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Briarpatch: Author's Preferred Edition
Darrin's life has been going downhill ever since his girlfriend Bridget walked out on him without a word of explanation six months ago. Soon after losing her, he lost his job, and his car, and eventually his enthusiasm for life. He can't imagine things getting worse - until he sees Bridget again, for the first time since she walked out, just moments before she leaps to her death from a bridge. In his quest to find out why Bridget took her own life, he encounters a depressive (and possibly immortal) cult leader; a man with a car that can drive out of this world and into others; a beautiful psychotic with a chrome shotgun; and a bridge that, maybe, leads to heaven. Darrin's journey leads him into a place called the Briarpatch, which is either the crawlspace of the universe, or a series of ambitious building projects abandoned by god, or a tangle of alternative universes, depending on who you ask. Somewhere in that disorderly snarl of worlds, he hopes to find Bridget again... or at least a reason to live without her.
314 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
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November 20, 2012
I keep taking a chance on all these low-profile, high concept genre books and I keep coming away disappointed. Shelve this one next to 14 and The World House in the trilogy of books about weird parallel dimensions intersecting with our world, populated by character's whose blandness is matched only by their unlikeability. Populating the books I mean. Not the parallel dimensions. Which are populated nothing as interesting as the jacket copy might lead you to believe.
June 26, 2022
Tim Pratt is very fond of portals, incredibly vivid fantasy worlds, uncontrollable teleportation and being pursued by all sort of scary creatures, and so am I and I love him for it.
I had a harder time getting into this book than the others of his I’ve already read (Doors of Sleep, Prison of Sleep and Heirs of Grace) because the tone is different. This book is grittier and much more grounded in the real world, with actual human characters with regular problems, instead of people who aren’t human or quite human and have more abstract issues that are harder to relate to. Not that the characters in this book are altogether human, but the protagonist had to keep a job and pay rent, and that’s the kind of thing that makes you relatable .The briarpatch and the many worlds in Doors of Sleep are fundamentally different, but also, in many ways, the same. The worldbuilding for this book is also fantastic, but it takes a little while before you’re shown. There’s also a couple of explicit sex scenes and the violence and the awful things that happen here are more tangible and spelled out on the page, rather than just implied. Plenty of violent things happen in Doors of Sleep, but it always felt more detached and fantastical, with the antagonist feeling almost cartoonish, while Ismael is a very real portrayal of someone who could do actual damage to people around them.
I plan on continuing to read Pratt’s books until I ran out!
I had a harder time getting into this book than the others of his I’ve already read (Doors of Sleep, Prison of Sleep and Heirs of Grace) because the tone is different. This book is grittier and much more grounded in the real world, with actual human characters with regular problems, instead of people who aren’t human or quite human and have more abstract issues that are harder to relate to. Not that the characters in this book are altogether human, but the protagonist had to keep a job and pay rent, and that’s the kind of thing that makes you relatable .The briarpatch and the many worlds in Doors of Sleep are fundamentally different, but also, in many ways, the same. The worldbuilding for this book is also fantastic, but it takes a little while before you’re shown. There’s also a couple of explicit sex scenes and the violence and the awful things that happen here are more tangible and spelled out on the page, rather than just implied. Plenty of violent things happen in Doors of Sleep, but it always felt more detached and fantastical, with the antagonist feeling almost cartoonish, while Ismael is a very real portrayal of someone who could do actual damage to people around them.
I plan on continuing to read Pratt’s books until I ran out!
August 28, 2011
longer review on mentatjack.com, but this is the meat:
The titular briar patch offers us views of very unlikely worlds. Time and presumably other aspects of physics behave differently. Mermaids and Giants and vampires and more that would become central to a more run of the mill novel become part of the scenery. This meta world next door to ours is introduced as a convenient, if dangerous and somewhat eccentric, method for avoiding rush hour traffic. It’s more than that and the scenery makes a point of not staying flatly in the background.
