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Stamping Butterflies
From acclaimed author Jon Courtenay Grimwood comes an exotic new novel that defies expectation at every turn. A mystery, a thriller, and a cutting-edge sci-fi adventure all in one, Stamping Butterflies bends time, genre, and consciousness itself to tell the spellbinding story of two worlds, three lives, one future–and the question upon which everything depends: who is dreaming whom....
From Marrakech to China’s Forbidden City, from a doomed starship carrying a cryogenically preserved crew to an island prison camp, the fate of the world is being played out in the minds of two dreamers. One, a would-be assassin obsessed with enigmatic equations, has set out to kill the U.S. President. The other is a young Chinese emperor ruling thousands of years in the future. Each believes he is dreaming the other. One must change the future; one must change the past. And time is running out for both.
Caught in the maelstrom is a motley cast of characters, each an unwitting key to the ultimate fate of both worlds: Moz, a resourceful young Marrakech street punk, and his half-German girlfriend, Malika; Jake Razor, a self-exiled rock star; and psychiatrist Katie Petrov, who finds herself racing against a looming death sentence to pry free the secret of her condemned patient–a secret with the power to restore hope to the future...or stamp it out forever.
From Marrakech to China’s Forbidden City, from a doomed starship carrying a cryogenically preserved crew to an island prison camp, the fate of the world is being played out in the minds of two dreamers. One, a would-be assassin obsessed with enigmatic equations, has set out to kill the U.S. President. The other is a young Chinese emperor ruling thousands of years in the future. Each believes he is dreaming the other. One must change the future; one must change the past. And time is running out for both.
Caught in the maelstrom is a motley cast of characters, each an unwitting key to the ultimate fate of both worlds: Moz, a resourceful young Marrakech street punk, and his half-German girlfriend, Malika; Jake Razor, a self-exiled rock star; and psychiatrist Katie Petrov, who finds herself racing against a looming death sentence to pry free the secret of her condemned patient–a secret with the power to restore hope to the future...or stamp it out forever.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
7 people are currently reading
286 people want to read
About the author
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
55 books204 followers'Tough, sexy and brutal, but leavened with sharp humour... Grimwood is a name to watch.' The Times
Jon Courtenay Grimwood was born in Malta and christened in the upturned bell of a ship. He grew up in the Far East, Britain and Scandinavia. Apart from novels he writes for magazines and newspapers. He travels extensively and undertakes a certain amount of consulting. Until recently he wrote a monthly review column for the Guardian.
Felaheen, the third of his novels featuring Asraf Bey, a half-Berber detective, won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. So did his last book, End of the World Blues, about a British sniper on the run from Iraq and running an Irish bar in Tokyo. He has just delivered the Fallen Blade, the first of three novels set in an alternate 15th-century Venice
His work is published in French, German, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Finnish and American, among others
He is married to the journalist and novelist Sam Baker, currently editor-in-chief of Red magazine. They divide their time between London and Winchester...
Jon Courtenay Grimwood was born in Malta and christened in the upturned bell of a ship. He grew up in the Far East, Britain and Scandinavia. Apart from novels he writes for magazines and newspapers. He travels extensively and undertakes a certain amount of consulting. Until recently he wrote a monthly review column for the Guardian.
Felaheen, the third of his novels featuring Asraf Bey, a half-Berber detective, won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. So did his last book, End of the World Blues, about a British sniper on the run from Iraq and running an Irish bar in Tokyo. He has just delivered the Fallen Blade, the first of three novels set in an alternate 15th-century Venice
His work is published in French, German, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Finnish and American, among others
He is married to the journalist and novelist Sam Baker, currently editor-in-chief of Red magazine. They divide their time between London and Winchester...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
August 30, 2018
You've just tried to kill the US President and now you're under arrest while awaiting execution. But you're not worried because you know if the Chinese emperor in the far future wakes up in time, you'll be okay. What?
I don't know if that's the best way to describe the plot but then I'm not really sure what the best way to describe it is, which is . . . not promising? The back cover copy depicts a fairly interesting scenario where an assassin in the present day dreams about the aforementioned Chinese emperor who also appears to be dreaming him . . . and only reality can survive. And a handful of people are key to the outcome of all this, in ways perhaps they don't understand. Which puts me in the same boat as them.
Having read Grimwood's "Arabesk Trilogy" recently and, despite some criticisms (generally involving things being unnecessarily opaque at times), enjoyed them overall, I was looking forward to this one. Being a "Doctor Who" fan almost automatically makes me a fan of time travely stuff and while I'm not going to consult with a physicist to figure out how accurate the science, I don't mind when things are theoretically plausible.
Here, the science that's fine, its everything else that seems to be stretching things. While the book description foretells a trippy scenario with an ambiance both gritty and dreamlike that's not really what we get. What we do get is a plot split into three different sections . . . in the present day section we have the unnamed assassin in prison, not talking while everyone tries to figure out who he is and why he tried to kill the President, eventually dragging in a young psychiatrist. In the past we meet a young boy Moz living in Marrakesh and dealing with the criminal element as well as punk star Jake Razor. And in the future we have the Chinese emperor and all the futury stuff that goes with that.
