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Bad Glass: A Novel
One of the most hauntingly original dark fantasy debuts in years—perfect for fans of Lost and Mark Danielewski’s cult classic, House of Leaves.
Something has happened in Spokane. The military has evacuated the city and locked it down. Even so, disturbing rumors and images seep out, finding their way onto the Internet, spreading curiosity, skepticism, and panic. For what they show is—or should be—impossible: strange creatures that cannot exist, sudden disappearances that violate the laws of physics, human bodies fused with inanimate objects, trapped yet still half alive. . . .
Dean Walker, an aspiring photographer, sneaks into the quarantined city in search of fame. What he finds will change him in unimaginable ways. Hooking up with a group of outcasts led by a beautiful young woman named Taylor, Dean embarks on a journey into the heart of a mystery whose philosophical implications are as terrifying as its physical manifestations. Even as he falls in love with Taylor—a woman as damaged and seductive as the city itself—his already tenuous hold on reality starts to come loose. Or perhaps it is Spokane’s grip on the world that is coming undone.
Now, caught up in a web of interlacing secrets and betrayals, Dean, Taylor, and their friends must make their way through this ever-shifting maze of a city, a city that is actively hunting them down, herding them toward a shocking destiny.
Something has happened in Spokane. The military has evacuated the city and locked it down. Even so, disturbing rumors and images seep out, finding their way onto the Internet, spreading curiosity, skepticism, and panic. For what they show is—or should be—impossible: strange creatures that cannot exist, sudden disappearances that violate the laws of physics, human bodies fused with inanimate objects, trapped yet still half alive. . . .
Dean Walker, an aspiring photographer, sneaks into the quarantined city in search of fame. What he finds will change him in unimaginable ways. Hooking up with a group of outcasts led by a beautiful young woman named Taylor, Dean embarks on a journey into the heart of a mystery whose philosophical implications are as terrifying as its physical manifestations. Even as he falls in love with Taylor—a woman as damaged and seductive as the city itself—his already tenuous hold on reality starts to come loose. Or perhaps it is Spokane’s grip on the world that is coming undone.
Now, caught up in a web of interlacing secrets and betrayals, Dean, Taylor, and their friends must make their way through this ever-shifting maze of a city, a city that is actively hunting them down, herding them toward a shocking destiny.
411 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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August 4, 2016This comes within the SF subgenre of ‘Zone’ books. The best example that comes to mind is ‘Roadside Picnic’ by two Russian authors Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. Those collaborating brothers came up with something very special. Aliens visited (possibly!) and left behind the remains of their picnic on earth. Those items of inconsiderate litter are dangerous and seriously weird. People risk their lives to enter the zone and bring back artefacts sometimes to make money.
‘Bad Glass’ is something along those lines too. Once again there is a zone where strange things are happening. Trying for fame and fortune, a photographer sneaks into the zone hoping to get pictures and evidence of what is happening. So another good addition to the ‘Zone’ subgenre.
‘Bad Glass’ is something along those lines too. Once again there is a zone where strange things are happening. Trying for fame and fortune, a photographer sneaks into the zone hoping to get pictures and evidence of what is happening. So another good addition to the ‘Zone’ subgenre.
December 21, 2012
Oh mah gah. I admit I read this book because it has a cool premise, a cool cover, and a blurb from Caitlin Kiernan, one of my favorite writers. And for a while I thought, maybe he's writing all of these characters in the most annoying way possible for a reason, and he's going to pull some narrative trick at the end to make it all better! But, since this book is compared to the TV show Lost, I can't help but make the same comparison: you get to the end and basically say seriously? What just happened and why did I spend all that time on it?
The premise, that the city of Spokane, WA has been cordoned off by the military due to strange/dangerous occurences, kind of reminded me of the video game Silent Hill. But at least the main character in SH had a good reason for entering and staying in that godforsaken place, whereas our hero Dean is just a douchebag with a camera who thinks he is too good to be an accountant. He falls in love with the first girl he meets, Taylor Gupta, for no apparent reason because she is also annoying. Things happen. Bad things that would make any normal person leave. But Dean doesn't leave, because....reasons.
There is some cool imagery here and interesting ideas (entropy (which was covered in a way more interesting manner by John Green in Looking for Alaska), The City and how we interact with it, perception v. reality), but none of it really comes together. It's kind of like, I can see a book in there, but it keeps being interrupted by gimp mask! random homosexuality! Scooby Doo (that's the only image I came up with when Amanda told her story about the dogs)! Spiders! Boardrooms!(?) Tunnels! Space/time continuum!
This book is actually a lot like Kiernan's The Red Tree, but without her delicate touch and flair for letting the strange be strange. I don't know, maybe it just needed a few more drafts.
The premise, that the city of Spokane, WA has been cordoned off by the military due to strange/dangerous occurences, kind of reminded me of the video game Silent Hill. But at least the main character in SH had a good reason for entering and staying in that godforsaken place, whereas our hero Dean is just a douchebag with a camera who thinks he is too good to be an accountant. He falls in love with the first girl he meets, Taylor Gupta, for no apparent reason because she is also annoying. Things happen. Bad things that would make any normal person leave. But Dean doesn't leave, because....reasons.
There is some cool imagery here and interesting ideas (entropy (which was covered in a way more interesting manner by John Green in Looking for Alaska), The City and how we interact with it, perception v. reality), but none of it really comes together. It's kind of like, I can see a book in there, but it keeps being interrupted by gimp mask! random homosexuality! Scooby Doo (that's the only image I came up with when Amanda told her story about the dogs)! Spiders! Boardrooms!(?) Tunnels! Space/time continuum!
This book is actually a lot like Kiernan's The Red Tree, but without her delicate touch and flair for letting the strange be strange. I don't know, maybe it just needed a few more drafts.
November 5, 2012
Originally reviewed on The Book Smugglers
Something's rotten in the state of Washington. More specifically, the city of Spokane has gone bad - disappearances and violent, bizarre acts in the city garner attention in the public eye, and the military has stepped in, walling off Spokane from the rest of the world under constant guard. Even with the military quarantine, news still trickles out from Spokane - rumors of unimaginable, supernatural horror are backed up by nightmarish images that cannot possibly be real. Fifth year college senior Dean Walker seizes upon this as his one golden opportunity to make his name as a photographer and escape the dreary life at his father's accounting firm following graduation. Cashing in his father's tuition check, armed with his camera, laptop, and a shit ton of batteries, Dean sneaks his way into Spokane. Here, he meets a ragtag group of other twenty-somethings who have refused to leave the city for their own reasons, and with their help, he learns that the rumors about Spokane are completely, horrifically true. Impossible things are happening in the rundown city, with the dead appearing and reality merging with dark fantasy - and as Dean struggles to capture everything on camera to make his mark, he's led down a rabbit hole that threatens his sanity and his life.
Bad Glass has one hell of a premise - I love the isolated, haunted city trope, cut off from the rest of the world because of some unspeakable evil or danger within. From Silent Hill to Cherie Priest's Boneshaker, the 'something is wrong with this town' premise is a solid standby, and the choice of Spokane as setting is an interesting (unpredicted) one. The title is clever, too - with "bad glass" as the opposite of "good glass" (a photography term to describe high quality camera lenses). And, for the first chapters of the novel, Bad Glass delivers on this creepy premise, literally drawing a picture of the wrongness of Spokane (each chapter is prefaced with the description of a photograph or some other visual/audio media), and introducing us to our wastrel protagonist, Dean. These first pages, detailing his trip into Spokane and his teaming up with the city's other young denizens, are undeniably solid.
From there, however, Bad Glass loses steam. Featuring a cast of lackluster characters, a stumbling, confused plot, and relying all too much on a tendency to describe horrific imagery instead of letting true terror build and unfold, Bad Glass squanders its promising beginning.
Let's start with the plot, because Bad Glass's most egregious offense is that the story doesn't actually go anywhere. It's a killer premise, but once Dean teams up with a group of other cohorts in Spokane, no one seems very interested in answers as to WHY Spokane is so strange, nor do they seem interested in pursuing their half-hearted motivations they claim are keeping them in the haunted city (they are, however, very apt at smoking weed and drinking a ton of bourbon to wash down their prescription grade painkillers before the odd sexual escapade). Basically, the story is: strange things happen and people trip out. Some pictures are taken. Talking happens. Lather, rinse, repeat. In a sense, this book does feel like Lost in the sense that it poses some tantalizing questions while refusing to deliver answers; it feels like the first in a protracted television series (and one not nearly as compelling as Lost).
