardcover)

Hal Duncan's Vellum is an intermittently beautiful, sometimes disturbing, occasionally thought-provoking and often difficult work. Bearing through those difficulties is a worthwhile journey for the reader, however, and Duncan has quite nearly invented a new form of fiction with this book. Without giving too much away, it is fair to say that Duncan links a series of characters to the recurring myths of western history, from Mesopotamia to the present day, linking those stories to pivotal events of both a large and private, personal-scale, from the Christian mythos of the fall of one-third of the angels from heaven, to the murder of Matthew Sheppard in Wyoming in 1998. Duncan pulls each of these events from their place as distant archtypal tragedies or isolated personal horrors and places them squarely at the whirling center of a universal conflict between forces that cannot simply be described as 'good' or 'evil.' This conflict extends, in Duncans hands, across one and many possible chaotic, violent futures. Through this millenia-long cycling, Duncan follows a cast of recurring and slowly developing characters who, we come to realize, are as pivotal to one another as they may well be to mankind. If there is a key weakness to Duncan's first volume, it is the pace at which we come to know these key characters. In many ways, they become clear as individuals only in the book's final (and strongest) third. Readers who persist in tracing their circuitous paths, however, will find that this is a work that lingers long after the last page.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very cool, July 24, 2006

By	Angie (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews

It's hard for me to put my finger on my exact feelings of this book. If I had one word in which to describe it, I suppose the word would be "disjointed." It was very clever, expertly written, and I loved the mythology and the correlations between everyone.

The problem I had with it is more a matter of my own personal taste than a true criticism of the book. With such a convoluted story and so much jumping from one reality to another, one version of the same character to another, I never felt like I really knew the characters and I was unable to get attached to them. To me, the most important thing in any story is the characters, so this hindered my enjoyment and made it hard for me to force myself to continue.

This had been recommended to me by someone on a House of Leaves forum, and I was very excited, as that was one of my favorite books. But House of Leaves was extremely focused on its characters, giving one a very deep look inside their heads. Where with this one, I couldn't always guess what a character's true feelings are.

If one likes a challenge and a lot of mythology, and doesn't mind not getting to know characters very well, then this is very much worth reading. Actually, it is worth reading no matter what, I'd say.