Glimmering

by Elizabeth Hand

An apocalyptic novel of by the World Fantasy Award-winning author follows a millionaire publisher, a jaded rock star, and the girl who loves them both as they witness the end of the twentieth century and the devolution of civilization. Reprint.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Horror, Speculative Fiction, Apocalyptic, Dystopia

537 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 1997

About the author

A New York Times notable and multiple award– winning author, Elizabeth Hand has written seven novels, including the cult classic Waking the Moon, and short-story collections. She is a longtime contributor to numerous publications, including the Washington Post Book World and the Village Voice Literary Supplement. She and her two children divide their time between the coast of Maine and North London.

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 2 out of 5]

i once had a roommate named Julian Danger. he gave himself that name. he was in some bands, all terrible, one called The Angel Assassins, a terrible name. he was a perpetual grad student in art history, and i can still recall him sitting in the hallway on our land line, cheerfully bragging away in his squeaky voice about how he'd fail this guy for being in a frat or this girl for having no clue about style. he always wore eyeliner, it highlighted his surprisingly pretty eyes. he only wore black and his pants were the tightest you could imagine, all the better to highlight his surprisingly immense schlong. he got all the chicks, one after the other. i remember he ended a screaming argument by telling one girl "I've Dated Artists, I've Dated Writers, I've Dated Musicians! I Can't Believe I Have To Deal With This Shit From a SHOPGIRL!"... he was a pretentious intellectual, a writer of the obnoxious zine DangerFox, a master of passive-aggression. he was the kind of fool who prided himself on being a capital-H Hipster. who does that? and it goes on and on.

why am i saying all this. because this fuckin book reminded me of Julian Danger, from the beginning up until the part where i threw it against the wall in furious irritation. not only that, but it is populated by characters just like Julian Danger, and our heroine seem to think they are the bees' knees... even worse, apparently so does Elizabeth Hand. argh, give me a break! that is so frustrating! particularly when Hand is a great writer, full of elegant phrases and capable of creating a wonderfully sinister atmosphere and surprisingly deep characters. well, i guess that stopped me from giving it 1 star.

if you like what you've read about Julian (i won't blame you; he had lots of fans), you'll probably like this this wannabe goth-adventure of human vampires and millenial tension. Julian may have enjoyed this one too - although he was sort of a snob about "genre" novels. now he lives right down the block from me - i should hurl it at him the next time i see him, to see if he likes it.

[C.W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In GLIMMERING, an apocalyptic novel as provocative as it is gorgeously written, author Elizabeth Hand creates a detailed world where a man-made calamity crashes against a solar flare and rips apart our ozone layer, initiating a violent celestial cataclysm that results in hallucinogenic skies without stars, seasonal disruptions, floods, and overall chaos, as well as the gradual erosion of civilization as we know it. Not that this stops multi-national corporate superpowers from cashing in on the catastrophe or people, enslaved by technological innovation, from partying like it's . . . well, 1999.

The premise is now dated, as the millennium has come and gone with nary a Mayan-predicted catastrophe to detain our present course toward self destruction. Nevertheless, setting aside the year of the novel's events and lack of references to our current digital craze, GLIMMERING is both eerily prescient and unsettling, for when this world goes dark, it's not a lights-out event. It's a gradual, terrifying process of moral and physical decay, with hope still tendered even as the situation grows more dire by the hour.

Set in New York City, its suburbs, and upper Maine, the novel focuses on a few lead characters whose lives intersect. Hand isn't interested in delivering a simple plot. Rather, each of her characters stands on their own, facing individual tests of faith and endurance, their encounters unexpectedly fraught with unresolved issues. Jack is an enterprising literary editor whose magazine is going defunct along with the rest of the world; he's also HIV positive, dying from within, and haunted by the losses he sees all around him as well as those he lost to AIDS. One of his best friends and former lovers, Leonard- arguably, the most vivid, unnerving character in the book - is a Warholian photographer / artist, whose morbid muti-media endeavors to document the eradication of the natural world and extinction of species vies with his manic pursuit of the mysterious, including an enigmatic elixir that might cure HIV but also produces unexpectedly creepy side-effects. Trip Marlowe is a Christian rock star, in vogue with apocalyptic sects flourishing in the doomsday scenario of the glimmering, whose life is turned inside out by an encounter with a nymph-like siren. Martin is a man dying of AIDS in a segregated survivalist community in Maine, who rescues Trip and embarks on a doomed quest to escape his own tragedy.