Compounding the lack of plot and direction problem is the issue of Bad Glass's reliance on description, rather than atmosphere or tension - instead of building terror, this novel focuses on detailed descriptions of unsettling images. In fact, each chapter in the book is preceeded by the description of a photograph (or video) from Spokane, calling that old adage to mind: a picture is worth a thousand words. While Gropp has a fantastic flair for description, and I appreciate his clear knowledge of photography and other visual media, I can't help but wish that Bad Glass had taken a note from Ransom Riggs' infinitely more effective, photo-illustrated Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children .
I am perhaps coming across as unfairly harsh, because there is some entertainment value and merit to Bad Glass. The premise is superb, and while lengthy descriptions of tableaus of horror aren't particularly to my taste, they may be for others. I also like that Gropp does create some unlikeable, flawed characters as his core cast - Dean isn't very endearing right off the bat, as he takes his daddy's money (who apparently is rich enough to pay for his son's tuition for five years of college) to run into Spokane with a half-cocked plan to fame and fortune. His love interest, Taylor, is a beautiful girl with serious baggage and her own twisted reasons for staying in Spokane after her parents' disappearance. The rest of the motley crew are at least refreshingly diverse, and each is working through their own issues - which are discussed, ad nauseam.
For me, Bad Glass is decent, but nothing to write home about. As they say, though, your mileage may vary.
Something's rotten in the state of Washington. More specifically, the city of Spokane has gone bad - disappearances and violent, bizarre acts in the city garner attention in the public eye, and the military has stepped in, walling off Spokane from the rest of the world under constant guard. Even with the military quarantine, news still trickles out from Spokane - rumors of unimaginable, supernatural horror are backed up by nightmarish images that cannot possibly be real. Fifth year college senior Dean Walker seizes upon this as his one golden opportunity to make his name as a photographer and escape the dreary life at his father's accounting firm following graduation. Cashing in his father's tuition check, armed with his camera, laptop, and a shit ton of batteries, Dean sneaks his way into Spokane. Here, he meets a ragtag group of other twenty-somethings who have refused to leave the city for their own reasons, and with their help, he learns that the rumors about Spokane are completely, horrifically true. Impossible things are happening in the rundown city, with the dead appearing and reality merging with dark fantasy - and as Dean struggles to capture everything on camera to make his mark, he's led down a rabbit hole that threatens his sanity and his life.
Bad Glass has one hell of a premise - I love the isolated, haunted city trope, cut off from the rest of the world because of some unspeakable evil or danger within. From Silent Hill to Cherie Priest's Boneshaker, the 'something is wrong with this town' premise is a solid standby, and the choice of Spokane as setting is an interesting (unpredicted) one. The title is clever, too - with "bad glass" as the opposite of "good glass" (a photography term to describe high quality camera lenses). And, for the first chapters of the novel, Bad Glass delivers on this creepy premise, literally drawing a picture of the wrongness of Spokane (each chapter is prefaced with the description of a photograph or some other visual/audio media), and introducing us to our wastrel protagonist, Dean. These first pages, detailing his trip into Spokane and his teaming up with the city's other young denizens, are undeniably solid.
From there, however, Bad Glass loses steam. Featuring a cast of lackluster characters, a stumbling, confused plot, and relying all too much on a tendency to describe horrific imagery instead of letting true terror build and unfold, Bad Glass squanders its promising beginning.
Let's start with the plot, because Bad Glass's most egregious offense is that the story doesn't actually go anywhere. It's a killer premise, but once Dean teams up with a group of other cohorts in Spokane, no one seems very interested in answers as to WHY Spokane is so strange, nor do they seem interested in pursuing their half-hearted motivations they claim are keeping them in the haunted city (they are, however, very apt at smoking weed and drinking a ton of bourbon to wash down their prescription grade painkillers before the odd sexual escapade). Basically, the story is: strange things happen and people trip out. Some pictures are taken. Talking happens. Lather, rinse, repeat. In a sense, this book does feel like Lost in the sense that it poses some tantalizing questions while refusing to deliver answers; it feels like the first in a protracted television series (and one not nearly as compelling as Lost).
Compounding the lack of plot and direction problem is the issue of Bad Glass's reliance on description, rather than atmosphere or tension - instead of building terror, this novel focuses on detailed descriptions of unsettling images. In fact, each chapter in the book is preceeded by the description of a photograph (or video) from Spokane, calling that old adage to mind: a picture is worth a thousand words. While Gropp has a fantastic flair for description, and I appreciate his clear knowledge of photography and other visual media, I can't help but wish that Bad Glass had taken a note from Ransom Riggs' infinitely more effective, photo-illustrated Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children .
I am perhaps coming across as unfairly harsh, because there is some entertainment value and merit to Bad Glass. The premise is superb, and while lengthy descriptions of tableaus of horror aren't particularly to my taste, they may be for others. I also like that Gropp does create some unlikeable, flawed characters as his core cast - Dean isn't very endearing right off the bat, as he takes his daddy's money (who apparently is rich enough to pay for his son's tuition for five years of college) to run into Spokane with a half-cocked plan to fame and fortune. His love interest, Taylor, is a beautiful girl with serious baggage and her own twisted reasons for staying in Spokane after her parents' disappearance. The rest of the motley crew are at least refreshingly diverse, and each is working through their own issues - which are discussed, ad nauseam.
For me, Bad Glass is decent, but nothing to write home about. As they say, though, your mileage may vary.
September 25, 2012
BAD GLASS is something different. In a good way. It's part horror, part apocalyptic, part science fiction and fantasy, hitting on every thread that each of those genres can unwind. I had moments reading this book that actually made my stomach churn. Of course I was eating lunch at the time and vomiting all over the lunch room table at a place I've worked at less than a week would certainly leave an impression. Not a good one. I really like where I work so I breathed through it.
In terms of character I felt it was a little thin. I didn't really have any motivation to care about any of the characters and when things really started to happen I felt more like I was watching the news than I was invested in reading a novel. The emphasis of the story was on Spokane. It was the antagonist here, as the blurb says, hunting them. Literally. I LOVED Spokane and I talk about it as if it were a fleshy type of character. It was the most dynamic thing here, morphing itself to engulf the more static characters.
Taylor was your typical hard ass, stand-offish girl that leads by example. Not unlikable but she wasn't anything I warmed to. Then her character took a major shift towards the end and I don't think it quite fit. It was too out of character and felt more like a contrivance to catapult the story forward than anything else. I didn't mind per se because I was still interested in the story but it was a point of contention. I'm not a fan of characters deviating for the sake of plot.
Amanda is one character one day and then goes off the deep end the next without much segue, throwing another shock factor into the spokes of the plot. Charlie was endearing, being the youngest of the group. He was the techie, helping the rest of the gang keep in contact with the outside world all the while continuously searching for his parents whom he KNOWS are still in town. Floyd is hung up on the death of his brother, Mac's a clingy dick from the beginning and Dean himself wants to believe he dissolves into the town with the rest of them but I didn't buy it. He's there for less than a week, put through all kinds of shit for the sake of his art but won't simply walk away when things get really bad (and everything will gladly get out of his way to walk and once he gets out of Spokane all the craziness will stop but nooooooooo). He sacrifices his life for Taylor, whom he's known A WEEK but will not return the affection nor even much of a hint that it's reciprocal, because he just can't leave her. No. I don't buy that either.
I don't buy it as much as I don't buy Taylor's character shift. Dean's very presence beyond the first few days felt forced, his reasons for staying insubstantial at best. Eventually it stopped being about his photography and started being about Taylor, again a stand-offish girl that would barely look at him. I'm going to keep driving right past that tag sale and move on to the next one.
Spokane on the other hand was a living, breathing character consuming all the others, eventually literally. The things that happen within the city, whether they just happen to the surroundings or to the people themselves, were so incredibly vivid that I could almost feel all of the panic and worry and wonder at what was going on. From the weird bodily mutations to nature bucking it's own trend, I believed it all. It was the most vivid part of the story. If it weren't such an integral part, if the story focused more on the characters than on the surroundings, I would have lost interest pretty quickly. But I kept reading for Spokane. I wanted to see what the hell was going on with it.
I almost expected the ending to crap out. I don't know why but I was anticipating the whole thing ending up being a dream. It was alluded to. I'll spoil it for you: it's not. Thank god. I would have been so incredibly pissed off I don't know what I would have done. You get an answer but it leaves a lot of whys hanging out there and you still don't REALLY know what's going on by the time the story ends. You have an idea and I think it's enough to satisfy the curiosity that the plot brews but there's definitely room for more.
