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Bleedover
Professor Harriet Sterling is under a lot of pressure. She's on the verge of fully
deciphering why books, TV, film, and advertising are suddenly being altered, a
phenomenon she named bleedover. But her controversial theories are ruining her
academic credibility.
She needs proof, and fast, before her career hits a dead end and before her
long time enemy, successful business man and psychotic Lovecraft fan Corbin
Lyell, can buy his way into controlling bleedover. That would mean Corbin's
golden ticket to fulfilling twisted prophecies of summoning dark monsters from
the worlds of his pulp heroes.
When Dr. Sterling's research team accidentally decodes a mysterious book
insertion and successfully generates an apple out of thin air, the world takes
notice. So does an enraged Corbin who plans a massive attack with deadly
consequences.
deciphering why books, TV, film, and advertising are suddenly being altered, a
phenomenon she named bleedover. But her controversial theories are ruining her
academic credibility.
She needs proof, and fast, before her career hits a dead end and before her
long time enemy, successful business man and psychotic Lovecraft fan Corbin
Lyell, can buy his way into controlling bleedover. That would mean Corbin's
golden ticket to fulfilling twisted prophecies of summoning dark monsters from
the worlds of his pulp heroes.
When Dr. Sterling's research team accidentally decodes a mysterious book
insertion and successfully generates an apple out of thin air, the world takes
notice. So does an enraged Corbin who plans a massive attack with deadly
consequences.
252 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 2, 2011
6 people are currently reading
161 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 13, 2012
Hox is carving out a unique genre between fantasy and science, seamlessly stitching it together. Bleedover is another fine example. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, children walked through the door at the back of the wardrobe and nobody explained how it led to another universe. Hox would have a hardboiled theory about accessing this fantastical world that wouldn't make it any less magic. In fact, it would redefine 'magic'.
In Bleedover, the imaginary world is real. It exists. And it wants to be discovered. Read a book and you can enter it. Watch a movie and you can visit it. Or bring it into our world.
Like any new discovery, bleedover endures the rigor of academic scrutiny. However, the intellectual posturing ends with the darker elements of an insane scientist enamored with the imaginary world of horror. To trump his nemesis, he proves to the world that bleedover in grand vengeful fahsion.
This new discovery -- called Culture Science -- will redefine reality. It will rewrite the laws of our world. And the politics that run it.
In Bleedover, the imaginary world is real. It exists. And it wants to be discovered. Read a book and you can enter it. Watch a movie and you can visit it. Or bring it into our world.
Like any new discovery, bleedover endures the rigor of academic scrutiny. However, the intellectual posturing ends with the darker elements of an insane scientist enamored with the imaginary world of horror. To trump his nemesis, he proves to the world that bleedover in grand vengeful fahsion.
This new discovery -- called Culture Science -- will redefine reality. It will rewrite the laws of our world. And the politics that run it.
May 12, 2012
Bleedover presents an ancient mythical concept with a few entertaining tools. The idea of "conjuring" something-or even someone-based on the "just-right" combination of words, grunts, screams, musical intonations, etc. is as old as mankind. In Bleedover, even the power to conjure a portal for traveling back in time is presented. The main character, Hattie, uses one such portal to visit Margery, her deceased friend and mentor. The novel begins with Towns, a local boy, who proves that he has the "gift." Later, Hattie and her cronies agree that they must somehow rescue Towns from Corbin before the rogue scientist kills him.
The literary work of HP Lovecraft, the creator of the Cthulu mythos line of dark horror/fantasy fiction, is featured throughout the novel, especially as Hox develops Corbin Lyell. I enjoyed reading a bit too much of Lovecraft when I was in HS, and it was entertaining as I read Bleedover to be challenged to recall those scary stories about the Elder Gods.
It was hard to enjoy much of the first third of the novel due to a large cast of characters who popped into the narrative to add a few more pieces to the plot and then were gone.
Throughout the novel, Hox includes short excerpts, etc. from some famous and even some relatively-obscure pieces of literature. And because of this, I too often found myself being distracted by the allusions and references to the point that I had to backtrack and re-read more than a few pages of the novel. And a few days ago, I stumbled upon a blog post where the blogger was commening about when, as a college student, he would insert completley unrelated text into a research paper just to see if the professor would even notice. When I read this blog, I was reminded of Bleedover.
In part II of the novel, a handful of major characters are discussing their usage of bleedover as if they had been blessed with super-human powers; as they admonished one another about how they should agree to not use this "gift" for monetary and/or political gain, I had to chuckle as I imagined any of the X-men characters discussing the same thing. Anyway, when one of Hattie's trusted assistants is killed by an instantiated creature, the pace of the action picks up, and the novel becomes much easier to follow.
Now on the editing/proofreading issue, I noticed only a few typos and formatting problems. But only a few. And none of these distracted from my enjoyment of reading Bleedover.
