Scan barcode
A review by laviskrg
The Dark Volume by Gordon Dahlquist
4.0
This is the second installment of the Miss Temple/Doctor Svenson/Cardinal Chang trilogy, preceded by "The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters". I haven't reviewed said predecessor, but I will. I will simply mention that the first book is definitely better, fully deserving of 5 awesome stars. This one, sadly, received 4 stars simply because the romantic in me was all "Aww" when the fateful kiss arrived in the last bloody pages. But truly it is a mediocre 3-star book.
Sadly, this novel suffers from the "Second book from a trilogy" syndrome. I just made that name up, obviously. The idea is that it offers very little in terms of character development (and the characters that do get developed would have benefited from simply being ignored more) and its action is just an awkwardly stretched, badly-paced middle step that should lead the reader safely towards the epic ending (I am reading said epic ending at the moment and I do hope it picks up already).
The POV separation worked perfectly in the first installment. You got to see each of the three awesome characters react, think, fight, struggle. Technically, the second book did show this separation in more or less the same parameters, but what actually happened to the characters was lackluster, boring, overly prolonged and lacked the perfectly-constructed mystery of the previous story. Chang (my favourite, obviously) fought some random henchmen (too many of those, dear author), but hesitated when facing the greatest foe of them all (the Contessa, who is a truly amazing villain, but should have been stopped half a dozen times already). Svenson ached non stop for the bovine, pathetic, uninteresting excuse for a supporting female character that is Eloise Dujong. Miss Temple (who received the only relevant amount of development but whose background could have deserved more attention and grace) ran around, hid a lot, pretended to be someone else (hardly in a believable manor) and mostly simply existed. Okay, I admit, I loved the scene with Celeste and the Contessa. But that was right at the beginning, before the hundreds of pages of RUNNING AROUND, hiding and trying hard to struggle with a very thinly veiled mystery.
I probably sound too harsh for a 4-star novel. I do enjoy Dalquist's writing style and he is a very powerful, talented author. His metaphors are brilliant, his world is believable and I love his immense social study as a whole. The idea that completely different and relatively limited human beings get caught in this whirlpool of bizarre science, intensely perverse political intrigue only to find that they stand alone in the face of extreme corruption is something I definitely approve of. But therein lies the issue as well. I wanted more team-play. I wanted a relationship between Chang and Celeste (not just a sorrowful, desperate kiss right before Chang's "death"). I wanted Doctor Svenson to be the voice of reason, not a pathetic love-struck fool. I wanted to see the Contessa like she was in the final 10 pages: cruel, bad-ass, exhausted but still kicking and basically an evil creature. Instead, she had a series of unnatural interactions with each of the main three. Let's say I kind of understand her thing with Celeste (and I approve of the level of sexiness) but I don't buy the Doctor or, worse, Chang the expert fucking assassin not gutting her right there and then.
The awesome surprise was definitely Francis Xonck, a fine piece of work. He was a resilient, evil, terrifying, exciting villain. Much better than all the names I already forgot (well not really forgot, but failed to give a crap about). This is another issue in this novel: too many semi-villains and henchmen. In the end they all end as cannon fodder. I had a problem with this in the first book as well because it seemed to me highly improbable that an entire room filled with villains would simply FAIL in the face of three confused, tired and hurt heroes and, of course, mostly due to their own envy, maliciousness and deviousness. It does not work like that. If you want to kill someone, just do it, don't stand there talking about it. But I let this go because the scene itself was so well written that I could overlook the improbability of it all. Needless to say I wasn't at all excited or vaguely scared during the finale of the second book. So much blown up meat, and for what?
Still, I enjoy the characters, the concept of the blue glass, the Comte's art (which very much appeals to my perverse tastes) and the fact that people die in bloody, grisly ways. But I think that the separation of the POVs was done badly and the story suffered greatly. I am currently reading the third and last book and I am truly hoping for satisfaction.
Sadly, this novel suffers from the "Second book from a trilogy" syndrome. I just made that name up, obviously. The idea is that it offers very little in terms of character development (and the characters that do get developed would have benefited from simply being ignored more) and its action is just an awkwardly stretched, badly-paced middle step that should lead the reader safely towards the epic ending (I am reading said epic ending at the moment and I do hope it picks up already).
The POV separation worked perfectly in the first installment. You got to see each of the three awesome characters react, think, fight, struggle. Technically, the second book did show this separation in more or less the same parameters, but what actually happened to the characters was lackluster, boring, overly prolonged and lacked the perfectly-constructed mystery of the previous story. Chang (my favourite, obviously) fought some random henchmen (too many of those, dear author), but hesitated when facing the greatest foe of them all (the Contessa, who is a truly amazing villain, but should have been stopped half a dozen times already). Svenson ached non stop for the bovine, pathetic, uninteresting excuse for a supporting female character that is Eloise Dujong. Miss Temple (who received the only relevant amount of development but whose background could have deserved more attention and grace) ran around, hid a lot, pretended to be someone else (hardly in a believable manor) and mostly simply existed. Okay, I admit, I loved the scene with Celeste and the Contessa. But that was right at the beginning, before the hundreds of pages of RUNNING AROUND, hiding and trying hard to struggle with a very thinly veiled mystery.
I probably sound too harsh for a 4-star novel. I do enjoy Dalquist's writing style and he is a very powerful, talented author. His metaphors are brilliant, his world is believable and I love his immense social study as a whole. The idea that completely different and relatively limited human beings get caught in this whirlpool of bizarre science, intensely perverse political intrigue only to find that they stand alone in the face of extreme corruption is something I definitely approve of. But therein lies the issue as well. I wanted more team-play. I wanted a relationship between Chang and Celeste (not just a sorrowful, desperate kiss right before Chang's "death"). I wanted Doctor Svenson to be the voice of reason, not a pathetic love-struck fool. I wanted to see the Contessa like she was in the final 10 pages: cruel, bad-ass, exhausted but still kicking and basically an evil creature. Instead, she had a series of unnatural interactions with each of the main three. Let's say I kind of understand her thing with Celeste (and I approve of the level of sexiness) but I don't buy the Doctor or, worse, Chang the expert fucking assassin not gutting her right there and then.
The awesome surprise was definitely Francis Xonck, a fine piece of work. He was a resilient, evil, terrifying, exciting villain. Much better than all the names I already forgot (well not really forgot, but failed to give a crap about). This is another issue in this novel: too many semi-villains and henchmen. In the end they all end as cannon fodder. I had a problem with this in the first book as well because it seemed to me highly improbable that an entire room filled with villains would simply FAIL in the face of three confused, tired and hurt heroes and, of course, mostly due to their own envy, maliciousness and deviousness. It does not work like that. If you want to kill someone, just do it, don't stand there talking about it. But I let this go because the scene itself was so well written that I could overlook the improbability of it all. Needless to say I wasn't at all excited or vaguely scared during the finale of the second book. So much blown up meat, and for what?
Still, I enjoy the characters, the concept of the blue glass, the Comte's art (which very much appeals to my perverse tastes) and the fact that people die in bloody, grisly ways. But I think that the separation of the POVs was done badly and the story suffered greatly. I am currently reading the third and last book and I am truly hoping for satisfaction.