BAD GLASS is, atmospherically, a great blend of horror and apocalyptic, the latter really just on the edge of the world about to go to hell in a Pinto. There are some truly terrifying moments and the way Gropp wrote all of the changes it really plays with your mind and you won't know what to think about everything that's happening. You'll start to second-guess things and you'll be trying to figure it out right from the moment Dean gets into the city and starts seeing these things first hand. It's light on character development but the city itself is such a huge personality in the book that it'll just overwhelm everything else. Really I don't think there's room for much else in terms of the other characters. And I'm okay with that.
In terms of character I felt it was a little thin. I didn't really have any motivation to care about any of the characters and when things really started to happen I felt more like I was watching the news than I was invested in reading a novel. The emphasis of the story was on Spokane. It was the antagonist here, as the blurb says, hunting them. Literally. I LOVED Spokane and I talk about it as if it were a fleshy type of character. It was the most dynamic thing here, morphing itself to engulf the more static characters.
Taylor was your typical hard ass, stand-offish girl that leads by example. Not unlikable but she wasn't anything I warmed to. Then her character took a major shift towards the end and I don't think it quite fit. It was too out of character and felt more like a contrivance to catapult the story forward than anything else. I didn't mind per se because I was still interested in the story but it was a point of contention. I'm not a fan of characters deviating for the sake of plot.
Amanda is one character one day and then goes off the deep end the next without much segue, throwing another shock factor into the spokes of the plot. Charlie was endearing, being the youngest of the group. He was the techie, helping the rest of the gang keep in contact with the outside world all the while continuously searching for his parents whom he KNOWS are still in town. Floyd is hung up on the death of his brother, Mac's a clingy dick from the beginning and Dean himself wants to believe he dissolves into the town with the rest of them but I didn't buy it. He's there for less than a week, put through all kinds of shit for the sake of his art but won't simply walk away when things get really bad (and everything will gladly get out of his way to walk and once he gets out of Spokane all the craziness will stop but nooooooooo). He sacrifices his life for Taylor, whom he's known A WEEK but will not return the affection nor even much of a hint that it's reciprocal, because he just can't leave her. No. I don't buy that either.
I don't buy it as much as I don't buy Taylor's character shift. Dean's very presence beyond the first few days felt forced, his reasons for staying insubstantial at best. Eventually it stopped being about his photography and started being about Taylor, again a stand-offish girl that would barely look at him. I'm going to keep driving right past that tag sale and move on to the next one.
Spokane on the other hand was a living, breathing character consuming all the others, eventually literally. The things that happen within the city, whether they just happen to the surroundings or to the people themselves, were so incredibly vivid that I could almost feel all of the panic and worry and wonder at what was going on. From the weird bodily mutations to nature bucking it's own trend, I believed it all. It was the most vivid part of the story. If it weren't such an integral part, if the story focused more on the characters than on the surroundings, I would have lost interest pretty quickly. But I kept reading for Spokane. I wanted to see what the hell was going on with it.
I almost expected the ending to crap out. I don't know why but I was anticipating the whole thing ending up being a dream. It was alluded to. I'll spoil it for you: it's not. Thank god. I would have been so incredibly pissed off I don't know what I would have done. You get an answer but it leaves a lot of whys hanging out there and you still don't REALLY know what's going on by the time the story ends. You have an idea and I think it's enough to satisfy the curiosity that the plot brews but there's definitely room for more.
BAD GLASS is, atmospherically, a great blend of horror and apocalyptic, the latter really just on the edge of the world about to go to hell in a Pinto. There are some truly terrifying moments and the way Gropp wrote all of the changes it really plays with your mind and you won't know what to think about everything that's happening. You'll start to second-guess things and you'll be trying to figure it out right from the moment Dean gets into the city and starts seeing these things first hand. It's light on character development but the city itself is such a huge personality in the book that it'll just overwhelm everything else. Really I don't think there's room for much else in terms of the other characters. And I'm okay with that.
August 2, 2013
On the plus side, there were some well-described make-your-skin-crawl scenes. On the negative side, I didn't find the characters overly engaging.
I was not at all sympathetic to Dean or his relationship with Taylor, or for that matter with the plight of people who, for no or at best ill-explained reasons, continue to stay in such a highly-localized place of...I'm not sure what you would call these events, which was the other major point of contention:
All-in-all I found this one disappointing.
February 3, 2016
BAD GLASS is a strange and wonderful novel, written by Richard E. Gropp, which I finished a few nights ago.
This is a book worth reading. It inhabits the place somewhere between science fiction and magical fiction, with some horror thrown in. But not much. This is not a blood-and-guts book. The horror here permeates the air and surfaces in unexpected, stunning ways that are more psychologically upsetting than graphic.
Gropp has written a surprisingly and unexpectedly great book. It's set in Spokane. (Note: I love this choice. Not a big city like Seattle or Los Angeles, but a mid-size, out of the way city.) Something is happening. Phenomena are occurring that can't be explained.
A photographer, Dean, sneaks his way across the border (sealed by military blockade) to take some unforgettable pictures. And then the novel unfolds: Dean is our guide to the city, and he discovers it as we do. He stumbles across a group of young people, his peers. And he discovers, and we discover, just how awful it really is. And he takes pictures to try and capture the unfathomable. The device of the pictures is used brilliantly. Each chapter begins with a prose description of one picture. The chapter then unfolds to show the circumstances that led to that image. It's a great technique, and it draws you deep into the story.
But also, Bad Glass showed how fragile the human mind is, even the slightest changes to logic will cause the mind to shut down, perhaps some will still continue their live with their pain inside behind a hard, cold exterior outside like Taylor. Or worse, go completely insane, like others in the novel.
But in the end, it didn't matter; everyone was changed by Spokane, whether it was mentally or physically. Bad Glass showed its readers how we are so dependent on the world's logic, structure and its rules that even the slightest changes will conflict the human mind and eventually people will be driven to insanity or succumb to their fears.
The emphasis of the story was about the city of Spokane. It was the antagonist here, and was literally hunting the characters. Literally. I loved this usage of Spokane, and it was the perfect use of another type of character. It was a dynamic I cannot explain, which morphed itself to engulf the more static characters.
As for the actual characters? Taylor was your typical stand-offish girl that leads by example. Not unlikable, but she wasn't anything I warmed to. Then her character took a major shift towards the end and I don't think it quite fit. It was too out of character and felt more like a contrivance to catapult the story forward than anything else. I didn't mind per se because I was still interested in the story but it was a point of contention.
Amanda is one character one day, and then goes off the deep end the next without much segue, throwing another shock factor into the spokes of the plot. I guess with all the happenings going on, maybe she couldn't handle it all...? Charlie was endearing, being the youngest of the group. He was the techie, helping the rest of the gang keep in contact with the outside world all the while continuously searching for his parents whom he knows are still in town. Floyd is hung up on the death of his brother, & Mac's a clingy dick from the beginning. Dean was a photographer, who saw a lot. Experienced even more. And eventually, realized that the pictures weren't as important as he had thought, going in. But what's weird is this: He's there for less than a week, and put through all kinds of shit for the sake of his art, but won't simply walk away when things get really bad...and they do. He sacrifices his life for Taylor, whom he's known A WEEK. But she will not return the affection, nor even hint that it's reciprocal, and still, he just can't leave her? No. I don't buy that.
Spokane on the other hand was a living, breathing character consuming all the others. Mentally, physically, and even spiritually. The things that happen within the city, whether they just happen to the surroundings or to the people themselves, were so incredibly vivid that I could almost feel all of the panic and worry, and worry at what was going on. From the weird bodily mutations to nature bucking it's own trend, I believed it all. It was the most vivid part of the story. If it weren't such an integral part, or if the story focused more on the characters than on the surroundings, I would have lost interest pretty quickly. But I kept reading for Spokane. I wanted to see what the hell was going on with it. I HAD to keep reading.
As far as the ending goes, it's rather ambiguous, or at least it was for me. You get an answer - sort of - but it leaves a lot of whys hanging out there, and you still don't REALLY know what's going on by the time the story ends. You have an idea and I think it's enough to satisfy the curiosity that the plot brews but there's definitely room for more.