The characters include a ghost, a magic car and its driver, a depressed and jaded immortal, a sociopath, a doppelganger and an explorer. Fitting each of the characters into the above mentioned pigeon holes, is a fun exercise for the reader. There’s also the central character of Darrin and his college buddy Nicholas. All the characters are actively seeking something. They manipulate and are manipulated. They find shortcuts in the briarpatch. Relationships solidify and crumble. Darrin is seeking to understand why his girlfriend left him and then, a few months later, committed suicide by jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge. This central mystery introduces him to the larger cast of characters. Once everyone’s role is understood, the briar patch gives everything a good shake and we get to see exactly who gets what they’re seeking.
Suicide and Cult are both mentioned on the back cover of Briarpatch. Death is a big issue wrestled with in the novel and more than one character are stuck like a broken record in the denial stage of grieving. Their lives are defined by those that they’ve lost. The implications of immortality are explored and fit nicely into the structure of the narrative. What does someone who can’t die fear? Just as the briarpatch lies outside of our consensus reality, each character, whether obsessed with life or obsessed with death, offers us something to think about what lies beyond our current existence. These are weighty issues, offering much for contemplation, but there’s plenty of action and exploration (and sex and food and photography) along the way.
The first 1/2 of the novel involves most of the characters confused and disconnected and the narrative structure mirrors this confusion. The story is presented non-linearly and almost every character gets a point of view scene. Later as everyone has a bit more clue about what’s going on, the story settles into smaller group of point of view characters and proceeds in a more straight forward march toward the final conflicts. There’s a portion of the second half that provides a relatively short montage of months of travel in the briarpatch. It works infinitely better than just saying “X months later,” but I suspect an entire series of novels could fill that space like the real numbers between 2 integers. This is my favorite Pratt so far and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes their fantasy mixed with contemporary reality, but is searching for something more (and weirder) than the typical urban fantasy.
The titular briar patch offers us views of very unlikely worlds. Time and presumably other aspects of physics behave differently. Mermaids and Giants and vampires and more that would become central to a more run of the mill novel become part of the scenery. This meta world next door to ours is introduced as a convenient, if dangerous and somewhat eccentric, method for avoiding rush hour traffic. It’s more than that and the scenery makes a point of not staying flatly in the background.
The characters include a ghost, a magic car and its driver, a depressed and jaded immortal, a sociopath, a doppelganger and an explorer. Fitting each of the characters into the above mentioned pigeon holes, is a fun exercise for the reader. There’s also the central character of Darrin and his college buddy Nicholas. All the characters are actively seeking something. They manipulate and are manipulated. They find shortcuts in the briarpatch. Relationships solidify and crumble. Darrin is seeking to understand why his girlfriend left him and then, a few months later, committed suicide by jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge. This central mystery introduces him to the larger cast of characters. Once everyone’s role is understood, the briar patch gives everything a good shake and we get to see exactly who gets what they’re seeking.
Suicide and Cult are both mentioned on the back cover of Briarpatch. Death is a big issue wrestled with in the novel and more than one character are stuck like a broken record in the denial stage of grieving. Their lives are defined by those that they’ve lost. The implications of immortality are explored and fit nicely into the structure of the narrative. What does someone who can’t die fear? Just as the briarpatch lies outside of our consensus reality, each character, whether obsessed with life or obsessed with death, offers us something to think about what lies beyond our current existence. These are weighty issues, offering much for contemplation, but there’s plenty of action and exploration (and sex and food and photography) along the way.
The first 1/2 of the novel involves most of the characters confused and disconnected and the narrative structure mirrors this confusion. The story is presented non-linearly and almost every character gets a point of view scene. Later as everyone has a bit more clue about what’s going on, the story settles into smaller group of point of view characters and proceeds in a more straight forward march toward the final conflicts. There’s a portion of the second half that provides a relatively short montage of months of travel in the briarpatch. It works infinitely better than just saying “X months later,” but I suspect an entire series of novels could fill that space like the real numbers between 2 integers. This is my favorite Pratt so far and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes their fantasy mixed with contemporary reality, but is searching for something more (and weirder) than the typical urban fantasy.