Sound good? Good. Now imagine those three plots basically running parallel with very little hint that any of them are ever going to connect and you essentially have the book. Which would be okay if the plots themselves had anything to hold our interest but beyond fleeting flirtations with momentum and direction they just sort of meander along, like some kind of weird contest where one plot is waiting for the others to do something first before it moves and everyone gets stuck in a holding pattern no one wants to break. The past stuff in Marrakesh mostly features Moz interacting with various people and trying not to get killed . . . and that's kind of it. The present story with the captured assassin seems like it should be the place where most of the alleged "storying" is happening but it just sort of meanders to. The prisoner doesn't speak for a good chunk of the book and mostly does weird stuff that suggests he's unbalanced so you have a young psychiatrist having the literary equivalent of talking to a wall for pages on end. Until the book seems to get tired of her (despite her being listed as a main character) and brings in an older psychiatrist who suddenly makes progress (probably because she's dying, which automatically makes you smarter).
In the midst of that we have stabs at political maneuvering with the President and CIA and military all trying to decide what to do with the prisoner in terms of going through with his execution . . . which again, could be exciting but its like Grimwood took C-SPAN as his inspiration for a political thriller and then thought adding unbalanced silent people who don't pass any legislation but hint at breakthroughs in mathematics would be the right mix.
And then to break up the excitement of nothing happening we cut to the future scenes, which mostly verge on incoherent. His imagination is interesting but its so divorced from the rest of the book that its hard to figure out why its even there. The connections are as clear as the fine print at a lawyer convention and so it often seems that the main purpose of those chapters is to vamp until the plot is supposed to connect . . . something that feels even more apparent when a random character pops up most of the way through the book and seems to gain some importance even though its not clear why.
So it goes. Its not that long into the book that you start asking where he's going with all this and while his writing is good enough that you can give him a lot of rope and the benefit of the doubt, my patience in particular isn't going to last forever. The end result feels murky and opaque, a bunch of people floundering about in a dark room trying to describe the proverbial elephant via descriptions of colors as if the act of description is the most important thing and not explaining how an elephant even got into the room in the first place.
The ambition is there, the imagination is there, heck, even his prose is worthy. But without the connections being clear throughout we have to take it on faith that this is going to tie together somehow and end result appears to be . . . not really? Without a sense of the stakes involved its just three detached stories about people that aren't unlikeable but also aren't that compelling. Its possible that taking one or even two of these stories and filling them out might have made for a better book (and at times it feels like he had good ideas for the past and present threads and merely threw in the future stuff to spice things up) but having three just dilutes the pool too much and nobody winds up benefiting. With a more mysterious sense of atmosphere it might have gone down as a trippy bit of thought provoking fun but too often its like taking three random houses on my street that don't talk to each other and trying to write an all-encompassing story about them. I like my neighbors but often the only time our stories connect is by accident when we get each other's mail. Other than that, none of us belong in the same book and that's the case here too.
I don't know if that's the best way to describe the plot but then I'm not really sure what the best way to describe it is, which is . . . not promising? The back cover copy depicts a fairly interesting scenario where an assassin in the present day dreams about the aforementioned Chinese emperor who also appears to be dreaming him . . . and only reality can survive. And a handful of people are key to the outcome of all this, in ways perhaps they don't understand. Which puts me in the same boat as them.
Having read Grimwood's "Arabesk Trilogy" recently and, despite some criticisms (generally involving things being unnecessarily opaque at times), enjoyed them overall, I was looking forward to this one. Being a "Doctor Who" fan almost automatically makes me a fan of time travely stuff and while I'm not going to consult with a physicist to figure out how accurate the science, I don't mind when things are theoretically plausible.
Here, the science that's fine, its everything else that seems to be stretching things. While the book description foretells a trippy scenario with an ambiance both gritty and dreamlike that's not really what we get. What we do get is a plot split into three different sections . . . in the present day section we have the unnamed assassin in prison, not talking while everyone tries to figure out who he is and why he tried to kill the President, eventually dragging in a young psychiatrist. In the past we meet a young boy Moz living in Marrakesh and dealing with the criminal element as well as punk star Jake Razor. And in the future we have the Chinese emperor and all the futury stuff that goes with that.
Sound good? Good. Now imagine those three plots basically running parallel with very little hint that any of them are ever going to connect and you essentially have the book. Which would be okay if the plots themselves had anything to hold our interest but beyond fleeting flirtations with momentum and direction they just sort of meander along, like some kind of weird contest where one plot is waiting for the others to do something first before it moves and everyone gets stuck in a holding pattern no one wants to break. The past stuff in Marrakesh mostly features Moz interacting with various people and trying not to get killed . . . and that's kind of it. The present story with the captured assassin seems like it should be the place where most of the alleged "storying" is happening but it just sort of meanders to. The prisoner doesn't speak for a good chunk of the book and mostly does weird stuff that suggests he's unbalanced so you have a young psychiatrist having the literary equivalent of talking to a wall for pages on end. Until the book seems to get tired of her (despite her being listed as a main character) and brings in an older psychiatrist who suddenly makes progress (probably because she's dying, which automatically makes you smarter).