Bad Glass is, atmospherically, a great blend of horror and apocalyptic, the latter really just on the edge of the world about to go to hell in a Hand basket. There are some truly terrifying moments, and the way Gropp wrote all of the changes it really plays with your mind and you won't know what to think about everything that's happening. You'll start to second-guess things, and you'll be trying to figure it out right from the moment Dean gets into the city and starts seeing these things first hand. It's light on character development but the city itself is such a huge personality in the book that it'll just overwhelm everything else. Really I don't think there's room for much else in terms of the other characters. And I'm okay with that.
After thinking about the novel for a few days, I realize that it's a good choice that Gropp never explains why everything is happening in the book. It's always tempting to place an explanation at the end. He feints several times toward an explanation, but in the end, all that remains is the events themselves. And the events are memorable. They are peppered throughout the book, here and there, and Gropp conjures some doozies.
I wanted it to end, for the sake of the characters. Isn't that odd? I wanted them to find a way to escape the madness, but they can't leave the city. It never ends for them. I don't know if that was setting up a sequel, or if Gropp just wanted to let them go, forever trapped in a city gone mad. Either way, it was the right call. I loved everything about this book. I can't wait to see what he writes next.
This is a book worth reading. It inhabits the place somewhere between science fiction and magical fiction, with some horror thrown in. But not much. This is not a blood-and-guts book. The horror here permeates the air and surfaces in unexpected, stunning ways that are more psychologically upsetting than graphic.
Gropp has written a surprisingly and unexpectedly great book. It's set in Spokane. (Note: I love this choice. Not a big city like Seattle or Los Angeles, but a mid-size, out of the way city.) Something is happening. Phenomena are occurring that can't be explained.
A photographer, Dean, sneaks his way across the border (sealed by military blockade) to take some unforgettable pictures. And then the novel unfolds: Dean is our guide to the city, and he discovers it as we do. He stumbles across a group of young people, his peers. And he discovers, and we discover, just how awful it really is. And he takes pictures to try and capture the unfathomable. The device of the pictures is used brilliantly. Each chapter begins with a prose description of one picture. The chapter then unfolds to show the circumstances that led to that image. It's a great technique, and it draws you deep into the story.
But also, Bad Glass showed how fragile the human mind is, even the slightest changes to logic will cause the mind to shut down, perhaps some will still continue their live with their pain inside behind a hard, cold exterior outside like Taylor. Or worse, go completely insane, like others in the novel.
But in the end, it didn't matter; everyone was changed by Spokane, whether it was mentally or physically. Bad Glass showed its readers how we are so dependent on the world's logic, structure and its rules that even the slightest changes will conflict the human mind and eventually people will be driven to insanity or succumb to their fears.
The emphasis of the story was about the city of Spokane. It was the antagonist here, and was literally hunting the characters. Literally. I loved this usage of Spokane, and it was the perfect use of another type of character. It was a dynamic I cannot explain, which morphed itself to engulf the more static characters.
As for the actual characters? Taylor was your typical stand-offish girl that leads by example. Not unlikable, but she wasn't anything I warmed to. Then her character took a major shift towards the end and I don't think it quite fit. It was too out of character and felt more like a contrivance to catapult the story forward than anything else. I didn't mind per se because I was still interested in the story but it was a point of contention.
Amanda is one character one day, and then goes off the deep end the next without much segue, throwing another shock factor into the spokes of the plot. I guess with all the happenings going on, maybe she couldn't handle it all...? Charlie was endearing, being the youngest of the group. He was the techie, helping the rest of the gang keep in contact with the outside world all the while continuously searching for his parents whom he knows are still in town. Floyd is hung up on the death of his brother, & Mac's a clingy dick from the beginning. Dean was a photographer, who saw a lot. Experienced even more. And eventually, realized that the pictures weren't as important as he had thought, going in. But what's weird is this: He's there for less than a week, and put through all kinds of shit for the sake of his art, but won't simply walk away when things get really bad...and they do. He sacrifices his life for Taylor, whom he's known A WEEK. But she will not return the affection, nor even hint that it's reciprocal, and still, he just can't leave her? No. I don't buy that.
Spokane on the other hand was a living, breathing character consuming all the others. Mentally, physically, and even spiritually. The things that happen within the city, whether they just happen to the surroundings or to the people themselves, were so incredibly vivid that I could almost feel all of the panic and worry, and worry at what was going on. From the weird bodily mutations to nature bucking it's own trend, I believed it all. It was the most vivid part of the story. If it weren't such an integral part, or if the story focused more on the characters than on the surroundings, I would have lost interest pretty quickly. But I kept reading for Spokane. I wanted to see what the hell was going on with it. I HAD to keep reading.
As far as the ending goes, it's rather ambiguous, or at least it was for me. You get an answer - sort of - but it leaves a lot of whys hanging out there, and you still don't REALLY know what's going on by the time the story ends. You have an idea and I think it's enough to satisfy the curiosity that the plot brews but there's definitely room for more.
Bad Glass is, atmospherically, a great blend of horror and apocalyptic, the latter really just on the edge of the world about to go to hell in a Hand basket. There are some truly terrifying moments, and the way Gropp wrote all of the changes it really plays with your mind and you won't know what to think about everything that's happening. You'll start to second-guess things, and you'll be trying to figure it out right from the moment Dean gets into the city and starts seeing these things first hand. It's light on character development but the city itself is such a huge personality in the book that it'll just overwhelm everything else. Really I don't think there's room for much else in terms of the other characters. And I'm okay with that.
After thinking about the novel for a few days, I realize that it's a good choice that Gropp never explains why everything is happening in the book. It's always tempting to place an explanation at the end. He feints several times toward an explanation, but in the end, all that remains is the events themselves. And the events are memorable. They are peppered throughout the book, here and there, and Gropp conjures some doozies.
I wanted it to end, for the sake of the characters. Isn't that odd? I wanted them to find a way to escape the madness, but they can't leave the city. It never ends for them. I don't know if that was setting up a sequel, or if Gropp just wanted to let them go, forever trapped in a city gone mad. Either way, it was the right call. I loved everything about this book. I can't wait to see what he writes next.
December 15, 2012
The first impression of Bad Glass when I first saw the cover was that it was probably another paranormal series with perhaps creatures that resembled zombies and the main character, Dean Walker with his new friends Taylor, Mac, Amanda, Charlie, Devon, Floyd and Danny will miraculously survive this catastrophic event and get their happy ending. But I was wrong; Bad Glass by Ricahrd E. Gropp did not have the same storyline which I thought it would. My impression of this book after reading it was that it showed how a normal and ambitious guy like Dean had turned insane as the world changed slowly around him. Bad Glass showed how fragile the human mind is, even the slightest changes to logic will cause the mind to shut down, perhaps some will still continue their live with their pain inside behind a hard, cold exterior outside like Taylor, maybe some will still have normal human relationships with others like Mac and Amanda, some may be desperate to find their loved ones like Charlie, others may continue with their job although the world around them has gone insane like Devon and Danny, others like Floyd may just live on with their lives and think that they’re finally free of their past, of course there would still be people like Dean who would still have the energy to seek out fame. But in the end, it didn't matter; everyone was changed by Spokane, whether it was mentally or physically. Bad Glass showed its readers how we are so dependent on the world's logic, structure and its rules that even the slightest changes will conflict the human mind and eventually people will be driven to insanity or succumb to their fears. On the other hand, it also makes us wonder, what exactly is right or wrong in our world? What is exactly normal, abnormal? What is logic? Who made these things up? There's probably no exactly or certain answers to these questions, after all when the world changes and becomes out of our control all these abstract things ceases to exist and people's true natures are shown. The human no longer functions as what society considers to be normal, instead they function in order to survive and make sense of a new world with logic from their past does not make sense in the world. In Bad Glass at the beginning it was intended that only Spokane was affected by these abnormalities and people could choose to leave, escape back to the world which they were comfortable with. But what happens if there was no escape, would you continue with live and its abnormalities while trying to make sense of this undefinable change? Would you seek death to escape from the craziness? Or would your mind break down before you could even make a decision? The human mind is something that could be as powerful as the mastermind of the world yet any changes to the world that affects it, could convert it into a fragile structure, crushed in the blink of the eye by the world itself.
August 12, 2015
This one was an epic failure for me. The best thing about it is the premise which makes the fact that it isn't handled well even more disappointing. I won't spoil the ending for those poor souls who make it there but believe me, it isn't worth it.
