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storyonlystory's review against another edition
5.0
I’ve seen in negative reviews for this book that there are complaints of pointless dialogs and tangents. But I realized early on in Book Two that the author is treating each character and aspect of the story as it’s own little novel. So from the homeless guy who you know is going to be dead in mere seconds because he just disrupted the arm’s resting place, to the retarded boy who will laughingly witness his loving brother’s brutal death, to the history of the founding of a strange and seemingly aimless but popular new religion, you will get life stories, explanations of theology, intimate insights into character’s personalities, etc. There are many mini stories inside the main story. Perhaps people become frustrated because we will never hear of the homeless man and the retarded boy again and it seems pointless but what the author is doing is drawing a picture of a town, a broken society, and the individuals that live in it. The main story isn’t the entire point in this book. What you’re experiencing is many little books inside of a larger one, each having it’s own purpose, just as we have our own complete stories inside the stories of the places and societies we live in - hell, the world we live in. I really enjoy this writing style and hope it is appreciated by future readers and not so misunderstood.
brenna_law's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
drbird's review against another edition
5.0
THE FOUR FINGERS OF DEATH will remind you that storytelling is supposed to be fun. It's supposed to stretch the imagination. It's supposed to make you laugh and cringe and cry and smirk and push yourself forward to find out what happens next.
Put simply, I have not had this much fun reading a book -- on nearly every page -- in a long, long time. The second half, especially, feels like a farcical look at contemporary America while the first half has the more gritty suggestion of life during wartime. Truly, this is a book about today and how we got here and what we think we're going as a nation that wants to be optimistic but does pessimistic things. but it's also just a crazy story about the desolation of space travel, paling booths, talking chimps, and a killer bacteria from Mars. And even with all the hilarious, quirky, imaginative chunks, there are some deeply emotional relationships -- some that are variations on the core love affair that helps initiate the whole novelization-within-a-novel plot.
It can be read deeply or not. It can be read slowly or not. But i cannot imagine someone failing to enjoy themselves! I cannot recommend this book enough and yet I hesitate, briefly, because I want everyone I talk to about this book to find it as bizarre and addictive as I do. it's not going to happen, of course, because we all have different needs and interests as readers.
Read it. Let it take its time. It will turn inside out, surprise you, impress you. And you won't have more fun reading anything else. ever.
Put simply, I have not had this much fun reading a book -- on nearly every page -- in a long, long time. The second half, especially, feels like a farcical look at contemporary America while the first half has the more gritty suggestion of life during wartime. Truly, this is a book about today and how we got here and what we think we're going as a nation that wants to be optimistic but does pessimistic things. but it's also just a crazy story about the desolation of space travel, paling booths, talking chimps, and a killer bacteria from Mars. And even with all the hilarious, quirky, imaginative chunks, there are some deeply emotional relationships -- some that are variations on the core love affair that helps initiate the whole novelization-within-a-novel plot.
It can be read deeply or not. It can be read slowly or not. But i cannot imagine someone failing to enjoy themselves! I cannot recommend this book enough and yet I hesitate, briefly, because I want everyone I talk to about this book to find it as bizarre and addictive as I do. it's not going to happen, of course, because we all have different needs and interests as readers.
Read it. Let it take its time. It will turn inside out, surprise you, impress you. And you won't have more fun reading anything else. ever.
shawntowner's review against another edition
2.0
An interesting premise for a book--the novelization of the schlock sci-fi classic "The Crawling Hand"--but The Four Fingers of Death fails to deliver. For one thing, it's too long. 700 pages of bleak landscapes and characters being afflicted with space madness and whatnot. I'm not sure if the long-winded prose is supposed to be a joke or not. The character writing the novelization (the book is a actually a novel within a novel) comes across a someone who doesn't have much talent, so I'm not sure if the bland quality of his novelization is an intentional act by Rick Moody, or if it's just the way Rick Moody writes. The novel could have been greatly improved if Moody had adopted another aspect of classic genre cinema: the serial. I could definitely see this novel working as a collection of connected short stories or a series of novellas. As a giant novel, however, it leaves much to be desired.
cucumberedpickle's review against another edition
1.0
I wish I could give this book zero stars. Rambling, undeveloped characters (who all seem to have the same voice), gratuitous and unnecessary sex scenes that add nothing, and 90% written for shock value. 100% would not recommend.
cemeterygates's review against another edition
2.0
As cool as I thought the premise was and as much as I enjoyed various moments, this one ended up falling flat on me and I always found other things I needed to do quickly after sitting down to read.
Maybe I'll return one day and it will click, but it just wasn't working for me. Still a big Moody fan, though.
Maybe I'll return one day and it will click, but it just wasn't working for me. Still a big Moody fan, though.
stevereally's review against another edition
3.0
The story, characters, and writing style are frankly a disappointment and not enough to justify spending the time on this thing. The vivid portrayal of a crumbling America of 2025 made it worth it for me, though.