In the midst of that we have stabs at political maneuvering with the President and CIA and military all trying to decide what to do with the prisoner in terms of going through with his execution . . . which again, could be exciting but its like Grimwood took C-SPAN as his inspiration for a political thriller and then thought adding unbalanced silent people who don't pass any legislation but hint at breakthroughs in mathematics would be the right mix.
And then to break up the excitement of nothing happening we cut to the future scenes, which mostly verge on incoherent. His imagination is interesting but its so divorced from the rest of the book that its hard to figure out why its even there. The connections are as clear as the fine print at a lawyer convention and so it often seems that the main purpose of those chapters is to vamp until the plot is supposed to connect . . . something that feels even more apparent when a random character pops up most of the way through the book and seems to gain some importance even though its not clear why.
So it goes. Its not that long into the book that you start asking where he's going with all this and while his writing is good enough that you can give him a lot of rope and the benefit of the doubt, my patience in particular isn't going to last forever. The end result feels murky and opaque, a bunch of people floundering about in a dark room trying to describe the proverbial elephant via descriptions of colors as if the act of description is the most important thing and not explaining how an elephant even got into the room in the first place.
The ambition is there, the imagination is there, heck, even his prose is worthy. But without the connections being clear throughout we have to take it on faith that this is going to tie together somehow and end result appears to be . . . not really? Without a sense of the stakes involved its just three detached stories about people that aren't unlikeable but also aren't that compelling. Its possible that taking one or even two of these stories and filling them out might have made for a better book (and at times it feels like he had good ideas for the past and present threads and merely threw in the future stuff to spice things up) but having three just dilutes the pool too much and nobody winds up benefiting. With a more mysterious sense of atmosphere it might have gone down as a trippy bit of thought provoking fun but too often its like taking three random houses on my street that don't talk to each other and trying to write an all-encompassing story about them. I like my neighbors but often the only time our stories connect is by accident when we get each other's mail. Other than that, none of us belong in the same book and that's the case here too.
June 25, 2011
2.5 Stars
Some very intriguing science fiction elements are diluted over a long and somewhat tedious read. Like other Grimwood novels this book requires a patient and dedicated reader. His novels are often times difficult, confusing, and tough to discern or describe. They also offer a great payoff of unique, intelligent, and thought provoking material to the reader with the will to move on and push through the parts that try to stifle them.
Three time-lines all inter-twined through our space time continuum, even though the connections are not black and white.
The novel really to me plays like a literary piece of artwork, where it does not always make sense, have a purpose or meaning, and the reader is left to their own imaginations to fill in a plot.
I liked much of this book, but at around 60% I lost interest in the characters. This made finishing this book quite a chore and I was worried that it would ultimately make me despise the time that I wasted. I love Grimwood's writing style. I applaud the thought provoking aspects to his science fiction. His world building is top notch, and his characters are not cardboard cutouts.
The ending did not live up to my expectations, as I was really looking for something to make my hard efforts worth their while. But, all in all I like and recommend Jon Courtney Grimwood as an author, I just did not find anything memorable or worthwhile in this one.
Some very intriguing science fiction elements are diluted over a long and somewhat tedious read. Like other Grimwood novels this book requires a patient and dedicated reader. His novels are often times difficult, confusing, and tough to discern or describe. They also offer a great payoff of unique, intelligent, and thought provoking material to the reader with the will to move on and push through the parts that try to stifle them.
Three time-lines all inter-twined through our space time continuum, even though the connections are not black and white.
The novel really to me plays like a literary piece of artwork, where it does not always make sense, have a purpose or meaning, and the reader is left to their own imaginations to fill in a plot.
I liked much of this book, but at around 60% I lost interest in the characters. This made finishing this book quite a chore and I was worried that it would ultimately make me despise the time that I wasted. I love Grimwood's writing style. I applaud the thought provoking aspects to his science fiction. His world building is top notch, and his characters are not cardboard cutouts.
The ending did not live up to my expectations, as I was really looking for something to make my hard efforts worth their while. But, all in all I like and recommend Jon Courtney Grimwood as an author, I just did not find anything memorable or worthwhile in this one.
January 12, 2009
One third of this book is mostly standard thriller best-seller fare, maybe with a slightly liberal slant. Including the fast and sexy fictional life of the people in power. This interested me only marginally.
Another third is a series of flash-backs on the life of a poor mixed race Moroccan boy and his friends and enemies. This one is well done and at times even moving, though the punchlines (there are a couple) were telegraphed away.
The last third is in a galaxy far far away in the far future, in an incongruous pseudo-Chinese setting, but its roots still lie in that same Moroccan boy. It gets tiresome at times how the characters act like puppets. Weak, too.
The mesh is not perfect, and the fact that some parts are nor very interesting or even well told compound the problem. Having read End of the world blues earlier, a later book where JC Grimwood meshes much better a current time story with a fantasy thread, it makes this imperfect mixing more noticeable.