This book did two major things that annoyed me on top of the bad plot progression. The first is the over-use of the word fuck which pops up in dialog about as frequently as a quotation mark. I have complained about this for years but apparently it isn't going away. I don't believe people say fuck so many times in one sentence and, if they do, I don't want to fucking listen to them or read about them. I curse. I don't mind others who do. I don't like repetition though and constantly using the same words is bad writing and lack of creativity in the dialog and the characters.
The second thing was the stupid, pointless, awkward sex scene about a third of the way in. Our main character Dean has a sort of threesome with Taylor (female) and Danny (male). I understand that the characters are afraid and need companionship in a city that no longer wants to follow the laws of physics but Dean, our narrator, spends the previous pages observing women and Taylor in particular in a sexual manor. He is not gay. He is not bi. He is characterized as straight. Then, in the scene, Danny gives Dean a blowjob and Taylor refuses to be touched. Dean not only doesn't have a problem with another guy going down on him but actually gets into it. This comes out of nowhere (pardon the "fucking" pun) and is not refered to again. I am not against gay sex scenes. I am not against homosexuality. I know people and am also related to people who are gay and I support them completely. I do not enjoy reading these kind of scenes just because the author jams them into the story. This is bad characterization! Make it have a purpose or lead up to it! If the narrator would have been obsessed with Danny the whole time and shown sexual interest in other male characters then gotten a blowjob from Taylor, I would be making the same complaint. I know the author is gay but I don't think that is an excuse for pointless scenes like this. Please pay attention to your own characters.
I don't have patience for things like this anymore. I really don't. So, I cannot say I recommend this one to anyone. It is different but so is a laptop made out of used condoms. If you do try it, I recommend lots of patience. Perhaps you should take lots of drugs and drink a lot while reading it. You will get an experience similar to the narrator and you will be just as confused at the end... and you will feel physically ill.
This book did two major things that annoyed me on top of the bad plot progression. The first is the over-use of the word fuck which pops up in dialog about as frequently as a quotation mark. I have complained about this for years but apparently it isn't going away. I don't believe people say fuck so many times in one sentence and, if they do, I don't want to fucking listen to them or read about them. I curse. I don't mind others who do. I don't like repetition though and constantly using the same words is bad writing and lack of creativity in the dialog and the characters.
The second thing was the stupid, pointless, awkward sex scene about a third of the way in. Our main character Dean has a sort of threesome with Taylor (female) and Danny (male). I understand that the characters are afraid and need companionship in a city that no longer wants to follow the laws of physics but Dean, our narrator, spends the previous pages observing women and Taylor in particular in a sexual manor. He is not gay. He is not bi. He is characterized as straight. Then, in the scene, Danny gives Dean a blowjob and Taylor refuses to be touched. Dean not only doesn't have a problem with another guy going down on him but actually gets into it. This comes out of nowhere (pardon the "fucking" pun) and is not refered to again. I am not against gay sex scenes. I am not against homosexuality. I know people and am also related to people who are gay and I support them completely. I do not enjoy reading these kind of scenes just because the author jams them into the story. This is bad characterization! Make it have a purpose or lead up to it! If the narrator would have been obsessed with Danny the whole time and shown sexual interest in other male characters then gotten a blowjob from Taylor, I would be making the same complaint. I know the author is gay but I don't think that is an excuse for pointless scenes like this. Please pay attention to your own characters.
I don't have patience for things like this anymore. I really don't. So, I cannot say I recommend this one to anyone. It is different but so is a laptop made out of used condoms. If you do try it, I recommend lots of patience. Perhaps you should take lots of drugs and drink a lot while reading it. You will get an experience similar to the narrator and you will be just as confused at the end... and you will feel physically ill.
February 19, 2013
It's my fault. The back cover called out its likeness to Dhalgren (a book I despise) and yet I still picked this book up. And while that certainly didn't help me enjoy this book much, there were other reasons as well, reasons that I find happening more and more in modern fiction.
What mild character growth was introduced was left dangling and ignored in areas. The "concept" of the novel often took center stage and refused to share the spotlight with plot, development and logic. Characters would do things to advance the plot, at the expense of common sense or what had been previously established for them. And as for the ending...I understand and sometimes enjoy an open ended, questionable ending that allows the reader to form his own thoughts about what happened, but this book too so much time trying to get to the bottom of the mystery, (as well as many other mysteries), it's kind of cheating to shy away from any kind of explanation. Which goes double for some of the characters' fates.
I wish there was more attention used to write this, as it had a great premise and idea behind it. I realize in the horror genre you can take more risks and try different things, but do it too many times and you cheat the reader out of enjoyment.
What mild character growth was introduced was left dangling and ignored in areas. The "concept" of the novel often took center stage and refused to share the spotlight with plot, development and logic. Characters would do things to advance the plot, at the expense of common sense or what had been previously established for them. And as for the ending...I understand and sometimes enjoy an open ended, questionable ending that allows the reader to form his own thoughts about what happened, but this book too so much time trying to get to the bottom of the mystery, (as well as many other mysteries), it's kind of cheating to shy away from any kind of explanation. Which goes double for some of the characters' fates.
I wish there was more attention used to write this, as it had a great premise and idea behind it. I realize in the horror genre you can take more risks and try different things, but do it too many times and you cheat the reader out of enjoyment.
January 8, 2013
This book is not for the faint of heart. It is intense, frightening and totally weird. My cup of tea. It twists and turns and shocks you, gives you a minute and then smacks you again. I can't possibly say much about it, except that something is going on in the city of Spokane and Dean Walker, aspiring photo-journalist crabs into the city thinking he will make his name taking great freaky photos. But Dean gets enmeshed in the lives of Spokane residents and the bizarre incidents that have occurred and are occurring.
November 3, 2018
Something weird is happening in Spokane. People are disappearing, things that shouldn’t exist are calmly walking down the streets, people become melded into walls, ceilings, floors, each other… The city is quarantined, but Dean Walker, a dumb selfish 20-something-year-old, sneaks in with a camera to take the pictures that will hopefully make him famous. There he meets a bunch of people who stayed in the city for no viable reason, and falls in love with literally the first girl he meets. Then things happen that make zero sense whatsoever and left me wondering what possessed me to even read this book in the first place.
There was a good story, a good idea, hidden somewhere in there. We saw it appear a bit around page 250, and then again in chapter 19. The rest just felt like a collection of random events without heads or tails, no explanations or sense whatsoever, interspersed with characters getting drunk and/or high. There was no continuity to anything, threads would just fizzle out with no conclusion. When two characters disappear, nobody even talks about the possibility of trying to rescue them. They just get high and move on with their “lives,” such as they are.
Actually, it read as if Gropp wrote this during NaNoWriMo (the month where you have to write 50K words), going in with no plan whatsoever and publishing it as soon as it was over, with absolutely no editing.
Plus, there was altogether too much swearing. If it’s organic, I don’t notice it, but if it starts jumping out at me, it means there’s too much.
My review reads like this should get 1*, but I only give 1* to books that make me angry for some reason. This didn’t make me angry, it just made me sad that something so bad could get published–and actually win a prize!
If you like the idea of a city becoming ground zero for something terrible and mysterious, I recommend Lexicon by Max Barry instead. Much, much better.
There was a good story, a good idea, hidden somewhere in there. We saw it appear a bit around page 250, and then again in chapter 19. The rest just felt like a collection of random events without heads or tails, no explanations or sense whatsoever, interspersed with characters getting drunk and/or high. There was no continuity to anything, threads would just fizzle out with no conclusion. When two characters disappear, nobody even talks about the possibility of trying to rescue them. They just get high and move on with their “lives,” such as they are.
Actually, it read as if Gropp wrote this during NaNoWriMo (the month where you have to write 50K words), going in with no plan whatsoever and publishing it as soon as it was over, with absolutely no editing.
Plus, there was altogether too much swearing. If it’s organic, I don’t notice it, but if it starts jumping out at me, it means there’s too much.
My review reads like this should get 1*, but I only give 1* to books that make me angry for some reason. This didn’t make me angry, it just made me sad that something so bad could get published–and actually win a prize!
If you like the idea of a city becoming ground zero for something terrible and mysterious, I recommend Lexicon by Max Barry instead. Much, much better.