July 30, 2020
Tim Pratt desarrolla en esta novela uno de sus temas centrales habituales, la muerte y la pérdida. El autor rescata ideas y argumentos propios de la fantasía clásica y los cuentos de hadas y los revitaliza con mucho oficio.
Asistimos con fascinación a las historias entrecruzadas de varios personajes entre los que destaca Darrin que, tras perder a su novia Bridget, entra en una espiral descendente que le lleva a un estado de desesperación e ira. E Ismael, que busca de una ruta a un mundo mejor, posiblemente el paraíso, rodeado de un aura de desesperanza. Esa desesperación que sin apenas notarlo puede llevar a una persona a cruzar los extraños límites entre los mundos y adentrarse en Briarpatch. Un lugar en el que lo que te encuentres puede depender mucho de tu estado de ánimo. Pesadillas y horrores que causen tu muerte o escenarios fabulosos de gran belleza. O lugares que no desentonarían demasiado en nuestro mundo cotidiano salvo ciertos detalles. Esos detalles que te recuerdan que has entado en otro mundo. Un mundo peligroso y caprichoso.
Toda la narración está deliciosamente salpimentada de referencias a motivos clásicos de la fantasía más añeja, el otro mundo, la segunda visión, la inmortalidad, la retorcida inmoralidad y sentido del humor de personajes trastornados, como es el caso de Echo. Todo un ramillete de expresiones de cuento actualizadas como la de "Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman” suponen un guiño más al lector. Teñido de la habitual marca de la casa de sentimientos de pérdida, desesperación y nostalgia por lograr un mayor sentido a la vida. Y de la irrupción de lo fantástico, lo extraño, en el mundo cotidiano.
La narrativa de Pratt profundiza en las relaciones de los protagonistas, algunos de ellos inolvidables, y anticipa al lector en varias ocasiones los planes e intenciones de los protagonistas, lo que tiene un doble efecto por una parte te preocupas de la situación de ignorancia de varios personajes que se verán afectados por los planes de otros y por otra parte el desenlace de varias tramas se hace un tanto previsible. Este es probablemente el único fallo de la novela.
Una excelente elección para tener una lectura de fantástico.
Asistimos con fascinación a las historias entrecruzadas de varios personajes entre los que destaca Darrin que, tras perder a su novia Bridget, entra en una espiral descendente que le lleva a un estado de desesperación e ira. E Ismael, que busca de una ruta a un mundo mejor, posiblemente el paraíso, rodeado de un aura de desesperanza. Esa desesperación que sin apenas notarlo puede llevar a una persona a cruzar los extraños límites entre los mundos y adentrarse en Briarpatch. Un lugar en el que lo que te encuentres puede depender mucho de tu estado de ánimo. Pesadillas y horrores que causen tu muerte o escenarios fabulosos de gran belleza. O lugares que no desentonarían demasiado en nuestro mundo cotidiano salvo ciertos detalles. Esos detalles que te recuerdan que has entado en otro mundo. Un mundo peligroso y caprichoso.
Toda la narración está deliciosamente salpimentada de referencias a motivos clásicos de la fantasía más añeja, el otro mundo, la segunda visión, la inmortalidad, la retorcida inmoralidad y sentido del humor de personajes trastornados, como es el caso de Echo. Todo un ramillete de expresiones de cuento actualizadas como la de "Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman” suponen un guiño más al lector. Teñido de la habitual marca de la casa de sentimientos de pérdida, desesperación y nostalgia por lograr un mayor sentido a la vida. Y de la irrupción de lo fantástico, lo extraño, en el mundo cotidiano.