In brief, an interesting linked story book, with some failings however in the stories.
Another third is a series of flash-backs on the life of a poor mixed race Moroccan boy and his friends and enemies. This one is well done and at times even moving, though the punchlines (there are a couple) were telegraphed away.
The last third is in a galaxy far far away in the far future, in an incongruous pseudo-Chinese setting, but its roots still lie in that same Moroccan boy. It gets tiresome at times how the characters act like puppets. Weak, too.
The mesh is not perfect, and the fact that some parts are nor very interesting or even well told compound the problem. Having read End of the world blues earlier, a later book where JC Grimwood meshes much better a current time story with a fantasy thread, it makes this imperfect mixing more noticeable.
In brief, an interesting linked story book, with some failings however in the stories.
Read
August 12, 2011I've never read anything by David Lynch before and after having read the reviews on the book I thought that this would be something i'd enjoy.
I found the story bizarrely random and often wondered whether the author was on something when writing this novel.
The three main storylines weaved into each so much I found it rather hard to follow what was happening, who the characters were and what on earth was happening!
After wondering whether it was worth continuing with or not, i'm glad I did. Finally towards the end, the stories became much clearer and the ending was was the icing on the cake. It would be interesting to see how this book could be developed for the screen. It would certainly help me get a clearer idead on the characters, places and general plot.
I would compare this book to The Fountain as I was still left wondering what i'd read when I finished that book as well.
I found the story bizarrely random and often wondered whether the author was on something when writing this novel.
The three main storylines weaved into each so much I found it rather hard to follow what was happening, who the characters were and what on earth was happening!
After wondering whether it was worth continuing with or not, i'm glad I did. Finally towards the end, the stories became much clearer and the ending was was the icing on the cake. It would be interesting to see how this book could be developed for the screen. It would certainly help me get a clearer idead on the characters, places and general plot.
I would compare this book to The Fountain as I was still left wondering what i'd read when I finished that book as well.
October 2, 2008
I still don't really understand this book. I understand that there is a time continuum but the way the author tries to weave the story is extremely confusing for me...it didn't work.
November 2, 2023
3.5⭐
Ok, well, a lot to unpack here.
There are three separate story streams (past, present, far future) happening here. So of course you know they have to intersect at some point. Interestingly, I found the 3 individual stories to be stronger and more engaging than the sum of their parts. It was weirdly predictable and yet frustratingly obtuse and slow in coming together. I think you don't even get any king of hint of their possible connections until the final quarter of the book, and even then they are the vaguest of story-morsels. They only really come together in about the last 5 pages of the novel, and then they weirdly and abruptly end. Most frustrating.
I think the strongest storyline was that of the boy Moz, set in 70s Morocco. I wanted a whole book of just this main character and his friends, family, and life. Second strongest was a great foil to the abject poverty of dusty Marrakech, being set in the far FAR future of the adolescent, petulant Emperor of All, Zaq. Society is based on an interesting mix of ancient Chinese culture where we're not entirely sure of who and what may be human, post-human, AI, or post-singularity life. Weakest storyline was that of the 'present' (or what was the present when the book was written in 2004) which has a pseudo-terrorist-espionage plotline that I found more frustrating than engaging.
Eventually. Eventually these three storylines will tie together, but oh yeah, you need some patience for this one. And I am a huge fan of time-reality challenging plotlines (I'm looking at you Cloud Atlas and Light, Nova Swing.)
Across these three timelines we have a whole host of themes... maybe too many...? Dreaming vs Reality. Extreme poverty. Child abuse. AI vs Humanity. Self-identity vs fate. Post humanity. Maybe hyper-advanced-alien-life or maybe not? Terrorism (capitalizing a bit on 9/11 fears) and America's penchant for torture. Self-determinism. Social media amped beyond our wildest dreams/fears. The Singularity. Body horror and modification.
That is a lot of heady ideas going on in a single novel.
So, I liked it... But.... I wanted to like it so much more.
Ok, well, a lot to unpack here.
There are three separate story streams (past, present, far future) happening here. So of course you know they have to intersect at some point. Interestingly, I found the 3 individual stories to be stronger and more engaging than the sum of their parts. It was weirdly predictable and yet frustratingly obtuse and slow in coming together. I think you don't even get any king of hint of their possible connections until the final quarter of the book, and even then they are the vaguest of story-morsels. They only really come together in about the last 5 pages of the novel, and then they weirdly and abruptly end. Most frustrating.
I think the strongest storyline was that of the boy Moz, set in 70s Morocco. I wanted a whole book of just this main character and his friends, family, and life. Second strongest was a great foil to the abject poverty of dusty Marrakech, being set in the far FAR future of the adolescent, petulant Emperor of All, Zaq. Society is based on an interesting mix of ancient Chinese culture where we're not entirely sure of who and what may be human, post-human, AI, or post-singularity life. Weakest storyline was that of the 'present' (or what was the present when the book was written in 2004) which has a pseudo-terrorist-espionage plotline that I found more frustrating than engaging.