April 29, 2013
Bad Glass is the winner of Del Rey's Suvudu writing contest, and Richard E. Gropp's first novel. The novel is horror, with some science fiction elements. The book's premise was interesting to me as well as some of the author blurbs, especially the Caitlin Kiernan one on the book's cover. The book's blurb is as follows:
Something has happened in Spokane. The military has evacuated the city and locked it down. Even so, disturbing rumors and images seep out, finding their way onto the Internet, spreading curiosity, skepticism, and panic. For what they show is—or should be—impossible: strange creatures that cannot exist, sudden disappearances that violate the laws of physics, human bodies fused with inanimate objects, trapped yet still half alive. . . .
Dean Walker, an aspiring photographer, sneaks into the quarantined city in search of fame. What he finds will change him in unimaginable ways. Hooking up with a group of outcasts led by a beautiful young woman named Taylor, Dean embarks on a journey into the heart of a mystery whose philosophical implications are as terrifying as its physical manifestations. Even as he falls in love with Taylor—a woman as damaged and seductive as the city itself—his already tenuous hold on reality starts to come loose. Or perhaps it is Spokane’s grip on the world that is coming undone.
Now, caught up in a web of interlacing secrets and betrayals, Dean, Taylor, and their friends must make their way through this ever-shifting maze of a city, a city that is actively hunting them down, herding them toward a shocking destiny.
I was rather intrigued by the whole premise, and one of the author's blurbs compared the book to the show LOST. I admit to having had a love/hate relationship with that show, as the first few seasons had my full attention, but the show later wilted for me and ended on a totally unsatisfactory note.
When it comes to Bad Glass, I have conflicting feelings. On one hand I really dig the premise, and the several mysteries that come up throughout the book kept me turning the pages. On the other hand, the books flaws keep me from lavishing the praise. Most of the characters are dull and uninspired. The narrator, Dean, is whiny, often to the point of annoying. The horrors themselves can be pretty solid, but at times the author is too descriptive. There is no subtlety in his approach to each horrifying encounter, and the over descriptiveness can be a bit of a dread killer for me. There was also one moment in the book, a graphic homosexual sex scene featuring the protagonist (who is chasing after a girl the entire book) that seemed absurdly out of place. It was jarring, and felt like it was added in simply to give a jolt to readers.
The biggest flaw with the novel, and in my opinion the trait it most shares with the show LOST, is that the end is quite a let down. I can really dig a story, especially horror, that's left open ended, but when it's a novel length work as opposed to a short story or novella, I, like many readers, like to have a bit more payoff. By looking at other reviews it seems this shortcoming of the novel is one that many readers make note of, but by the end of the novel the majority of mysteries are left unanswered. Ending the book in such a manner will be the cause of much frustration by readers.
While I enjoyed reading about the frayed reality of the fictional Spokane, I hate to say that I read on not out of any investment in the characters, but simply because I wanted to see how these many mysteries unraveled. In that regard, I was disappointed. Maybe Gropp will revisit his Spokane, or one of the other places mentioned at the end of the novel. I may even check it out, but hopefully he will learn from the shortcomings of his first book, because as evident in this one he sure didn't learn a thing from LOST.
Originally appeared on my blog, The Arkham Digest
Something has happened in Spokane. The military has evacuated the city and locked it down. Even so, disturbing rumors and images seep out, finding their way onto the Internet, spreading curiosity, skepticism, and panic. For what they show is—or should be—impossible: strange creatures that cannot exist, sudden disappearances that violate the laws of physics, human bodies fused with inanimate objects, trapped yet still half alive. . . .
Dean Walker, an aspiring photographer, sneaks into the quarantined city in search of fame. What he finds will change him in unimaginable ways. Hooking up with a group of outcasts led by a beautiful young woman named Taylor, Dean embarks on a journey into the heart of a mystery whose philosophical implications are as terrifying as its physical manifestations. Even as he falls in love with Taylor—a woman as damaged and seductive as the city itself—his already tenuous hold on reality starts to come loose. Or perhaps it is Spokane’s grip on the world that is coming undone.
Now, caught up in a web of interlacing secrets and betrayals, Dean, Taylor, and their friends must make their way through this ever-shifting maze of a city, a city that is actively hunting them down, herding them toward a shocking destiny.
I was rather intrigued by the whole premise, and one of the author's blurbs compared the book to the show LOST. I admit to having had a love/hate relationship with that show, as the first few seasons had my full attention, but the show later wilted for me and ended on a totally unsatisfactory note.
When it comes to Bad Glass, I have conflicting feelings. On one hand I really dig the premise, and the several mysteries that come up throughout the book kept me turning the pages. On the other hand, the books flaws keep me from lavishing the praise. Most of the characters are dull and uninspired. The narrator, Dean, is whiny, often to the point of annoying. The horrors themselves can be pretty solid, but at times the author is too descriptive. There is no subtlety in his approach to each horrifying encounter, and the over descriptiveness can be a bit of a dread killer for me. There was also one moment in the book, a graphic homosexual sex scene featuring the protagonist (who is chasing after a girl the entire book) that seemed absurdly out of place. It was jarring, and felt like it was added in simply to give a jolt to readers.
The biggest flaw with the novel, and in my opinion the trait it most shares with the show LOST, is that the end is quite a let down. I can really dig a story, especially horror, that's left open ended, but when it's a novel length work as opposed to a short story or novella, I, like many readers, like to have a bit more payoff. By looking at other reviews it seems this shortcoming of the novel is one that many readers make note of, but by the end of the novel the majority of mysteries are left unanswered. Ending the book in such a manner will be the cause of much frustration by readers.
While I enjoyed reading about the frayed reality of the fictional Spokane, I hate to say that I read on not out of any investment in the characters, but simply because I wanted to see how these many mysteries unraveled. In that regard, I was disappointed. Maybe Gropp will revisit his Spokane, or one of the other places mentioned at the end of the novel. I may even check it out, but hopefully he will learn from the shortcomings of his first book, because as evident in this one he sure didn't learn a thing from LOST.
Originally appeared on my blog, The Arkham Digest
October 17, 2012
The review of Bad Glass by Richard Gropp appeared first on The Rekindled Reader.
(Note: This reviews is based on an ARC provided by NetGalley)
I’m speechless – and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. Richard Gropp’s Bad Glass was…something. It was repugnantly addictive, but it lacked all the other attributes that make a good book. The characters were flat, boring and unlikable. The plot – I think it was a plot – was bland, uninteresting and, in the end, muddled.
And yet the appalling, grotesque imagery painted by Gropp made me unable to put it down.
Part of the reason I chose this book was because it took place in Spokane, Washington – also known as “Spokcompton” by many of us residents of eastern Washington State. It’s not a particularly interesting place to begin with, so Gropp really had a blank canvas.
The book can really be summed up in three words: Weird $h!t happens, but here’s the extended version:
Dean, a (presumably) rich kid from California, cashes his dad’s tuition check and sets off to Spokane to prove himself as a photographer. He sees an opportunity in Spokane, which is under quarantine and military lock down. Rumors have circulated about unexplainable phenomenon occurring within the city – which became more believable when, during a live televised press conference, the mayor vanished into thin air.
After sneaking into the city, Dean finds unspeakable horrors – bodies merging into walls, animals with human limbs. He takes up residence with a group of “survivors” – people who chose not to evacuate – and becomes smitten with their emotionally damaged leader, Taylor. While photographing his “evidence,” Dean is drawn into the dysfunctional group and his mission begins to extend beyond his camera lens.
Bad Glass seemed unable to make up its mind whether it wanted to be an action/adventure plot or a psychological thriller.
Dean becomes uninterested in proving himself as a photographer early on, but he keeps taking pictures. The group seems superficially interested in finding out what is causing all the phenomena, but not enough to investigate. They seem content with staying in the house, getting high and drunk – and I think that goes to say a lot about the reasons why they stayed. They all give weak excuses (Amanda says she stayed because she lost her dog), but I think it may have more to do with the fact they didn’t have anything better going on in their lives.
And that’s how I began to feel about this book half way through: it wasn’t going anywhere.
Exploring the psychology of the characters could’ve made for a mind-trip of a plot. Learning more about their thoughts and emotions and then integrating it into how the phenomenon played on that would’ve been interesting. Instead, the book was filled with random events – all of which could’ve segewayed into an awesome climax – that were quickly abandoned and added nothing to the plot.
Now that I’ve thoroughly addressed the misses, here’s what I liked:
The imagery is fantastic. Gropp did an excellent job at describing the indescribable. The grotesque scenes that shouldn’t be happening were disturbingly believable and each one seemed more fantastic than the last. Gropp’s unbridled creativity in inventing these abominations of nature had no limits. And it kept me reading.