While not an easy book to read, Hand's writing is sublime, devoid of pat answers or sentimentalized conclusions. Written during the AIDS pandemic, the book might be seen as a science fiction parable on the very real loss of life experienced during that terrible time. Her depictions of the ravages of HIV, both upon the body and the spirit, are poetically rendered; she knows this disease, what it quenches from within and without, and readers familiar with HIV will find themselves choking up. Her sweeping, panoramic view of New York under an onslaught of decline beneath roiling hellish skies is also breathtaking, as are her portrayals of feral youth squatting in decrepit buildings, rich citizens bathing in the artificial sunlight of an immense pyramid structure built in the heart of Manhattan, and all the fashionable gewgaws that decorate a collapsing society. Even her terrorists are fascinating - ecological warriors, bent on fighting for nature by blowing up humanity and abetting the disaster in progress. Here, Hand truly excels, her powers of description intense and kaleidoscopic.

GLIMMERING is difficult to define. Is it an apocalyptic warning of what we might do to ourselves? It is a condemnation of the indifference to the plight of those who died of AIDS? Is it both or neither? What propels the narrative is Hand's exquisite rendering of her flawed and fallible characters, each of whom, in his or her own way, yearns to feel love one last time before everything ends. It is in the hearts of her characters where she excavates the heart of her story, but the reader must persevere, and that's asking a lot of those easily dismayed by gloom.

A gem of a novel, if a dark one.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Glimmering, Elizabeth Hand imagines an apocalyptic, but not cataclysmic end of the end. It's like the difference between dying on the sidewalk from a massive heart attack & dying in inches from Alzheimer's in your own bed; the destination is the same, but the path is pretty different.

This is not a book about plot. If you need your reads to be tightly plotted, this isn't the one for you. If, however, you love character, place, time, & beautiful descriptive writing you'll enjoy this.

I'm very fond of Hand. Waking the Moon is one of my all-time favorite reads - one I return to again & again for it's beautiful story of what it's like to lose that one true love & survive it to love again. Sounds way cornier than it is since that leaves out the college setting, the ancient orders of paternalistic vs. maternalistic societies, The Benandati (the paternalistic movers & shakers behind the scenes of the world since ancient times), & the simple pleasures of Washington, DC.

Glimmering is a very different novel than Waking the Moon, but it has many of the elements that make Hand's writing a pleasure - strong imagery, coherent worldview, words that taste good. She has an uncanny ability to mix goth, raver, & cyberpunk elements while retaining a sense of inclusiveness that makes this work a pleasure to read.

I also appreciate that she writes frankly & honestly about homosexuality without stereotyping or caricaturing or delimiting. In Hand's books, homosexuality is normalized as just another fact about a character rather than put on display as a centralizing & defining trait. She isn't necessarily using homosexuality to illustrate a point, but rather creating a world where it's as much a part of life as heterosexuality. Since that's the world I choose to live in (real or not), I appreciate this element in her books.

Glimmering doesn't provide any comfortable answers nor does it wrap up any simple plot twists in a bow for presentation to the reader. Instead it takes us on a journey through what the end of the end may look like. To quote Kurt Cobain, "Here we are now. Entertain us."

[Laughinglioness · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will probably just return this to the library unfinished - I've gotten to the stage of jumping ahead and looking for the part where it starts to make sense.

