The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist. 

I remember being intrigued by the title and the glassine cover of this doorstop when it was first released.  When I saw it some time later in a used bookstore, I decided to take a chance.  And after reading a couple of chapters, promptly let it sit on my bookshelf.  As the start of 2009 rolled around, I decided to give it another shot.  The plot seemed very Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell meetsThe Somnambulist - a mysterious cult of the elite, obsessed with ritualistic sex and strange mechanisms of blue glass - what's not to like? 

I usually read a book in one or two sittings at most, but the heft of this tome made it tricky - it was just too long and ponderous to manage for more than an hour or so at a time, which meant I took a couple of days to finish.  (It's such a hefty book that it was split into Volume One and Volume Two for it's paperback release). When I finally put it down, while I had enjoyed the characters, I was severely unsatisfied by the resolution.

It's a yarn in the truest sense of the world, with three epic characters that would feel equally at home in one of the adventure tales of Dumas.  The problem in my mind, is that for all of the 750 pages, we don't get much of the actual plottings of the secret cabal.  Many pages are given over to sumptuous details, setting, and internal angst; Dalquist's plotting is absorbing, and once I fell into the rhythm of the three separate viewpoint characters, I was quite happy to be carried along.  But I expected more of a payoff for my troubles.

SPOILERS:


In the end we learn that the blue glass is an attempt to ensnare the aristocracy in passive slavery, but not much about the mysterious 'annunciation' involving the attempted strange, otherworldly bastard impregnation of a European princess.  Our heroes escape the sinking ship, swim to freedom, and the book ends.  One mechanism has been destroyed and most of this particular band broken up, but little implication of the repercussions of these events.  Dalquist has another title called The Dark Volume  published early this year, and I'll probably pick it up to see if there's any more of a resolution.  As a single volume, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is far too much investment for so little payoff

Read January 2009