Eventually. Eventually these three storylines will tie together, but oh yeah, you need some patience for this one. And I am a huge fan of time-reality challenging plotlines (I'm looking at you Cloud Atlas and Light, Nova Swing.)
Across these three timelines we have a whole host of themes... maybe too many...? Dreaming vs Reality. Extreme poverty. Child abuse. AI vs Humanity. Self-identity vs fate. Post humanity. Maybe hyper-advanced-alien-life or maybe not? Terrorism (capitalizing a bit on 9/11 fears) and America's penchant for torture. Self-determinism. Social media amped beyond our wildest dreams/fears. The Singularity. Body horror and modification.
That is a lot of heady ideas going on in a single novel.
So, I liked it... But.... I wanted to like it so much more.
July 30, 2020
There are distinct parts of this book, evincing disparate affects. I much prefer the sections involving 1970s North Africa, which are convincing, powerful and effective. The other parts are exotic and vivid, but more esoteric and rarefied, far more sci-fiey.
It's a solid effort, but be prepared to spread your mind in order to encompass the whole.
It's a solid effort, but be prepared to spread your mind in order to encompass the whole.
December 17, 2024
Too clever for me.
I enjoyed the Marrakech timeline but the sci fi bit didn't work for me.
I wasn't convinced that the connection worked even at the end.
Interesting idea but ultimately the payoff didn't justify the long journey.
I enjoyed the Marrakech timeline but the sci fi bit didn't work for me.
I wasn't convinced that the connection worked even at the end.
Interesting idea but ultimately the payoff didn't justify the long journey.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 16, 2021
Great location detail and characters. Struggled a bit with the fragmented time chapters but still enjoyed it
January 15, 2023
4.0 Stars
August 11, 2023
its a 3 pronged story (past,present'future) it obfuscates too much. i tried to love it as something profound but it never quite made it
May 31, 2012
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.
I picked up John Courtenay Grimwood’s Stamping Butterflies because a trusted fellow reviewer thinks so highly of his work and I thought a stand-alone novel which has just been released in audio format would be an ideal introduction to the author. While I found much to admire about Grimwood’s style, I didn’t enjoy Stamping Butterflies as much as I expect to enjoy some of his other work.
The non-linear three-pronged plot of Stamping Butterflies is ambitious. One part takes place in modern-day United States where Gene Newman, the charismatic U.S. President, refuses to collaborate on a space mission with the Chinese until their government addresses its human rights issues. A sniper, concerned about a Chinese-American partnership, attempts to kill Newman in Marrakech and is caught and sentenced to death. He dreams of a future Chinese emperor and the “darkness” that influences both of them. He’s a genius with mathematics, quantum physics, and theology, so keeping him alive may be the best thing for the U.S. government — if they can get him to talk.
A second plot is set in Marrakech in the 1960s and 1970s. Here, as we explore the city with a couple of teenage street urchins and a rock star named Jake Razor, we relive some of Prisoner Zero’s past and begin to understand how he became a killer. The third part of the plot is set in the far future where, generations before, a Chinese space mission managed to set up an emperor and a computer to rule the future 2023 worlds. The current emperor, whose every move is broadcast live across his bored kingdom, dreams of Prisoner Zero as he waits for his own assassin and wonders which of his surroundings are real and which are computer-generated.
The story seems to jump around almost randomly between these three plot lines. Each has a different flavor — the modern plot feels like a political thriller, the past plot feels like historical fiction, and the future plot feels like cyberpunk. Underneath each lurks the same shadowy organizing principle which the characters refer to as “the darkness”, “the cold”, or “the library.”
I admire the vision, style, and structure of Stamping Butterflies. The characterization is quite good (though I didn’t particularly like the characters) and the places Grimwood takes us come alive. I think I could smell the streets and the food stalls of Marrakech. There is also some awesome scenery, some really cool math and science, and a ride in a racing space yacht called All Tomorrow’s Parties — a nod to William Gibson’s novel which has a similar convoluted structure and is also about a haunted man who can sense eminent world-changing events.
As with Gibson’s novel, I couldn’t manage to get immersed in Stamping Butterflies. Its chapters are presented as random pieces of a puzzle that don’t all fit together until the end (and even then, I’m not sure how snugly they fit), so there’s a constant sense of being lost or not having enough information to be able to just relax and enjoy the story. By the time it all came together (sort of), it was too late. At that point all I could do was sit back and admire the idea and wish I had been more fully engaged much earlier. I’m sure a re-read would be enlightening, but I didn’t like the story well enough to do that. I did, however, really like Grimwood's style and look forward to reading more of his work.
I listened to Audible Frontier’s version of Stamping Butterflies which was read by Noah James Butler. Butler has a nice voice for narration and he mostly gives a good reading. However, the voices he used for some of the characters’ dialogue were unpleasant (especially for female characters) and there were several obvious places where Butler must have made a mistake and a patch was dubbed in. This wasn’t enough to keep me from recommending the audio version of this book, but it wasn’t up to the excellent quality I expect from Audible Frontiers.