The story is sort of broken up into three stories, two of which are closely connected books written by the original narrator Montese Crandall. Crandall is unlikable and off-putting, as are his wife and the principal other character he interacts with. An entire book of them would be out of the question if it were 200 pages, forget 700.
In the Mars mission story, the story is relatively interesting; the characters are a decent mix of sympathetic, sinister, and interesting, in varying proportions; and the writing was enjoyable enough, although Jed Richards as narrator doesn't always work.
The Mars mission tale is the explanation and origin of the infectious animated severed arm in the "Crawling Hand" novelization, though the conceit is that the publisher doesn't want the space stuff, only the Earth stuff, and so Moody/Crandall uses two different styles for each. It's also an entirely separate set of characters with just some references by the new folks to what happened with the astronauts.
Few of the characters in the latter half of the novel are at all likable; several major ones are completely unpleasant. The plot throughout this section is serviceable but not compelling.
The world of Rio Blanco, though, that Moody gives us in the story of Montese Crandall and in that of the arm is so plausible, realistic, and depressing that it made it worthwhile for me. Some specifics, such as the cult-type deal, don't matter. But the effects of climate change and continued economic deterioration were portrayed vividly and compellingly, and, in that way, this was a glimpse right into our future.
The story is sort of broken up into three stories, two of which are closely connected books written by the original narrator Montese Crandall. Crandall is unlikable and off-putting, as are his wife and the principal other character he interacts with. An entire book of them would be out of the question if it were 200 pages, forget 700.
In the Mars mission story, the story is relatively interesting; the characters are a decent mix of sympathetic, sinister, and interesting, in varying proportions; and the writing was enjoyable enough, although Jed Richards as narrator doesn't always work.
The Mars mission tale is the explanation and origin of the infectious animated severed arm in the "Crawling Hand" novelization, though the conceit is that the publisher doesn't want the space stuff, only the Earth stuff, and so Moody/Crandall uses two different styles for each. It's also an entirely separate set of characters with just some references by the new folks to what happened with the astronauts.
Few of the characters in the latter half of the novel are at all likable; several major ones are completely unpleasant. The plot throughout this section is serviceable but not compelling.
The world of Rio Blanco, though, that Moody gives us in the story of Montese Crandall and in that of the arm is so plausible, realistic, and depressing that it made it worthwhile for me. Some specifics, such as the cult-type deal, don't matter. But the effects of climate change and continued economic deterioration were portrayed vividly and compellingly, and, in that way, this was a glimpse right into our future.
gobblebook's review against another edition
3.0
In the frame story of this book, an author in the not-too-distant-future with an ailing wife gets a job writing the novelization of the 1950's b-horror movie, "The Crawling Arm." The book starts with the frame story, the author explaining what was going on in his life when he started to write the book. Then we read his work. The first half of the book is the back-story that wasn't in the movie: the story of the first manned mission to Mars. Things go very badly for the astronauts, and they get infected with a gruesome bacterium that causes their bodies to fall apart, makes them want to murder those around them, and animates their dead flesh. The second half of the book is very loosely related to the movie: upon return to earth, the lander from Mars blows up in the atmosphere, and among the debris from the crash is the severed arm of the last remaining astronaut. The arm can move independently, and has a series of sexual and murderous adventures, infecting people with the disease along the way. The novelization has very little to do with the movie: the crawling arm and its infectiousness are just about the only recognizable features from the movie.
I loved the first half of the book, describing the Mars mission. This part was suspenseful and engaging. Moody can be very long-winded, and often goes off on ridiculous tangents, and in the first half of the book I found this to be enjoyable. The macabre humor, the tangents, the odd situations, the play with language, were all lots of fun.
The second half of the book was much less engaging. There was a lot that I liked, such as the depiction of the near future, ravaged by climate change, economic problems, and lack of oil. But somehow the second half was unsatisfyingly rambling, and I just couldn't care about any of the characters or the fate of the arm.
This book is ultimately about illness: everyone in the book is sick in some way or another, physically or mentally or both, and the illnesses are all slow and debilitating. But I'm not sure that the book actually says anything insightful about illness, it just dwells on it. Which is pretty much how I feel about the whole book: parts of it were lots of fun, but a lot of it was just rambling, and at the end, I'm not really sure what the point of it was.
I listened to the audiobook, which made the book more frustrating because I couldn't skim when it got tedious. The narrator was great overall, and had just the right kind of snarky inflection for the book. Unfortunately, he mispronounced a lot of words. Granted, Moody uses a lot of big words, but I was shocked at some of the words that the narrator mispronounced ("Reading, England" and "eschatology" were particularly memorable, but there were dozens of others).
lindamoore's review against another edition
Inter-galactic travel written in real time; since I'm not in a state of suspended animation, I think I need to take a break from this one.