In this novel, Hox, English professor by day and sci-fi writer by night, demonstrates a mature writing style that will probably scare off many younger, less-experienced readers. Via a recent blog posting, Hox wrote: "Striving for originality has its own pitfalls, but I enjoy taking risks with my stories (even though they don't always work)." So if something more than mindless action-driven, vampire/LA dectective-laced, cookie-cutter sci-fi is desired, then Bleedover may just fit the bill.
The literary work of HP Lovecraft, the creator of the Cthulu mythos line of dark horror/fantasy fiction, is featured throughout the novel, especially as Hox develops Corbin Lyell. I enjoyed reading a bit too much of Lovecraft when I was in HS, and it was entertaining as I read Bleedover to be challenged to recall those scary stories about the Elder Gods.
It was hard to enjoy much of the first third of the novel due to a large cast of characters who popped into the narrative to add a few more pieces to the plot and then were gone.
Throughout the novel, Hox includes short excerpts, etc. from some famous and even some relatively-obscure pieces of literature. And because of this, I too often found myself being distracted by the allusions and references to the point that I had to backtrack and re-read more than a few pages of the novel. And a few days ago, I stumbled upon a blog post where the blogger was commening about when, as a college student, he would insert completley unrelated text into a research paper just to see if the professor would even notice. When I read this blog, I was reminded of Bleedover.
In part II of the novel, a handful of major characters are discussing their usage of bleedover as if they had been blessed with super-human powers; as they admonished one another about how they should agree to not use this "gift" for monetary and/or political gain, I had to chuckle as I imagined any of the X-men characters discussing the same thing. Anyway, when one of Hattie's trusted assistants is killed by an instantiated creature, the pace of the action picks up, and the novel becomes much easier to follow.
Now on the editing/proofreading issue, I noticed only a few typos and formatting problems. But only a few. And none of these distracted from my enjoyment of reading Bleedover.
In this novel, Hox, English professor by day and sci-fi writer by night, demonstrates a mature writing style that will probably scare off many younger, less-experienced readers. Via a recent blog posting, Hox wrote: "Striving for originality has its own pitfalls, but I enjoy taking risks with my stories (even though they don't always work)." So if something more than mindless action-driven, vampire/LA dectective-laced, cookie-cutter sci-fi is desired, then Bleedover may just fit the bill.
August 7, 2012
I started this one out totally and absolutely confused. By the end, I wasn't sure what the heck I had read, or what the point was.
At the beginning, we learn a very little bit about "bleedover". We don't actually know what it IS, except that it's changing things in the world in seemingly benign ways: Adding scenes to movies, or changing scenes in books. The bleedover seems to focus on narratives, which becomes clearer later on.
Cut to a university research facility where we meet Towns, a kid with an ability to sniff out these changes in media by proximity alone. He's trying out for some kind of audible "spinning" technique which is theorized to allow people to use bleedover to make their own changes in the world. And he does it, by making an apple appear.
The book then shifts into high gear -- a very weird high gear. There's a lot of emphasis on the attempts of Dr Harriet Sterling to set up her dream department at the university to study the manipulation of bleedover, but then they introduce Sterling's long time frenemy Corbin Lyell, an unstable media junkie who is obsessed with pulp fiction and horror by H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. The book centers around the race between the two to see who can do the weirdest shit with bleedover manipulation, culminating in a "WTF did I just read" moment at the end of the book.
The writing was pretty good, and had the thrust of the plot not turned into an inverse "Inkheart", the idea of subtle manipulation of reality, and a race to control it, could have been pretty epic. Instead, it devolved into something pretty silly. I sometimes felt that this is what an 8 year old boy would dream up: making space marines and aliens and barbarians come crashing into reality to beat up the schoolyard bully. Sadly, the end result turned out to be nothing more than a phantasmagorical pissing-match between two people I didn't really like all that much.
At the beginning, we learn a very little bit about "bleedover". We don't actually know what it IS, except that it's changing things in the world in seemingly benign ways: Adding scenes to movies, or changing scenes in books. The bleedover seems to focus on narratives, which becomes clearer later on.
Cut to a university research facility where we meet Towns, a kid with an ability to sniff out these changes in media by proximity alone. He's trying out for some kind of audible "spinning" technique which is theorized to allow people to use bleedover to make their own changes in the world. And he does it, by making an apple appear.
The book then shifts into high gear -- a very weird high gear. There's a lot of emphasis on the attempts of Dr Harriet Sterling to set up her dream department at the university to study the manipulation of bleedover, but then they introduce Sterling's long time frenemy Corbin Lyell, an unstable media junkie who is obsessed with pulp fiction and horror by H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. The book centers around the race between the two to see who can do the weirdest shit with bleedover manipulation, culminating in a "WTF did I just read" moment at the end of the book.