La narrativa de Pratt profundiza en las relaciones de los protagonistas, algunos de ellos inolvidables, y anticipa al lector en varias ocasiones los planes e intenciones de los protagonistas, lo que tiene un doble efecto por una parte te preocupas de la situación de ignorancia de varios personajes que se verán afectados por los planes de otros y por otra parte el desenlace de varias tramas se hace un tanto previsible. Este es probablemente el único fallo de la novela.
Una excelente elección para tener una lectura de fantástico.
April 1, 2012
“Oh, hell,” Arturo said softly. “This is all new to you? I thought you were, you know, a seasoned traveller, that you just stumbled onto the wrong path. But, what, today, this is your first time in the briarpatch?”
“The briarpatch,” Darrin repeated. “You said that before.”
Arturo nodded. “It’s what some people call, ah, the place, or the whole combination of places, the paths and roads and bridges some people can reach from this world. I dunno what it really is. I’ve heard some people say it’s God’s maintenance tunnels, or worlds that got half-built and then abandoned, or worlds that might have happened, if things had been a little bit different.” He glanced at the bartender. “Or, you know, a lot different. Some places in the briarpatch don’t last long, and those are the weirdest places, the ones that aren’t very plausible at all, and I’ve seen some demented shit, lemme tell you, but lots of paths are stable. You can use them to get from one place to another in this world, there are some great shortcuts, but that’s not all. The briarpatch… there are secrets in there, if you can get in deep enough to find them. Wonderful stuff. Dangerous stuff. But, shit, it’s big, and hard to navigate.” Arturo went silent, tipping his half-empty pint glass from side to side, watching the beer move around inside. Long speeches didn’t seem to suit him.
***
Ismael Plenty, the Jim Jones/David Koresh stand-in for Tim Pratt’s Briarpatch, is as charismatic and effortlessly convincing as any would-be saviour with a God complex. Two items, however, separate our future poison-spiked Kool-Aid dispenser from his thankfully deceased contemporaries: Ismael actually is immortal, and in no way does he believe suicide will open the door to your salvation. His salvation, yes. Maybe yours, if you’re lucky, but when all is said and done, that is of little concern to Ismael.
As a child of the briarpatch—an indefinable, surreal desert hidden between the lines of our world, the real world—Ismael has seen and suffered enough to want to shake the bonds of his immortal life and travel to the light of paradise that lies beyond. But he cannot make his escape without help, without being guided to the bridge that will take him to the light and whatever is or isn’t on the other side. To this end, he needs the faithful and despondent, those primed for suicide, to help him find his way.
As the primary antagonist of Briarpatch, Ismael is a compellingly selfish son of a bitch whose desire to abandon an immortal life trumps the lives of all those he hurts along the way—including our hero, Darrin, and his girlfriend-of-a-time, Bridget. Always seeking new and exciting experiences, Bridget is won over by Ismael’s promises of salvation. Upon showing her the briarpatch, the mystical realm that runs beneath the surface of the real world, he convinces Bridget to take her own life, to remove all ties to her current reality in an attempt to cross over into the great fuzzy white light of happiness. Through several chance encounters that follow Bridget’s demise, Darrin is pulled deeper and deeper into a darkness he can’t escape as he seeks to discover the nature of his former love’s suicidal actions, and to confront Ismael in the process.
Briarpatch’s take on urban fantasy is refreshing, and succeeds more often than not. With the suicide-as-salvation concept at its heart, the narrative is darker than most, but not overwhelmingly so. The character of Ismael, while interesting in his mannerisms, is somewhat smothered in the end by his overall ambition, which, when boiled down to its essentials, is little more than that of a disgruntled zealot with a death wish of his own. Fortunately, the remaining cast—Darrin, Bridget, Orville, Arturo, the delightfully psychopathic Echo, the conniving, spineless Nicholas, and the silent but continuously intriguing Wendigo (a sentient beast of a car)—makes up for Ismael’s surprising simplicity.
