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dustydigger
Posted 2014-10-28 9:11 AM (#8825 - in reply to #6198)
Subject: Re: The Pick and Mix Challenge.		Quote Reply



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Location: UK		Christopher Fowler - Full Dark House I was a little disappointed in this first book in the Peculiar Crimes series about two very old detectives working on cold cases with odd factors. I didnt really see why this book won an award for fantasy,as there was only the least of tinges of fantasy to it,just red herrings really. Some nods to Phantom of the Opera as most of the book is set in an old theatre where members of the cast of a play are being bumped off. I found the long long descriptions of the theatre,with people wandering around it to little purpose,to be longwinded and redundant. Not at all what I was expecting,and really just a rather mundane detective story,though the two protagonists,Bryant and May,were fairly amusing
Christopher Fowler - The Water Room. Book 2 in the series Again,I was a bit disappointed with this book. I like the characters Bryant and May, two far beyond retirement age policemen who are given odd cases to solve in their own inimitable way. This one was about a series of murders in a tiny London street, and involved the hidden rivers of London, but in my opinion it was far too jam-packed with redundant information about the history of the ancient rivers, it moved at snail's pace,and crossed the "t"s and dotted the "i"s far to many times. Good ideas and good characters bogged down in excessive detail, so it ended up for me as a very boring read. Not sure if I will continue the series, as I had the same issues with the first book in the series, which spent hundreds of pages describing an old theatre in excruciating detail. You need to be a history buff on esoteric subjects to enjoy these books fully, and I am not one of them!

I was transfixed with the absolutely amazing last four volumes of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman - Brief Lives,World's End,The Kindly Ones,The Wake. I have tried various famous graphic novels (Watchmen,Batman Returns,Kingdom Come and a few others ) but for the most part they rather left me cold. Not so with the miraculous Gaiman Sandman saga,which runs the gamut of every emotion from horror to melancholy,awesome worlds and high concepts,lowlife cruelty and biting irony and a host of other things. The books cover every genre,and have a host of vivid characters,and an awesome storyline about the life, death and to some extent rebirth of the charismatic,callous and often cruel Morpheus, Lord of Dreams,who, finally softening and admitting his culpability comes to see the need for acceptance of his own end.And of course Gaiman's wonderful writing,mesmerizing,poetic,ironic,blending together a host of myths from many sources,an area that I love.My head is a whirl of wonderful scenes,myths and legends allusions,and of course the artwork, which I regret I dont have the knowledge to appreciate properly. My brain is too jumbled up yet to even think of reviews,and I havent the faintest idea where to start,but I think Brief Lives and The Kindly Ones will stay in my mind a long time.Classic



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