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mad_about_books's review against another edition
5.0
If the Blood Is the Life, Music is the Redemption...
DEEP BLUE, by David Niall Wilson, should rise to the top of your ‘to be read’ list so you can experience the joy of reading a novel written so beautifully that you are carried along on a musical riff that binds the characters to the plot and you to the words on the page.
The blues is the music of heartache and pain and torture. The wail of it all brings tears to the eye and a catch in the throat. It is the background music of life itself. The band plays the blues to audiences who don’t give a damn what they hear and that reflects back upon the members of the band who finish their gig not really caring what they played. Especially Brandt, on lead guitar, who paints his face in garish white and stands apart from Syn on bass, Shaver on guitar, and Dexter on drums. Each member of the band is accomplished at their craft, and each one has a deeply personal story to tell, and each one will be called to play his or her part in the redemption of souls in torment, not the least of which are their own.
I am one of those people who cry at the best concerts. The band or singer hits that magic note and the tears begin to trickle. I make no apologies for this; it is my way of appreciating perfection. While reading DEEP BLUE, I had the feeling that if I were lucky enough to hear them play the piece that calls them, one by one, to a place that needs their music like the earth needs rain, the tears would not trickle but run down my face as great sobs wracked my breathing. There is power in music that is hard to capture in the written word. David Niall Wilson has done this, and done it well.
The very nature of the book forbids me retelling the story here. You must read and be surprised as I was. You will read about individuals in a band that are dragged apart only to be drawn back together because the universe needs them to fulfill their individual and collective destinies. Theirs is a journey that is both one of self realization and coming to grips with the supernatural. The folks they meet along the way are their guides to an ending that is all about salvation.
If you are enthralled by the beauty of perfection in language as I am, you will find DEEP BLUE much to your liking. The prose is both music and poetry that makes the story into a song worthy of the blues.
DEEP BLUE, by David Niall Wilson, should rise to the top of your ‘to be read’ list so you can experience the joy of reading a novel written so beautifully that you are carried along on a musical riff that binds the characters to the plot and you to the words on the page.
The blues is the music of heartache and pain and torture. The wail of it all brings tears to the eye and a catch in the throat. It is the background music of life itself. The band plays the blues to audiences who don’t give a damn what they hear and that reflects back upon the members of the band who finish their gig not really caring what they played. Especially Brandt, on lead guitar, who paints his face in garish white and stands apart from Syn on bass, Shaver on guitar, and Dexter on drums. Each member of the band is accomplished at their craft, and each one has a deeply personal story to tell, and each one will be called to play his or her part in the redemption of souls in torment, not the least of which are their own.
I am one of those people who cry at the best concerts. The band or singer hits that magic note and the tears begin to trickle. I make no apologies for this; it is my way of appreciating perfection. While reading DEEP BLUE, I had the feeling that if I were lucky enough to hear them play the piece that calls them, one by one, to a place that needs their music like the earth needs rain, the tears would not trickle but run down my face as great sobs wracked my breathing. There is power in music that is hard to capture in the written word. David Niall Wilson has done this, and done it well.
The very nature of the book forbids me retelling the story here. You must read and be surprised as I was. You will read about individuals in a band that are dragged apart only to be drawn back together because the universe needs them to fulfill their individual and collective destinies. Theirs is a journey that is both one of self realization and coming to grips with the supernatural. The folks they meet along the way are their guides to an ending that is all about salvation.
If you are enthralled by the beauty of perfection in language as I am, you will find DEEP BLUE much to your liking. The prose is both music and poetry that makes the story into a song worthy of the blues.
mikekaz's review
1.0
Let's cut to the chase. I had to mark this one as Did Not Finish (DNF). I tried but I just didn't care enough about the story and wasn't involved enough to finish the book. It started well. I liked the first chapter. Then somewhere around the start of chapter two or chapter three, I suddenly lost 90% of my interest in the story. I remember thinking "Oh, it's going to be one of *those* books." but I don't remember what I meant by "those books". I suppose I could go back and figure out why but I'm marking it DNF because I don't want to spend more time on the book.
There was a large tie-in to blues music which I'm not a fan so that probably pulled me out also. The setting felt more like New Orleans but was some town in California which was a bit off-putting. The characters were rude to each other for no apparent reason and were making decisions that made no sense. And then usually I give books a break if the punctuation is bad; I figure that the author is trying to tell a story and they shouldn't be blamed for bad editing. In this case though, it was so consistent that it made the reading experience even worse. Different scenes would flow together across paragraphs with no space break to inform the reader that it was a new scene. Anyway, I'll stop here. I do have two more books by David Niall Wilson on my To Be Read list. I'm hoping for better.
There was a large tie-in to blues music which I'm not a fan so that probably pulled me out also. The setting felt more like New Orleans but was some town in California which was a bit off-putting. The characters were rude to each other for no apparent reason and were making decisions that made no sense. And then usually I give books a break if the punctuation is bad; I figure that the author is trying to tell a story and they shouldn't be blamed for bad editing. In this case though, it was so consistent that it made the reading experience even worse. Different scenes would flow together across paragraphs with no space break to inform the reader that it was a new scene. Anyway, I'll stop here. I do have two more books by David Niall Wilson on my To Be Read list. I'm hoping for better.
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