The briarpatch itself is an interesting concept, though at times feels a little closely cribbed from the city-as-God of Clive Barker’s Imajica. With this concept at the core of the story, it’s unfortunate that the novel itself—barely 250 pages—is so bereft of detail. Ismael and Darrin’s conflict is fairly straightforward, but the briarpatch and everything that surrounds it is less than cohesive. Feeling more like a string of concepts thrown together than a living, breathing idea of a world with a pulse of its own, Briarpatch’s tallest hurdles come with its seemingly random nature and abundance of coincidences. Nowhere is this more prominent than a late-in-the-book meeting in which two characters remark on how utterly and unrealistically coincidental their meeting is. It’s as if Obi-Wan turned to Luke one day and said, “Wow, it’s pretty incredible that we have this entire galaxy in which everyone seems to somehow run into everyone else. I mean did you know Boba Fett was even involved in the Clone Wars? Dude was a kid, but still, he was there. Oh, and your dad built C-3P0. Wild, right?” It’s difficult not to see where the book was unfortunately cut short—where months will pass over pages, sacrificing so much world building that I wish had taken place in lieu of simple passages that round up what was covered in the same span of time. It’s as if we’re being given a set of Cliff Notes to catch us up on the world’s history before steamrolling into the final conflict.
I don’t wish to be too negative, however, because problems with the book’s final third aside, I still powered through to the end and enjoyed myself thoroughly. Had certain things been expanded upon—like the Wendigo and the nature of the briarpatch itself—this book might have been something truly special. As it stands, Briarpatch is urban fantasy-light that, through the strength of its core ideas, adds up to being a bit more than the sum of its parts. Given another stab at this universe, I’d love to see what Pratt could come up with. Briarpatch is potentially an interesting blueprint, though a great deal of detail and fleshing out is still needed.
“The briarpatch,” Darrin repeated. “You said that before.”
Arturo nodded. “It’s what some people call, ah, the place, or the whole combination of places, the paths and roads and bridges some people can reach from this world. I dunno what it really is. I’ve heard some people say it’s God’s maintenance tunnels, or worlds that got half-built and then abandoned, or worlds that might have happened, if things had been a little bit different.” He glanced at the bartender. “Or, you know, a lot different. Some places in the briarpatch don’t last long, and those are the weirdest places, the ones that aren’t very plausible at all, and I’ve seen some demented shit, lemme tell you, but lots of paths are stable. You can use them to get from one place to another in this world, there are some great shortcuts, but that’s not all. The briarpatch… there are secrets in there, if you can get in deep enough to find them. Wonderful stuff. Dangerous stuff. But, shit, it’s big, and hard to navigate.” Arturo went silent, tipping his half-empty pint glass from side to side, watching the beer move around inside. Long speeches didn’t seem to suit him.
***
Ismael Plenty, the Jim Jones/David Koresh stand-in for Tim Pratt’s Briarpatch, is as charismatic and effortlessly convincing as any would-be saviour with a God complex. Two items, however, separate our future poison-spiked Kool-Aid dispenser from his thankfully deceased contemporaries: Ismael actually is immortal, and in no way does he believe suicide will open the door to your salvation. His salvation, yes. Maybe yours, if you’re lucky, but when all is said and done, that is of little concern to Ismael.
As a child of the briarpatch—an indefinable, surreal desert hidden between the lines of our world, the real world—Ismael has seen and suffered enough to want to shake the bonds of his immortal life and travel to the light of paradise that lies beyond. But he cannot make his escape without help, without being guided to the bridge that will take him to the light and whatever is or isn’t on the other side. To this end, he needs the faithful and despondent, those primed for suicide, to help him find his way.
