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loonyboi's review
3.0
I consider An Unlikely Prophet to be one of the best books I have ever read. So understand that it is with a great deal of disappointment that I say this follow-up lacks the magic of its predecessor.
An Unlikely Prophet was the story of a writer who found himself suddenly confronted with a tulpa, or a spiritually created being. It was strange and wonderful, and tied into the Superman mythology in a unique and spiritual way. It's a great book.
A Gathering of Selves picks up shortly after that, but it has a different premise. Instead of someone being suddenly confronted with spirituality that goes against everything they believe, the protagonist is already pretty open to extreme possibility.
Schwartz wrote both Superman and Batman, and by his own admission, he didn't really enjoy writing the latter. I think that comes through here. He uses the Batman/Bruce Wayne story as a way of explaining the various sides to our personalities, but it doesn't really carry through as coherently as his Superman analogies in the first book. Then again, maybe I'm just projecting there out of my own preference.
The story itself is all over the map. Much of the narrative is a flashback to a personality that Schwartz has "bled into" and this story is interesting, but definitely drags on a bit.
It also connects to Tibet, the cold war and the British monarchy, but none of it feels quite as authentic as the events in the first book.
An Unlikely Prophet was charming because it felt like an authentic autobiography, albeit one that took some liberties (or not!) with reality. A Gathering of Selves doesn't deal much with reality. It starts extreme and goes even further out from there.
To be clear, this isn't a bad book by any means. It's entertaining. But after an Unlikely Prophet it's a bit of a let down.
An Unlikely Prophet was the story of a writer who found himself suddenly confronted with a tulpa, or a spiritually created being. It was strange and wonderful, and tied into the Superman mythology in a unique and spiritual way. It's a great book.
A Gathering of Selves picks up shortly after that, but it has a different premise. Instead of someone being suddenly confronted with spirituality that goes against everything they believe, the protagonist is already pretty open to extreme possibility.
Schwartz wrote both Superman and Batman, and by his own admission, he didn't really enjoy writing the latter. I think that comes through here. He uses the Batman/Bruce Wayne story as a way of explaining the various sides to our personalities, but it doesn't really carry through as coherently as his Superman analogies in the first book. Then again, maybe I'm just projecting there out of my own preference.
The story itself is all over the map. Much of the narrative is a flashback to a personality that Schwartz has "bled into" and this story is interesting, but definitely drags on a bit.
It also connects to Tibet, the cold war and the British monarchy, but none of it feels quite as authentic as the events in the first book.
An Unlikely Prophet was charming because it felt like an authentic autobiography, albeit one that took some liberties (or not!) with reality. A Gathering of Selves doesn't deal much with reality. It starts extreme and goes even further out from there.
To be clear, this isn't a bad book by any means. It's entertaining. But after an Unlikely Prophet it's a bit of a let down.
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