I picked up John Courtenay Grimwood’s Stamping Butterflies because a trusted fellow reviewer thinks so highly of his work and I thought a stand-alone novel which has just been released in audio format would be an ideal introduction to the author. While I found much to admire about Grimwood’s style, I didn’t enjoy Stamping Butterflies as much as I expect to enjoy some of his other work.
The non-linear three-pronged plot of Stamping Butterflies is ambitious. One part takes place in modern-day United States where Gene Newman, the charismatic U.S. President, refuses to collaborate on a space mission with the Chinese until their government addresses its human rights issues. A sniper, concerned about a Chinese-American partnership, attempts to kill Newman in Marrakech and is caught and sentenced to death. He dreams of a future Chinese emperor and the “darkness” that influences both of them. He’s a genius with mathematics, quantum physics, and theology, so keeping him alive may be the best thing for the U.S. government — if they can get him to talk.
A second plot is set in Marrakech in the 1960s and 1970s. Here, as we explore the city with a couple of teenage street urchins and a rock star named Jake Razor, we relive some of Prisoner Zero’s past and begin to understand how he became a killer. The third part of the plot is set in the far future where, generations before, a Chinese space mission managed to set up an emperor and a computer to rule the future 2023 worlds. The current emperor, whose every move is broadcast live across his bored kingdom, dreams of Prisoner Zero as he waits for his own assassin and wonders which of his surroundings are real and which are computer-generated.
The story seems to jump around almost randomly between these three plot lines. Each has a different flavor — the modern plot feels like a political thriller, the past plot feels like historical fiction, and the future plot feels like cyberpunk. Underneath each lurks the same shadowy organizing principle which the characters refer to as “the darkness”, “the cold”, or “the library.”
I admire the vision, style, and structure of Stamping Butterflies. The characterization is quite good (though I didn’t particularly like the characters) and the places Grimwood takes us come alive. I think I could smell the streets and the food stalls of Marrakech. There is also some awesome scenery, some really cool math and science, and a ride in a racing space yacht called All Tomorrow’s Parties — a nod to William Gibson’s novel which has a similar convoluted structure and is also about a haunted man who can sense eminent world-changing events.
As with Gibson’s novel, I couldn’t manage to get immersed in Stamping Butterflies. Its chapters are presented as random pieces of a puzzle that don’t all fit together until the end (and even then, I’m not sure how snugly they fit), so there’s a constant sense of being lost or not having enough information to be able to just relax and enjoy the story. By the time it all came together (sort of), it was too late. At that point all I could do was sit back and admire the idea and wish I had been more fully engaged much earlier. I’m sure a re-read would be enlightening, but I didn’t like the story well enough to do that. I did, however, really like Grimwood's style and look forward to reading more of his work.
I listened to Audible Frontier’s version of Stamping Butterflies which was read by Noah James Butler. Butler has a nice voice for narration and he mostly gives a good reading. However, the voices he used for some of the characters’ dialogue were unpleasant (especially for female characters) and there were several obvious places where Butler must have made a mistake and a patch was dubbed in. This wasn’t enough to keep me from recommending the audio version of this book, but it wasn’t up to the excellent quality I expect from Audible Frontiers.
July 9, 2013
This is a strange novel and takes some getting used to, but it is well worth it as the plot gets going, then comes together. There are actually three separate stories, each having alternative chapters and interweaving together to create a great ending. The first is set in Marrakesh in the 1970's and is about a poor boy, Moz, as he struggles to survive in the crime ridden slums. His friend, Malika, is his constant companion, but she has secrets of her own which could destroy them both. He accidentally falls in with a recluse ex-popstar, Jake Razor, and his manager, Celia. Not exactly friends, not exactly lovers, he tries to leave his old life behind to get drowned in theirs, but old enemies and so called friends drag him back into the gutter at every turn.
The second story is in 'present' day. Prisoner Zero, who might be Moz, might be Jake Razor, might be nobody, is arrested after he tries to assinate the American President. He retreats into a silent world, refusing to speak to his 'interviewers', but is still sentanced to die. When he starts to scrawl impossible equations into his own shit, the world relaises that he could be a genius, another Einstein that could change the course of human history. But to Prisoner Zero, locked away on a small island, the only thing that is real is the voice in his head and the dreams of starships, of far away worlds and the darkness.
The third is set in the future where the latest Emperor of the 2023 worlds is going mad. He knows that his Library, which he has nicknamed Darkness, has created a world where nothing is real and all a simulation to keep him happy. He knows that billions of his subjects are tuned into his every move, but refuses to 'perform' for them. An assassin is on the way to the palace, battling through wintery landscapes, talking to ghosts, but the Emperor no longer cares. He has his own plans and dreams, especially the ones involving a solitary man locked away for trying to kill a man that the voice in his head told him to do.
As I mentioned, to start with it takes some getting used to. The stories are so different to each other as first, that the jumping between the two is confusing and disorientating. But slowly, echoes of one story will appear in the others, words or phrases repeated, characters thinking the same thoughts or sharing the same dreams. As you are drawn into the concluding chapters, everything drops suddenly into place and the ending just takes your breath away. Amazing scope, brilliantly written. Well worth reading if you can forge through the beginning.