The beautiful, almost magical writing that Hand exhibited in her collection of short stories is nowhere to be found in this story (or rather I haven't found it so far). Granted it Glimmering is meant to be more of a cyberpunk sort of tale, but this doesn't explain prose that is choppy, a plot that is dysfunctional and characters that I simply can't connect with from page one.

Not to mention that one of the scenes I jumped ahead to was the sort of sex scene that makes one wonder why anyone would bother in the first place.

But, I won't give up on her just yet - the short stories were simply too compelling, I am hoping that one of her other books is better crafted. I truly wasn't expecting to dislike it this much or even to write such a scathing review!

[Alice Sabo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm having trouble rating this book. There is a lot about it that I don't like, and yet it stays with me. The characters aren't heroic and the prose is a bit too lyrical for my taste, but the message works. The earth is dying and people just plow through it all, living their lives. What else can they do? It's depressing and hopeful at the same time. Whimsical and innovative description of death and desolation, of men lonely and moribund. I found it distant and too intimate at the same time. The plot foundered a bit under the burden of description, but perhaps that just not my cup of tea.

[MargaretDH · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this! It's a speculative novel about what might happen if the ozone layer had been destroyed, and the ways in which society might have collapsed or not collapsed. A lot of it is fairly prescient! I also read an update edition, in which Hand did some editing for length and changed the ending slightly.

But this was still way too long and populated by too many unlikable characters who didn't at least have particularly interesting motivations or arcs. I read this because after reading Radiant Days, which I adored, I added a whole bunch of Hand books to my list of things to buy if they go on sale, looking to see if I could find another Hand book that I liked as much. Unfortunately, this is not it!

Though the premise is interesting, and it's cool to see that things that Hand foresaw and the things she missed, I don't think this is worth picking up.

[Ryandake · Rating 4 out of 5]

until this book, i've had a streak of bad book luck lately... but now the book universe is righted by this very good book.

but it's also a very sad book, and not just because of the dystopian parts.

this book is made up of and iced and decorated like a 10-layer cake of grief. two of the main characters are gay men with AIDS; one is a gay man without AIDS, but is possibly a nutjob; and one is a young heterosexual man of deeply suppressed sexuality (and everything else).

their paths cross and intertwine in a world facing doom--atmospheric, plague-ridden, climatological. they're not out trying to Save the World--the world is long beyond the efforts of any small group of humans--so we readers are spared the nausea-inducing Hollywood Hero Effect. these guys are just trying to get by, each in their own corners of New York.

the characterizations in this book are wonderful, passionate, deeply emotional. it's really the best part of the book, getting to know these folks. Hand does a fabulous job of making real, three-dimensional people for us to care about. she takes us on a journey through each of their hearts, showing us the fine shadings of love, lust, longing, and heartrending grief. it's an emotional tour de force.

but the unrelenting apocalypse unfolding upon the earth... the warped daffodils that bloom months early, the birds that drop out of the sky, even the ridiculousness of christmas trees... these are all too big. one is helpless before them. that makes this book a painful read.

quite worthwhile, in the end. but don't approach it thinking that somebody's going to pull a miracle out of their ass.

and i bet you'll never look at stars the same again.

[Piers Hollott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just such a great book. I've loved Liz Hand's books since first reading Winterlong, and I enjoyed the byzantine exuberance of those early SF stories, in particular the short stories in Mars Hill. Glimmering provides a good half-way point between the early SF and the later modern day urban horror and historical pieces. Essentially, it starts with the premise of, what if everything started going wrong, all at once. For some reason, this book reminds me of Bruce Sterling's Heavy Weather, another book that I would recommend not because it is my favorite book that he has written, but because is bridges a gap between the futuristic and the contemporary; both authors blur the distinction between these two categories incredibly effectively.