As the primary antagonist of Briarpatch, Ismael is a compellingly selfish son of a bitch whose desire to abandon an immortal life trumps the lives of all those he hurts along the way—including our hero, Darrin, and his girlfriend-of-a-time, Bridget. Always seeking new and exciting experiences, Bridget is won over by Ismael’s promises of salvation. Upon showing her the briarpatch, the mystical realm that runs beneath the surface of the real world, he convinces Bridget to take her own life, to remove all ties to her current reality in an attempt to cross over into the great fuzzy white light of happiness. Through several chance encounters that follow Bridget’s demise, Darrin is pulled deeper and deeper into a darkness he can’t escape as he seeks to discover the nature of his former love’s suicidal actions, and to confront Ismael in the process.
Briarpatch’s take on urban fantasy is refreshing, and succeeds more often than not. With the suicide-as-salvation concept at its heart, the narrative is darker than most, but not overwhelmingly so. The character of Ismael, while interesting in his mannerisms, is somewhat smothered in the end by his overall ambition, which, when boiled down to its essentials, is little more than that of a disgruntled zealot with a death wish of his own. Fortunately, the remaining cast—Darrin, Bridget, Orville, Arturo, the delightfully psychopathic Echo, the conniving, spineless Nicholas, and the silent but continuously intriguing Wendigo (a sentient beast of a car)—makes up for Ismael’s surprising simplicity.
The briarpatch itself is an interesting concept, though at times feels a little closely cribbed from the city-as-God of Clive Barker’s Imajica. With this concept at the core of the story, it’s unfortunate that the novel itself—barely 250 pages—is so bereft of detail. Ismael and Darrin’s conflict is fairly straightforward, but the briarpatch and everything that surrounds it is less than cohesive. Feeling more like a string of concepts thrown together than a living, breathing idea of a world with a pulse of its own, Briarpatch’s tallest hurdles come with its seemingly random nature and abundance of coincidences. Nowhere is this more prominent than a late-in-the-book meeting in which two characters remark on how utterly and unrealistically coincidental their meeting is. It’s as if Obi-Wan turned to Luke one day and said, “Wow, it’s pretty incredible that we have this entire galaxy in which everyone seems to somehow run into everyone else. I mean did you know Boba Fett was even involved in the Clone Wars? Dude was a kid, but still, he was there. Oh, and your dad built C-3P0. Wild, right?” It’s difficult not to see where the book was unfortunately cut short—where months will pass over pages, sacrificing so much world building that I wish had taken place in lieu of simple passages that round up what was covered in the same span of time. It’s as if we’re being given a set of Cliff Notes to catch us up on the world’s history before steamrolling into the final conflict.
I don’t wish to be too negative, however, because problems with the book’s final third aside, I still powered through to the end and enjoyed myself thoroughly. Had certain things been expanded upon—like the Wendigo and the nature of the briarpatch itself—this book might have been something truly special. As it stands, Briarpatch is urban fantasy-light that, through the strength of its core ideas, adds up to being a bit more than the sum of its parts. Given another stab at this universe, I’d love to see what Pratt could come up with. Briarpatch is potentially an interesting blueprint, though a great deal of detail and fleshing out is still needed.
September 5, 2012
Review originally posted on www.christinavasilevski.com
Darrin's life has taken an awful turn: Within the space of one month, he lost his job, his car, and his girlfriend, Bridget, who walked out of his life with no explanation. Six months later while wandering aimlessly around San Francisco, he encounters Bridget for the first time since she left him - only to see her jump to her death off the Golden Gate bridge.
In his search to find out why Bridget killed herself, he gets caught up in the web of connections surrounding the briarpatch, an interdimensional labyrinth that connects all worlds probable and improbable. And it turns out that among the the people who help or hinder his quest - his own traitorous best friend, an immortal man who wields the power of despair, a man with no sense of taste or smell, an earthy psychopath with a taste for chrome shotguns, and a man who drives the world's most unusual car - Darrin may be most improbable visitor to the briarpatch yet.
I liked Briarpatch, but I don't think it's as enjoyable as other stories of Pratt's that I've encountered, like The Ghost of Christmas Possible or Cup and Table.
Darrin's life has taken an awful turn: Within the space of one month, he lost his job, his car, and his girlfriend, Bridget, who walked out of his life with no explanation. Six months later while wandering aimlessly around San Francisco, he encounters Bridget for the first time since she left him - only to see her jump to her death off the Golden Gate bridge.
In his search to find out why Bridget killed herself, he gets caught up in the web of connections surrounding the briarpatch, an interdimensional labyrinth that connects all worlds probable and improbable. And it turns out that among the the people who help or hinder his quest - his own traitorous best friend, an immortal man who wields the power of despair, a man with no sense of taste or smell, an earthy psychopath with a taste for chrome shotguns, and a man who drives the world's most unusual car - Darrin may be most improbable visitor to the briarpatch yet.
I liked Briarpatch, but I don't think it's as enjoyable as other stories of Pratt's that I've encountered, like The Ghost of Christmas Possible or Cup and Table.
October 8, 2011
I wanted to love this book. The premise sounded super exciting, the characters seemed interesting and this book seemed really different and unique for the genre.
Onto the bad news -- character development sucked. I wanted to be done with most of the main characters, and even the protagonists were only of mild interest -- could take em or leave em. In what was such a promising premise, the one dimensionality was such a letdown that the entire story really suffered. Pratt has definitely set this us to be a series if he wanted, and perhaps he'll redeem himself in a future novel.
The story dragged for the first half of the book, but there were just enough plot devices to keep my hooked (plus, this author seems to use sex scenes like some sort of carrot on a stick to keep you turning the page). The same conversations seemed to be happening over and over between the main antagonists -- I couldn't figure out if that was because the author really believed they bore repeating or because he didn't have enough to say about the alternate world, The Briarpatch, which the story is based around.
I found the characters relationships with one another to be well beyond plausible.
When we do make it into this alternate world, much of it is spent repeating the same locations and themes with different characters taking main stage. For an alternate world that is supposed to be immense, complex, terrifying and awesome, the first half of the book made it seem small and predictable.
In the last 50 pages the story does pick up, interesting new characters are introduced and it finally feels like the story is moving forward. So there's that.
Onto the bad news -- character development sucked. I wanted to be done with most of the main characters, and even the protagonists were only of mild interest -- could take em or leave em. In what was such a promising premise, the one dimensionality was such a letdown that the entire story really suffered. Pratt has definitely set this us to be a series if he wanted, and perhaps he'll redeem himself in a future novel.
The story dragged for the first half of the book, but there were just enough plot devices to keep my hooked (plus, this author seems to use sex scenes like some sort of carrot on a stick to keep you turning the page). The same conversations seemed to be happening over and over between the main antagonists -- I couldn't figure out if that was because the author really believed they bore repeating or because he didn't have enough to say about the alternate world, The Briarpatch, which the story is based around.
I found the characters relationships with one another to be well beyond plausible.
When we do make it into this alternate world, much of it is spent repeating the same locations and themes with different characters taking main stage. For an alternate world that is supposed to be immense, complex, terrifying and awesome, the first half of the book made it seem small and predictable.
In the last 50 pages the story does pick up, interesting new characters are introduced and it finally feels like the story is moving forward. So there's that.
April 1, 2014
I “read” this book on Audible. The narrator was Dave Thompson, a voice I enjoy from the Escape Artists trio of podcasts. I’ve enjoyed many narrated Tim Pratt short stories; this may have been my first Tim Pratt book.
I liked this book well enough, but I’m not gaga about it. It built up slowly, but once I started to see how the characters would intersect, I got excited to see how it would turn out. I think I struggled to like this book because I found most of the characters either unlikeable or uncompelling. Three main characters are simply evil, or at best invertebrate, people. Most of the rest were simply unengaging. I found the “if you give up your attachment to everything you care about and then kill yourself, you will go to a better place” theme extremely uncomfortable, and it interfered with my ability to stay in the story. On the other hand, that better place seemed pretty underwhelming to me, so the quest didn’t suck me in. My favorite person in the book - Arturo, a supporting character at best - gets far too little screentime. And I love Dave Thompson, but I don’t love his female voices, and it didn’t seem like he was able to put a nasty tone into their voices when it was needed.