The second story is in 'present' day. Prisoner Zero, who might be Moz, might be Jake Razor, might be nobody, is arrested after he tries to assinate the American President. He retreats into a silent world, refusing to speak to his 'interviewers', but is still sentanced to die. When he starts to scrawl impossible equations into his own shit, the world relaises that he could be a genius, another Einstein that could change the course of human history. But to Prisoner Zero, locked away on a small island, the only thing that is real is the voice in his head and the dreams of starships, of far away worlds and the darkness.
The third is set in the future where the latest Emperor of the 2023 worlds is going mad. He knows that his Library, which he has nicknamed Darkness, has created a world where nothing is real and all a simulation to keep him happy. He knows that billions of his subjects are tuned into his every move, but refuses to 'perform' for them. An assassin is on the way to the palace, battling through wintery landscapes, talking to ghosts, but the Emperor no longer cares. He has his own plans and dreams, especially the ones involving a solitary man locked away for trying to kill a man that the voice in his head told him to do.
As I mentioned, to start with it takes some getting used to. The stories are so different to each other as first, that the jumping between the two is confusing and disorientating. But slowly, echoes of one story will appear in the others, words or phrases repeated, characters thinking the same thoughts or sharing the same dreams. As you are drawn into the concluding chapters, everything drops suddenly into place and the ending just takes your breath away. Amazing scope, brilliantly written. Well worth reading if you can forge through the beginning.
December 29, 2008
I read this because my friend Brian wants to write a science fiction movie and after talking to him about some preliminary ideas I realized I haven't read any good (or any period) science fiction books in a while. My library devotes all of two shelves to mostly hardcover science fiction and I am biased towards paperback. So I picked this one up mainly based on the fact that it was in paperback and partly based on the fact that it held promises (unfulfilled) of involving punks. Basically has three concurrent stories from different time periods, one about a young boy growing up in Marrakech in the late 1970s, another about a would-be presidential assasin in "the present," and the third in the future, China-ish kind of world. I was somewhat interested in the past story (the least sci fi of the three, not a good thing when craving a sci fi book), mildly interested in the present story (barely sci fi), and annoyed every time he devoted a chapter to the future story. All-in-all a mediocre and overlong story culminating in a decent ending that probably would have made for a better short story than anything else.
Read
October 21, 2007http://www.livejournal.com/users/nhw/... this on Monday night, so it just about counts as my last book of last month. I wasn't overwhelmed by RedRobe, but really very much enjoyed Pashazade, Felaheen and Effendi, Grimwood's trilogy set in an alternate history (but very contemporary) Alexandria where the German and Ottoman empires never fell. This latest combines present day US/western Mediterranean political interactions, a far future empire of two thousand worlds, a near future Chinese space mission, and 1970s Marrakech which is the key to the whole story.[return][return]I love Grimwood's prose and characterisation - he stated at PicoCon the weekend before last how important it is for him to be able to experience the world he is writing, and that is very believable. For most of the book it was able to carry me past the shoals of unsuspended disbelief. I was left at the end just a bit unsatisfied, unfortunately.
June 2, 2013
I picked up John Courtenay Grimwood’s Stamping Butterflies because Marion thinks so highly of his work and I thought a stand-alone novel which has just been released in audio format would be an ideal introduction to the author. While I found much to admire about Grimwood’s style, I didn’t enjoy Stamping Butterflies as much as I expect to enjoy some of his other work.
The non-linear three-pronged plot of Stamping Butterflies is ambitious. One part takes place in modern-day United States where Gene Newman, the charismatic U.S. President, refuses to collaborate on a space mission with the Chinese until their government addresses its human rights issues. A sniper, concerned about a Chinese-American partnership, attempts to kill Newman in ... Read More:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
The non-linear three-pronged plot of Stamping Butterflies is ambitious. One part takes place in modern-day United States where Gene Newman, the charismatic U.S. President, refuses to collaborate on a space mission with the Chinese until their government addresses its human rights issues. A sniper, concerned about a Chinese-American partnership, attempts to kill Newman in ... Read More:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
March 24, 2015
This is a definite "WOW!" book. By playing with time and characters Grimwood creates a brilliant story touching on major themes such as love, guilt, consequences, and the nature of the universe. Unfortunately, not all the characters inhabit this multidimensional reality equally (indeed some are flat and treated so indifferently by the storyline one wonders why they were included at all), and while some characters are deliberately unlikable the pacing and structure prevents them from being readable. In my mind there is also a major hole in the plot never addressed. (I assume intentionally, but the reader isn't given clues to sketch in their own ideas). Ultimately the story triumphs and I'd be surprised by any reader who wasn't immediately compelled to read it again and once the puzzle is complete.
July 17, 2012
Stamping Butterflies revolves around 3 separate plots, all of which are linked, two of them more closely than the third. This structure is always ambitious, however it can be achieved when each individual plot is is interesting enough as a stand alone story, as it is here. For me a certain level of concentration was required to understand how the plots were linked, as there does not seem to be a strict narrative pattern, and the entirety of the links are deliberately not revealed until the end of the novel.
