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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The secret of the blue glass, January 19, 2009
A title like "Glass Books of the Dream Eaters" sounds a long-lost Flaming Lips song. At the best, a wonderfully weird title for a mediocre book.
But fortunately, it actually has something to do with Gordon Dahlquist's bizarre, intricate debut novel -- a steampunky Victorian fantasy that slowly takes its three protagonists into the heart of a deadly conspiracy. "The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, Volume One" gets through the first half of the story -- but have the second half on hand before reading.
After being dumped by her fiancee Roger via letter, Miss Celestial Temple follows him through town to a masked party at a country estate. But the creepy party turns deadly when she witnesses drugged sexual demonstrations and a dying man with burns around his eyes. She barely manages to escape this bizarre cabal, unsure of what to do next.
Then she encounters two strange men -- "Cardinal Chang," an assassin hired to kill her until he discovered that the cabal was experimenting on the prostitute he loves, and Dr. Svenson, a nervous ducal doctor whose Prince has become ensnared in their brainwashing. They compare notes over the cabal, the Process that seems to transform them, Roger's sudden lordhood, snatches of conversation, ghastly machines and a series of shocking paintings.
Most importantly, Svenson reveals cards made out of blue glass -- which somehow have memories imprinted in them. The search for the cabal's goals and the secret of the blue glass leads all three onto parallel, intertwined paths. Chang sets out on a search for the red-clad woman and a scarred ex-prostitute, while Svenson's journey takes him into the heart of a religious cult centering on the books made of blue glass...
"The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters" is one of those rare debut novels that rarely misses a beat. Its main flaw is that Dahlquist -- in sticking to the dignified, intricately detailed Victorian style -- gets a bit long-winded in some parts. But he does have a special knack for spinning up a believable sense of dread, without revealing too much of the haunting, bizarre mysteries.
And from the very first chapter (admittedly there are only a handful, and they're huge) Dahlquist wraps the whole book in steampunky technology, odd fantastical twists, and some guns'n'knives action from Chang. The story starts off slowly and sedately (much like Miss Temple's life) but begins twisting in on its own mysteries as soon as she gets into the masked party.
And while the extra-detailed descriptions slow the book down at times, he also has a knack for the horrific (people who die with glass in their veins) and with conjuring vivid images ("... half smothered in ivy whose leaves looked to Svenson, under the insidious moonlight, like the scales of a reptile's skin").
And while the three characters are totally dissimilar (an heiress, a doctor and an assassin), Dahlquist takes the time to flesh them out and show how their intertwined battles against the Cabal change them. The strong-willed, clever Miss Temple has to leave respectability behind with her compromised safety, the nervy Svenson has to deal with some nasty intrigues, and Chang (who is not actually Chinese) is more a steady, cool-headed guy-who-kills than an assassinating maniac.
It's worth noting that "Volume One" is merely the first half of the full-length novel, not the whole novel itself. It stops after the "Quarry" chapter on a major cliffhanger for poor Svenson, with virtually all of the questions unanswered and Miss Temple MIA for two vast chapters.
"The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters Volume One" draws you into a hazy, murky world of bizarre technology, malignant cults and unanswered mysteries, with more strange things yet to come.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Meets my criteria for a great read, May 25, 2009
The only reason why this book doesn't get 5 stars is because it really is part one - as in cliffhanger - and you have to read the other book so this is not a stand-alone novel. Also, I don't know that this book is *epic* in scope as to need two books to tell the story. But, it met most of criteria for a really good book:
Transcends the genre - can't be easily categorized
Has character development *and* action
Has some struggle of good versus evil or protagonist who is on a heroic quest
Has outsider characters - not popular or in the mainstream
Sci-fi or supernatural element and the rationale just *works* in the context of the story
Totally engrossing/absorbing
Creates a world that I want to visit
A strong woman or women characters
(That said, I'm not going to say anything else as I wouldn't want to spoil the fun.)
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Volume One is great, but then....., April 20, 2009
[Note: I am reviewing volume one and two together, because they shouldn't have been split in the first place (they weren't in the hard cover version). Do not read volume one unless you commit to volume two; volume one doesn't answer anything.]
When the prudish but confident Miss Temple receives an unexpected "dear Jane" letter from her fiance, she sets out to find out why she was unceremoniously dumped. So begins this mystery/adventure/steampunk story set in Victorian times in a loosely fictitious England. The number of unpronounceable villains stacks up (The Comte d'Orkancz and the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza just for starters); while Miss Temple befriends an unlikely pair of confidants, including the hilariously named Cardinal Chang. The three set out to thwart a plot by a massively powerful Cabal that includes sci-fi-like Alchemy and more.
Volume One is a true page-turner, with a lot of action and excitement, and left me quite on the edge of my seat. Dahlquist introduces the reader to a rapid-fire series of annoyingly named characters, but I still couldn't wait to buy volume two to see how the story ended.
It is a pity Gordon Dahlquist couldn't have ended the story in volume one, because volume two became a chore. Where volume one was an adventure spanning several cities, hotels, mansions, trains, carriages and airships, about 90% of volume two takes place in one mansion. And what a mansion it must be, because there are about 250 pages of our heroes running down hallways, trying doors, finding spiral staircases, running down more hallways, finding more spiral staircases....repeat 50 or so times and you have the picture; and all while a party is going on in other areas of the house; must be bigger than the Pentagon. It got incredibly dull.
Dahlquist also struggled to get his arms around the steampunk elements of the story. Between the Indigo Clay, the glass books, the mini-glass books, the Process, the other versions of the Process, the blue and orange liquids, it read like a rough draft where he hadn't quite figured out in which direction to go.
I sadly cannot recommend The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters. In order to find out what happens after the riveting volume one, you have to punish yourself by reading volume two, and based on the outcome, I don't think its worth it.
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