(Note: This reviews is based on an ARC provided by NetGalley)
I’m speechless – and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. Richard Gropp’s Bad Glass was…something. It was repugnantly addictive, but it lacked all the other attributes that make a good book. The characters were flat, boring and unlikable. The plot – I think it was a plot – was bland, uninteresting and, in the end, muddled.
And yet the appalling, grotesque imagery painted by Gropp made me unable to put it down.
Part of the reason I chose this book was because it took place in Spokane, Washington – also known as “Spokcompton” by many of us residents of eastern Washington State. It’s not a particularly interesting place to begin with, so Gropp really had a blank canvas.
The book can really be summed up in three words: Weird $h!t happens, but here’s the extended version:
Dean, a (presumably) rich kid from California, cashes his dad’s tuition check and sets off to Spokane to prove himself as a photographer. He sees an opportunity in Spokane, which is under quarantine and military lock down. Rumors have circulated about unexplainable phenomenon occurring within the city – which became more believable when, during a live televised press conference, the mayor vanished into thin air.
After sneaking into the city, Dean finds unspeakable horrors – bodies merging into walls, animals with human limbs. He takes up residence with a group of “survivors” – people who chose not to evacuate – and becomes smitten with their emotionally damaged leader, Taylor. While photographing his “evidence,” Dean is drawn into the dysfunctional group and his mission begins to extend beyond his camera lens.
Bad Glass seemed unable to make up its mind whether it wanted to be an action/adventure plot or a psychological thriller.
Dean becomes uninterested in proving himself as a photographer early on, but he keeps taking pictures. The group seems superficially interested in finding out what is causing all the phenomena, but not enough to investigate. They seem content with staying in the house, getting high and drunk – and I think that goes to say a lot about the reasons why they stayed. They all give weak excuses (Amanda says she stayed because she lost her dog), but I think it may have more to do with the fact they didn’t have anything better going on in their lives.
And that’s how I began to feel about this book half way through: it wasn’t going anywhere.
Exploring the psychology of the characters could’ve made for a mind-trip of a plot. Learning more about their thoughts and emotions and then integrating it into how the phenomenon played on that would’ve been interesting. Instead, the book was filled with random events – all of which could’ve segewayed into an awesome climax – that were quickly abandoned and added nothing to the plot.
Now that I’ve thoroughly addressed the misses, here’s what I liked:
The imagery is fantastic. Gropp did an excellent job at describing the indescribable. The grotesque scenes that shouldn’t be happening were disturbingly believable and each one seemed more fantastic than the last. Gropp’s unbridled creativity in inventing these abominations of nature had no limits. And it kept me reading.
March 24, 2013
This is a book worth reading. It inhabits the place somewhere between science fiction and magical fiction, with some horror thrown in. Not much. This is not a blood-and-guts book. The horror here permeates the air and surfaces in unexpected, stunning ways that are more psychologically upsetting than graphic.
Gropp has written a surprisingly and unexpectedly great book. It's set in Spokane. (Note: I love this choice. Not a big city like Seattle or Los Angeles, but a mid-size, out of the way city.) Something is happening. Phenomena are occurring that can't be explained. A photographer, Dean, sneaks his way across the border (sealed by military blockade) to take some unforgettable pictures.
And then the novel unfolds. Dean is our guide to the city, and he discovers it as we do. He stumbles across a group of young people, his peers. And he discovers, and we discover, and he takes pictures to try and capture the unfathomable. The device of the pictures is used brilliantly. Each chapter begins with a prose description of one picture. The chapter then unfolds to show the circumstances that led to that image. It's a great technique, and it draws you deep into the story.
It's a good choice that Gropp never explains why everything is happening in the book. It's always tempting to place an explanation at the end. He feints several times toward an explanation, but in the end, all that remains is the events themselves. And the events are memorable. They are peppered throughout the book, here and there, and Gropp conjures some doozies.
I wanted it to end, for the sake of the characters. Isn't that odd? I wanted them to find a way to escape the madness, but they can't leave the city. It never ends for them. I don't know if that was setting up a sequel, or if Gropp just wanted to let them go, forever trapped in a city gone mad. Either way, it was the right call. I loved everything about this book. I can't wait to see what he writes next.
Gropp has written a surprisingly and unexpectedly great book. It's set in Spokane. (Note: I love this choice. Not a big city like Seattle or Los Angeles, but a mid-size, out of the way city.) Something is happening. Phenomena are occurring that can't be explained. A photographer, Dean, sneaks his way across the border (sealed by military blockade) to take some unforgettable pictures.
And then the novel unfolds. Dean is our guide to the city, and he discovers it as we do. He stumbles across a group of young people, his peers. And he discovers, and we discover, and he takes pictures to try and capture the unfathomable. The device of the pictures is used brilliantly. Each chapter begins with a prose description of one picture. The chapter then unfolds to show the circumstances that led to that image. It's a great technique, and it draws you deep into the story.
It's a good choice that Gropp never explains why everything is happening in the book. It's always tempting to place an explanation at the end. He feints several times toward an explanation, but in the end, all that remains is the events themselves. And the events are memorable. They are peppered throughout the book, here and there, and Gropp conjures some doozies.
I wanted it to end, for the sake of the characters. Isn't that odd? I wanted them to find a way to escape the madness, but they can't leave the city. It never ends for them. I don't know if that was setting up a sequel, or if Gropp just wanted to let them go, forever trapped in a city gone mad. Either way, it was the right call. I loved everything about this book. I can't wait to see what he writes next.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 8, 2013
Like haunted house stories? How about a haunted city? In BAD GLASS by Richard E. Gropp, Spokane, Washington has been evacuated by the government and locked down by the military after an epidemic of bizarre occurrences. After several years, Dean Walker, an aspiring photographer, sneaks into the quarantined city in search of fame. He finds that there are still people living in the city and connects with one group. Together, they will face the demons in the city as well as their own. Are the bizarre happenings all in their head? Or are they real?
The tension provided by such a beautiful premise, as well as Gropp’s setup and beginning, draws you right in. Dean’s first encounter with the horrors of the city will chill you. Unfortunately, after that, the story blows its tension and gets bogged down in interpersonal relationships, overshadowing the horror element. The group Dean connects with is comprised of damaged people who spend huge amounts of time and energy on each other’s problems rather than the very real problem that the city is trying to kill them. They recognize the city has its horrors but often refuse to discuss or even acknowledge one another’s individual experiences as real. Dean sees horrible things involving people who are apparently still alive but does nothing to help them. The ultimate mystery of the city will keep you reading to the end, and the ending is satisfying to an extent, but it doesn’t build tension the way LOST or Peter Cline’s 14 does.
Gropp’s a good writer and his flair for description is awesome. He writes character and interpersonal relationships with a lot of heart. He found a killer premise. In the end, however, BAD GLASS just didn’t work that well for me. It’s a good book that is finding its fans, but for this reader, I just kept wanting it to be something else–a true thriller with a tightly focused plot about people trapped in a haunted city who must solve its mystery before it kills them.
The tension provided by such a beautiful premise, as well as Gropp’s setup and beginning, draws you right in. Dean’s first encounter with the horrors of the city will chill you. Unfortunately, after that, the story blows its tension and gets bogged down in interpersonal relationships, overshadowing the horror element. The group Dean connects with is comprised of damaged people who spend huge amounts of time and energy on each other’s problems rather than the very real problem that the city is trying to kill them. They recognize the city has its horrors but often refuse to discuss or even acknowledge one another’s individual experiences as real. Dean sees horrible things involving people who are apparently still alive but does nothing to help them. The ultimate mystery of the city will keep you reading to the end, and the ending is satisfying to an extent, but it doesn’t build tension the way LOST or Peter Cline’s 14 does.
Gropp’s a good writer and his flair for description is awesome. He writes character and interpersonal relationships with a lot of heart. He found a killer premise. In the end, however, BAD GLASS just didn’t work that well for me. It’s a good book that is finding its fans, but for this reader, I just kept wanting it to be something else–a true thriller with a tightly focused plot about people trapped in a haunted city who must solve its mystery before it kills them.
April 3, 2013
Drags on a bit in the middle, and I'm a bit disappointed there weren't more answers, even though I knew from the writing that I really shouldn't expect them.