It's an even mix of thriller and sic-fi, and I found myself considering it long after completion. Surely a mark of a good book.
It's an even mix of thriller and sic-fi, and I found myself considering it long after completion. Surely a mark of a good book.
September 28, 2009
A confusing and, to my mind, often badly structured plot that fails to reach any kind of satisfactory conclusion - and I loved it. I would have liked a little more explanation (just a tad, here and there), especially towards the end where we find that Zero is really Moz. I'm still not entirely sure how it was that Moz was able to see the future, or just how the alt-future was averted, but SB was so compellingly written, the characters beautifully drawn. A real page turner (though I'm still not entirely sure why).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 30, 2014
Parts of this book I really enjoyed, but it felt like a bit of a mission to complete it! I enjoyed the past and present narratives and felt they were well written and constructed. However, I really struggled with the Emperor's narrative; it felt massively overcomplicated and, I must admit , I did not fully understand parts. I expected the narratives to fully interlock and then reveal something more. I can see that this was the intention, but again I was really disappointed and quite confused by the overall meaning.
January 19, 2015
Quite a strange book, there are 3 timelines (actually that isn't even strictly accurate, as one of the "timelines" jumps about a bit) that may or may not be interlinked. Hints of time travel. I found the prose a little dense at times which caused my mind to wander a little but it's very artfully done. A very interesting book that doesn't spoonfeed plot but instead gradually reveals itself & how it's component elements relate to one another. In the end I found the book somewhat difficult but rewarding. Feels like something my mind will revisit later.
November 9, 2015
I think I stumbled upon this book while looking to see what else Ken Grimwood ("Replay") had written. This is by a different Grimwood. Still, it takes place in the past, present and future, and it sounded intriguing, so I figured I would give it a try. Note: this book has nothing to do with time travel. At least as far as I can tell. Then again, I have no clue what it is really about, so perhaps I am wrong. But I do not think so. Seriously, I kept reading this hoping it would all make sense to me in the end, but that never happened.
June 13, 2007
While a layman's understanding of string theory can help enhance the impact of some moments in Stamping Butterflies, it is hardly necessary to enjoy the book. Jon Courtenay Grimwood paints compelling characters on a canvas of quantum foam and spherical time. His detailed descriptions of the worlds and cities his characters inhabit create photo-realistic mental images a ready will carry long after the book is closed.
October 31, 2007
Even now, I'm not sure whether I enjoyed this or not. The characters are compelling, the plot is intriguing, the twists are incredibly twisty indeed, but there was something vaguely unsatisfying about the conclusion. All of the threads tied together, but... I suppose just not in the way that I wanted them to, or expected them to.
Still, if you're into time travel, quantum theory, or anything like that, give it a whirl. It might appeal to you.
Still, if you're into time travel, quantum theory, or anything like that, give it a whirl. It might appeal to you.
March 8, 2011
A book that takes place over several time tracks, Stamping Butterflies is intriguing. How do they all combine? The first pages are confusing, then it starts to get more clear. I like Grimwood's rendering of the setting and social structure of Morocco. The future world is a translation of the social inequalities transplanted to another realm.
The last twenty pages don't live up to the promise. Otherwise, it would have been a 5-star book.
The last twenty pages don't live up to the promise. Otherwise, it would have been a 5-star book.
August 7, 2011
Three separate stories in three different times; one in 70s Marrakech another in the 21st century and the last in the far flung future in another part of the galaxy. It takes a long time for the dots to connect but each story is so engaging it doesn't really matter (although it ends up being the icing on teh cake when they do connect). The kind of book you'd expect David Lynch to write and a must for out there non-linear sci-fi fans.
August 15, 2015
Time, causes, effects, consequences. Three stories...then, now, and the future. At first all seemingly unconnected, only to fuse together in a wonderful way. This is a hard book to maneuver through at first...a bit of this, a bit of that. And then, chapter by chapter, the links appear, like a chain, it grows and fuses. I liked this book...a lot. There is no real message, it's just a good story that links moments in time with the future...and then back again.
December 27, 2009
Interesting (sort-of) time travel yarn.
Jon writes great characters ... the parts of the book that focus on Moz and Jake Razor are really strong.
I struggled to maintain interest a bit towards the end of the book as the focus "pulled back" to the bigger picture (and only the continuing unfolding of the more human stories that open the book kept me going).
Jon writes great characters ... the parts of the book that focus on Moz and Jake Razor are really strong.
I struggled to maintain interest a bit towards the end of the book as the focus "pulled back" to the bigger picture (and only the continuing unfolding of the more human stories that open the book kept me going).
March 22, 2009
This is very definitely by the same person who wrote End of the World Blues.
May 29, 2010
John Courtenay Grimwood's books tend to be both thrilling and totally confusing. What exactly happened at the end? What was the darkness? How did it fiddle with time? And why? How did the 2023 worlds work, exactly? Anyway, it was thrilling. I guess I'm OK with being a little confused.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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