The writing was pretty good, and had the thrust of the plot not turned into an inverse "Inkheart", the idea of subtle manipulation of reality, and a race to control it, could have been pretty epic. Instead, it devolved into something pretty silly. I sometimes felt that this is what an 8 year old boy would dream up: making space marines and aliens and barbarians come crashing into reality to beat up the schoolyard bully. Sadly, the end result turned out to be nothing more than a phantasmagorical pissing-match between two people I didn't really like all that much.
January 19, 2012
Bleedover
By: Curtis Hox
AISN: B006999LQA
Published November 2, 2011
Available Format: ebook
My Rating: ★★★★★
I’ll admit, when I first started reading Bleedover, I was thinking What in the world is going on? But, pretty soon all the little pieces began to come together and I got right with the flow of the story. Granted, I did not refresh my memory by rereading the synopsis, and with about a million books on my to-read list, it is easy for me to confuse what an upcoming book is about. So, I dove right in and discovered the world of Dr. Sterling completely from scratch.
I am highly impressed with the writing skills of Mr. Hox and how well he was able to pull such a rather complex story together so seamlessly! The main aspect of the story, basically that elements of “imaginary” or “creative” works can bleed over into the real world, is a rather complicated idea, and once I was able to get MY brain together, I realized Hox did an awesome job of introducing the idea without giving the reader a long, exhaustive Bleedover 101 lecture.
I love the combination of science fiction and fantasy and how the historical and literary are mixed into the plot. From Lovecraft to Victor Hugo, ancient monsters and sword-wielding warriors to futuristic spaceships and giant red goddesses, there’s a little bit of everything in this excellent novel. Personally, I want one of Dr. Sterling’s portals; I have a TON of favorite books I’d love to rediscover!
I definitely recommend grabbing a copy of Bleedover and trying it out for yourself!
Head over to Gathering Leaves during the Bleedover Blog Tour to see my interview with Curt and find out how you can win your own copy of Bleedover plus a $50 gift card!! (January 18-19, 2012)
By: Curtis Hox
AISN: B006999LQA
Published November 2, 2011
Available Format: ebook
My Rating: ★★★★★
I’ll admit, when I first started reading Bleedover, I was thinking What in the world is going on? But, pretty soon all the little pieces began to come together and I got right with the flow of the story. Granted, I did not refresh my memory by rereading the synopsis, and with about a million books on my to-read list, it is easy for me to confuse what an upcoming book is about. So, I dove right in and discovered the world of Dr. Sterling completely from scratch.
I am highly impressed with the writing skills of Mr. Hox and how well he was able to pull such a rather complex story together so seamlessly! The main aspect of the story, basically that elements of “imaginary” or “creative” works can bleed over into the real world, is a rather complicated idea, and once I was able to get MY brain together, I realized Hox did an awesome job of introducing the idea without giving the reader a long, exhaustive Bleedover 101 lecture.
I love the combination of science fiction and fantasy and how the historical and literary are mixed into the plot. From Lovecraft to Victor Hugo, ancient monsters and sword-wielding warriors to futuristic spaceships and giant red goddesses, there’s a little bit of everything in this excellent novel. Personally, I want one of Dr. Sterling’s portals; I have a TON of favorite books I’d love to rediscover!
I definitely recommend grabbing a copy of Bleedover and trying it out for yourself!
Head over to Gathering Leaves during the Bleedover Blog Tour to see my interview with Curt and find out how you can win your own copy of Bleedover plus a $50 gift card!! (January 18-19, 2012)
July 3, 2016
Science fiction and fantasy are not my normal genres of choice. So I'll admit that I began this book with trepidation. The premise sounded intriguing. Book characters bleeding over into normal life. Being a book lover I HAD to read this.
Wow! I'm certainly glad that I did. This book was well written, fascinating and scary. It took me a few chapters to wrap my mind around what the author was trying to convey. I'm pretty sure this is because I'm not as familiar with the genre. Because after I figured out where it was going it was a super fast read from there. Definitely an author to keep on the radar if this is your genre of choice. I am going to be checking out his other books myself.
I received this book free of charge in exchange for my honest review.
Wow! I'm certainly glad that I did. This book was well written, fascinating and scary. It took me a few chapters to wrap my mind around what the author was trying to convey. I'm pretty sure this is because I'm not as familiar with the genre. Because after I figured out where it was going it was a super fast read from there. Definitely an author to keep on the radar if this is your genre of choice. I am going to be checking out his other books myself.
I received this book free of charge in exchange for my honest review.
March 17, 2012
This was an interesting read. It has a lot of the same ideas as InkHeart, but I thought those were better executed. I really loved the fact that the author used both contemporary TV shows, and classic books to ply his story. It has elements of both science fiction and fantasy. It was a nice read.
March 22, 2012
Hard to follow...bleedover is a strange concept to understand for me.
April 9, 2012
actually, stopped reading but I'll get back to it.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews