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A review by monty_reads
The Erstwhile by Brian Catling
2.0
I may change my mind once I get some distance, but I’m pretty sure The Erstwhile is far as I’m going to go with this series.
I was lukewarm on the first book (The Vorrh), and while I found the second book to be decidedly better, it’s really only better in the sense that a bee sting is better than decapitation. They both suck; it’s just a matter of degree.
Wait.
That’s not fair.
As bee stings go, I actually found parts of The Erstwhile to be compelling. As in the first book, our scene is set in the city of Essenwald, a German village hidden deep in a African forest. It’s a magical place. Venture into the forest and you lose your memory. Visit the right house and you’ll encounter sentient sex robots. And then there’s the question of the title characters themselves, fallen angels who failed to protect the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. It is, to be clear, a work of astounding imagination. That’s not up for debate.
But, as you might guess from that brief description, it’s also a little busy. And that’s part of the problem. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least half a dozen main plot strands, including (in addition to the above) a cyclops’ quest to locate a hidden tribe of zombie workers and a scientist’s journey to London’s Bedlam asylum to find an escaped Erstwhile.
Author Bryan Catling asks us to invest ourselves equally in these different storylines, but the problem is this: they’re all written in a style that might charitably be described as inscrutable.
I don’t have a problem with bending my brain a little (full disclosure: I’m currently teaching a class this summer that focuses on strategies for untangling challenging texts), but if I’m going to expend the energy, I need to feel like it’s worth the effort.
And here’s the ugly truth: I didn’t care about anything that was happening or anyone it was happening to, and the degree to which Catling’s unnecessarily ornate style obscures what’s happening works to the book’s detriment.
I should have loved this series.
There’s absolutely a rip-roaring adventure to be found in here somewhere.
But the effort it would take to find it seems singularly unrewarding.
I was lukewarm on the first book (The Vorrh), and while I found the second book to be decidedly better, it’s really only better in the sense that a bee sting is better than decapitation. They both suck; it’s just a matter of degree.
Wait.
That’s not fair.
As bee stings go, I actually found parts of The Erstwhile to be compelling. As in the first book, our scene is set in the city of Essenwald, a German village hidden deep in a African forest. It’s a magical place. Venture into the forest and you lose your memory. Visit the right house and you’ll encounter sentient sex robots. And then there’s the question of the title characters themselves, fallen angels who failed to protect the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. It is, to be clear, a work of astounding imagination. That’s not up for debate.
But, as you might guess from that brief description, it’s also a little busy. And that’s part of the problem. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least half a dozen main plot strands, including (in addition to the above) a cyclops’ quest to locate a hidden tribe of zombie workers and a scientist’s journey to London’s Bedlam asylum to find an escaped Erstwhile.
Author Bryan Catling asks us to invest ourselves equally in these different storylines, but the problem is this: they’re all written in a style that might charitably be described as inscrutable.
I don’t have a problem with bending my brain a little (full disclosure: I’m currently teaching a class this summer that focuses on strategies for untangling challenging texts), but if I’m going to expend the energy, I need to feel like it’s worth the effort.
And here’s the ugly truth: I didn’t care about anything that was happening or anyone it was happening to, and the degree to which Catling’s unnecessarily ornate style obscures what’s happening works to the book’s detriment.
I should have loved this series.
There’s absolutely a rip-roaring adventure to be found in here somewhere.
But the effort it would take to find it seems singularly unrewarding.