November 18, 2024
This was a very weird book. It had a very interesting concept which I did love but I felt like there was not a satisfying ending. Or at least not a happy ending. From my understanding of what happened in this book and why everything was turning to shit in that City was because reality was just collapsing on itself and it seemed like the hospital building was like a gateway or portal or like an epic center. Where time is going forward faster. Like when the characters towards the end got in there and they saw the destruction around them more than when they got there. It was like they went forward in time and somehow by collapsing on each other they went back to where they were previously back in time. That is at least my understanding of what's going on. A weird type of end of the world situation. Now I really did not like the characters. I did not like their personalities. I did not like their attitudes especially Taylor's as she really seemed like a big b**** in the book, especially to Dean. And I really did not like whoever romance was trying to happen between them too. It was just like kind of distracting and honestly it was not needed and it did not feel real or believable or anything of the sort. The characters were really flat honestly and some of them just did not have enough time to get to know. While others that we did kind of get to know weren't really interesting.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 17, 2020
A Strange Wonderful Book
For fans of the Matrix and similar stories. Although, unlike the Matrix, this book reaches no certain conclusions. It is beyond categories -- certainly it is very nearly Dadist in the way Gropp draws in possibilities, joins words and images and then drops the ends, leaving us to follow his next image, another set of pieces of things. It's odd to see an existential thinker writing in the genre of SF/Fantasy, but the book is mind expanding if followed to the end.
First, however, the reader has to follow a great strangeness that no one can explain. Gropp knows how to draw us in, giving us a protagonist (it would be hard to call Dean a hero) we care about as soon as we see him wheedle his way out of a life that has no meaning for him any more and into a city that seems to have split reality and meaning itself.
It's well worth the time to read this book. It seems to have been written for just the sort of surreal time we're living through now. I intend to read whatever Richard Gropp writes next. Though it WILL have a hard time living up to this book.
For fans of the Matrix and similar stories. Although, unlike the Matrix, this book reaches no certain conclusions. It is beyond categories -- certainly it is very nearly Dadist in the way Gropp draws in possibilities, joins words and images and then drops the ends, leaving us to follow his next image, another set of pieces of things. It's odd to see an existential thinker writing in the genre of SF/Fantasy, but the book is mind expanding if followed to the end.
First, however, the reader has to follow a great strangeness that no one can explain. Gropp knows how to draw us in, giving us a protagonist (it would be hard to call Dean a hero) we care about as soon as we see him wheedle his way out of a life that has no meaning for him any more and into a city that seems to have split reality and meaning itself.
It's well worth the time to read this book. It seems to have been written for just the sort of surreal time we're living through now. I intend to read whatever Richard Gropp writes next. Though it WILL have a hard time living up to this book.
August 31, 2018
The comparisons to LOST are pretty spot on. The mysteries are built up, questions accumulate, but the ending lacks answers. Honestly at least LOST had an ending, even if some questions are left hanging, and the characters in LOST were interesting enough to keep me following along, however in this book the characters are hard to connect with or like and the "ending" is unsatisfying to say the least.
I also didn't like the homosexual sex scene, it served no purpose for plot or character development (after it happens it doesn't factor into the story ever again) and its inclusion felt forced.
That being said, the premise is interesting and creepy and mysterious and that's why I have awarded 3 stars.
Recommended only to those readers who can enjoy the journey for its weirdness, because the destination may leave you unfulfilled.
I also didn't like the homosexual sex scene, it served no purpose for plot or character development (after it happens it doesn't factor into the story ever again) and its inclusion felt forced.
That being said, the premise is interesting and creepy and mysterious and that's why I have awarded 3 stars.
Recommended only to those readers who can enjoy the journey for its weirdness, because the destination may leave you unfulfilled.
April 15, 2019
I was a tad disappointed in this book, I really thought there would be more horror of the body variety rather than psychological. A majority of the book was the main characters sitting around and sharing their life stories with one another and waiting for something to happen.
However, when something happens it really is horrific and grabs you. Likewise the way the characters react to the bizarre and violent occurrences in Spokane feels very, very realistic. These are everyday people who are facing mutant dogs, walls that swallow people whole, and reality literally breaking apart. So obviously they're going to panic and either turn to drugs and alcohol, or shut themselves away attempting to make sense of it all.
I think Bad Glass was a decent book, and while it wasn't what I was expecting, I did really enjoy reading it.
However, when something happens it really is horrific and grabs you. Likewise the way the characters react to the bizarre and violent occurrences in Spokane feels very, very realistic. These are everyday people who are facing mutant dogs, walls that swallow people whole, and reality literally breaking apart. So obviously they're going to panic and either turn to drugs and alcohol, or shut themselves away attempting to make sense of it all.
I think Bad Glass was a decent book, and while it wasn't what I was expecting, I did really enjoy reading it.
November 15, 2022
I absolutely loved this book! It truly is a terrific mashup of the wonderful oddness of the book House of Leaves, the mysterious happenings of the show Lost, all set in a recently abandoned city reminiscent of the game Silent Hill.
There is something beautiful about a book that does not try to explain away every little detail. This books lets you wander through the scenes feeling a bit lost much like the main characters do… which to me is the point of it all.
It’s a trippy, depressing, mysterious, horrifying, confusing novel that I highly enjoyed for being all of those things at once. So good!
There is something beautiful about a book that does not try to explain away every little detail. This books lets you wander through the scenes feeling a bit lost much like the main characters do… which to me is the point of it all.
It’s a trippy, depressing, mysterious, horrifying, confusing novel that I highly enjoyed for being all of those things at once. So good!
October 21, 2019
This book fulfilled my need to be spooked. It’s got a little bit of horror, a bit of sci-fi, apocalypse and the crumble of humanity... and some mystery! The love interest seemed a little out of place but did go somewhat along with the story. Blurbs at the beginning of each chapter kept me hooked and unable to set the book down! In the end I was left still questioning what exactly did happen in the city, but it’s good if you like to think about the answers yourself!
The one warning I would like to give out, is that there are parts that talk about drug use/abuse (Narcotics/ opioids).
The one warning I would like to give out, is that there are parts that talk about drug use/abuse (Narcotics/ opioids).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 20, 2016
This has to be one of the most "silent hill -ish" books I've read in a while. Not a perfect book but pretty high up there. Very, very weird. They did a good job with describing photos in a way that didn't take away from the fact that you weren't seeing anything. Ending was was a bit confusing, but man what a ride.
Speaking of Silent Hill I think dude got the bad ending or maybe the bad+ ending. Maybe if I read it again the UFO ending will show up. c:
Speaking of Silent Hill I think dude got the bad ending or maybe the bad+ ending. Maybe if I read it again the UFO ending will show up. c:
December 20, 2017
Upon reaching the end of Bad Glass I was left with a single, simple question: what the hell? It was magnificent in its originality, disappointing in ending and (certain) story elements, atmospheric to the point of hitting Silent Hill levels, baffling in other moments, and still immensely entertaining. Read it, curse yourself for doing so, flip on a few lights in your too-quiet house, and then wonder just where else the story could have gone.
February 19, 2024
The book is ok. The prose is fluid, the descriptions of Spokane are fun, and the small chapters describing the horror filled photographs are great. However, the pacing meanders and even though they witness graphic scenes of violence and physic breaking events, as a reader, these events seem unrelated and no incentive to keep reading. Imo I find the characters lack luster, and by page 108, it turned into a slog. My first dnf of 2024. (2.5/5)
June 19, 2017
I felt that this book had a really nice premise, and the opportunity to be really creepy, but it somehow fell short. There wasn't much tension, and even less shock value that I look for in this type of book. It was very well written with some really nice descriptions, but overall I wish that I liked this more.
July 8, 2017
The first half of the book building up and describing of strange events was intriguing, but the rest was getting so boring and I was just waiting for the answers or just something to connect all the dots but I only got more confused. The ending was kind of non existent in my opinion. I'm so disappointed, it started off so creapy and intense.
December 31, 2017
While the writing was quite good, the book left me wondering what the hell did actually happen. What was the point of the story? I wish there was a resolution at the end. If you like unresolved mysteries, this book is for you. However, if you need to know all the "whats and whys" of the story, I recommend you skip it.
September 20, 2017
I didn't finish this book...it's an interesting concept (why Spokane of all places...?) but I found the writing style a bit juvenile not to mention the stupidity of the main character in general to go there in the first place..
May 28, 2018
Couldn't finish it.
Got about 90 pages in and realized it was painfully slow slogging through a story that did not hold my interest. Too bad. Potentially a good idea but drawn out and annoying.
Got about 90 pages in and realized it was painfully slow slogging through a story that did not hold my interest. Too bad. Potentially a good idea but drawn out and annoying.
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