I have owned more than a couple copies of this book. It's a book I like to give away.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Judging from other reviews, this book is one whose style doesn't appeal to everyone, but as a fan of Hand's work I am one of the ones who does. Whilst I might prefer 'Winterlong' - 'Glimmering' reminds me of the prose from that book and the descriptive nature is one that really builds the dreamlike atmosphere and ragged end of the world feel that is needed. Its not so much a book about appreciating one character over another, but how people's lives link together - the missed meetings and partings, the attempts at empathy and rejection.

[Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Do not read this book. I repeat, DO not read this book. It took me over an hour to plow through the first 30 pages. I was excited to read a post-apocalyptic book but was quickly disappointed by the long winded style of the author. Attention to all budding writers out there: A thesaurus is NOT your best friend. I don't care how many big words you use if you never get to the point. I don't need a detailed account about the history of a grandfather clock that a character just happens to walk past. There are so many great books out there, don't waste your time with this one.

[Sarena · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read that this book was disjunctive and jumped around a lot, every other chapter went back and forth between 2 converging stories. I liked the format and looked forward to what was next. There were many interesting visuals as to THE END, however, when I reached the end of the end, my only response was hmmmmh. Maybe I missed something, there in the last few pages or was it really, seriously anti-climatic.

[SSteppenwolFF · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was really disappointed in this book that I had high expectations for . Which is strange because Elizabeth Hand wrote some of my favorite books , The Winterlong Trilogy: Winterlong, Aestival Tide, and Icarus Descending .

[Jeremy Glazman · Rating 2 out of 5]

All of the work Hand put into building an interesting world, that could certainly host many entertaining and meaningful stories, is destroyed by awful characters with confusing motivations and a plot that hinges entirely on coincidences, each one more unbelievable than the previous.

[Jeannine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange and surreal...a perfect Y2K book.

[Jennifer James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about a very possible future. It's a great cyber punk kind of book.

[Matthew Berg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had origionally read this book a long time ago; probably not long after the original publication date, north of twenty years ago. When I checked the book out of the library, I had been unaware it was a more contemporary revised addition.

I'm going to start out by saying, I am not a particular fan of that process. The changes made to reconcile the premise of the book with modern theories on climate change was glaringly obvious and lacking in both subtlely and nuance. Further, I suspect that twenty years hence the revised text will be just as dated as the original text but will no longer be a reflection of the author's original intent or the era of its authorship.

The author did not explore other changes with as much specificity, but there were specific references to contemporary popular culture that may conceivably have been in the original text, but struck me as late additions; e.g. a reference to Rent, which was certainly contemporary to the time period, but was still off-broadway at the time of the original publication, so was unlikely in the original text.

The ending was also apparently altered, and with the delta between my readings, the exacts of the original ending are elusive in my memory, so I cannot wholly render my opinion there, though I gather the new ending was more upbeat (which I generally dislike in my apocolyptic fiction).

That said, the elements that drew me back to the book in the first place were still intact. The author has a talent for creating compelling characters and an intriguing imagination. There is less cohesion here than in some of her other novels, and some plot threads are introduced with less than satisfying conclusions, but there is plenty still to recommend a reading.

[Stephen Poltz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finishing this book completes my challenge of reading a dozen books by the prolific Elizabeths of Science Fiction and Fantasy. This is the third book by Hand I read for the challenge. While her other books were fantasy and horror, this was science fiction. It concerns an apocalyptic event which sets the atmosphere on fire, creating a glimmering of colors. The society begins to decay and rival groups vie for power. It is a rather depressing book, but Hand takes it interesting places with a mix of gay and straight characters trying to survive in a nightmarish world. This book was nominated for a 1998 Arthur C Clarke award.

Come visit my blog for the full review…
https://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspo...

[Brandon Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn’t recommend starting with this if you haven’t read anything else by Elizabeth Hand....as always the writing is lyrical and the characters are fully realized, but this is definitely more mood/character driven instead of a traditional plot. My only criticism is the ending...I’m still working my way through Hand’s oeuvre, but I’ve noticed the endings of her longer books (Waking The Moon, Winterlong, etc.) aren’t as satisfying as Mortal Love and Black Light. I just wish she would give the characters a happy ending after making me fall in love with them. All in all, this is a solid 4 stars though.

[Kitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like I went out for popcorn and missed something. A lot of untied loose ends, and some things that just didn't make sense at all. I love Elizabeth Hand, and I think this was the only book of hers I hadn't read. I am part of a reading challenge which had apocalypse as one of the categories. I figured this fit. The timing is certainly weird: a year into a pandemic, post-Trump, and nothing in this novel seems far-fetched by comparison. Some things were eerily similar. The ending is a little too close to 9/11 for comfort. So for overall performance 2 stars, but Elizabeth Hand as Nostradamus gets one more star.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had such high hopes for this and was so disappointed. There are scenes that are great and I love the apocalyptic feel, but it just never came together. Honestly, if someone asked me what it was about and what exactly the glimmering is, I couldn't tell them. And I hated that people just fell in love when they met, with no actual connection--the romances were dull and unbelievable. And if you hadn't read Hand's short stories (fortunately I had), you'd be completely baffled by one of the characters who she borrows from there.

[Conrad Zero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whomever compared Elizabeth Hand's writing to Steven King was flat-out wrong. Elizabeth's descriptive writing is much better, and her plotting and resolution much worse. Those who want to taste the bright and colorful Y2K dystopia ala Shadowrun will enjoy this book. Those who want a story that builds tension and gives a satisfying climax of resolution at the end will want to look elsewhere.

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

where has this been all my life ? ! ?

Have loved Elizabeth Hand since I first found Waking The Moon back in the . . late nineties? Early aughts? Just got and read Glimmering via an Amazon kindle email and I absolutely love it. The eerie deaths head dance of climate catastrophe woven with abstract designs of art and love and~hope, of all the crazy things.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written but I won’t read it again. There wasn’t one character I liked or cared about, and the apocalyptic setting is only too familiar these days. I’ll be re-reading Waking the Moon instead.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elizabeth Hand's writing is beautiful, her characters absorbing and her settings wonderfully descriptive and weird. I'm always engaged by her prose but in this case it wasn't quite enough to mitigate my disappointment of the way the book ended.

[Mossymo]

Another day another crush on a character from a book no one has read. Leonard was a delight of a character, a cassandra delighting in it. The book's prose was beautiful and heartbreaking.

Half apocalypse novel and half about the apocalypse already happening for queer people, where what kills most of our character's was already there before the end of the end even began.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hated the ending.

[Marnie Z · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't finish..

[Raz O'Xane]

Basically, crass porn with void in-between.

[Julie Shiel · Rating 2 out of 5]

75% before I DNR'd it.

[Silver · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was certainly a very different, and very strange book with a lot going on within it as it seems Hand crosses over through several different genres. In reading it I could not help but to think of The House of the Seven Gables meets Post-Apocalypse.

The world is on the brink of collapse, with global warming, the destruction of the ozone layer, and an event everyone calls the Glimmering, the earth is dying. Disease runs rampid and there seems to be a sort of anarchy within the streets. And amid of this there are bizarre and seemingly supernatural events which take place.

The book is told in two main plot lines that begin to intersect with each other. The first story resolves around Jack Finnegan, middle aged man who inherited his grandfathers wealth and estate (which is a mansion that does very much remind of the House of Seven Gables) coping with the fact that he is dying of aids, and struggling still to get over his old lover Leonard Thorpe. Leonard Thorpe is a seems to be a destructive force who reeks havoc in the lives of everyone he encounters, and is apparently lacking in any moral scruples.

The second story revolves around Trip Marlowe, who is a pop icon superstar as lead singer of a Xian rock band, in spite of his rock star status he is kept in a sheltered existence by his religiously conservative mangers who are bent on protecting his Christian reputation. But Trip's world is turned upside down when he agrees to make a deal with Agrippa records and their CEO Nellie Candry seems to have her own ulterior motives.