Geez, you might ask - what did I actually *like* about this book?
I liked, and wanted to know more about, the supporting characters - Arturo, Geneva, and Horux (spelling probably off - like I said, I listened to the book). The vampire bartender. (Digression - the vampire bartender made me think of Robert Asprin’s old Myth series. The Briarpatch premise actually has a lot in common with the Myth multiverse.)
I enjoyed immersing myself in the descriptions of the worlds, especially toward the end of the book. I enjoyed Orville’s character development. I loved everything about Arturo, including the way Dave interpreted his voice. I loved the mystery of the Windego. I loved the inventiveness of the Bears. I liked guessing at how the Briarpatch would throw together the characters in the final third of the book.
Ultimately, I loved the world, but not the characters. I’d love to follow some of these secondary characters on their journeys. Maybe as short stories.
I liked this book well enough, but I’m not gaga about it. It built up slowly, but once I started to see how the characters would intersect, I got excited to see how it would turn out. I think I struggled to like this book because I found most of the characters either unlikeable or uncompelling. Three main characters are simply evil, or at best invertebrate, people. Most of the rest were simply unengaging. I found the “if you give up your attachment to everything you care about and then kill yourself, you will go to a better place” theme extremely uncomfortable, and it interfered with my ability to stay in the story. On the other hand, that better place seemed pretty underwhelming to me, so the quest didn’t suck me in. My favorite person in the book - Arturo, a supporting character at best - gets far too little screentime. And I love Dave Thompson, but I don’t love his female voices, and it didn’t seem like he was able to put a nasty tone into their voices when it was needed.
Geez, you might ask - what did I actually *like* about this book?
I liked, and wanted to know more about, the supporting characters - Arturo, Geneva, and Horux (spelling probably off - like I said, I listened to the book). The vampire bartender. (Digression - the vampire bartender made me think of Robert Asprin’s old Myth series. The Briarpatch premise actually has a lot in common with the Myth multiverse.)
I enjoyed immersing myself in the descriptions of the worlds, especially toward the end of the book. I enjoyed Orville’s character development. I loved everything about Arturo, including the way Dave interpreted his voice. I loved the mystery of the Windego. I loved the inventiveness of the Bears. I liked guessing at how the Briarpatch would throw together the characters in the final third of the book.
Ultimately, I loved the world, but not the characters. I’d love to follow some of these secondary characters on their journeys. Maybe as short stories.
May 1, 2015
So this guy Darrin has a string of really bad luck. His girlfriend Bridget leaves him, he loses his job, and then his car. To top it off, he's heading out to lunch one day and sees his old girlfriend just as she leaps off the Golden Gate bridge head first and kills herself. Next Darrin starts seeing things. Alleys and paths that aren't supposed to be there. This place is called the Briarpatch, and with the help of Arturo, a strange guy with a strange car, Darrin is beginning to find connections between this place, the guy Bridget left him for, and Bridget's suicide.
I found this book in the bargain area of my Chapters and was kinda skeptical about how good it would be. I expected some kind of fairy world and magical blah blah, which I tend to hate, but it also hinted at something more interesting with the suicide idea.
I was surprised in a good way when I found out that this book was not about fairies! It is actually closer to books like the Otherworld series by Tad Williams, but without the tech aspect.
Another good surprise is that this book is aimed at adults!! No whiny teen characters, no censoring of language, and overall more realistic character traits. In general, the characters were intelligent if not entirely informed, and I can't think of any choices characters may have made that bugged me as illogical or irrational. I like fiction, not stupid fiction.
The writing was well done and interesting. There were no instances where the wording was awkward or required re-reading (unless you weren't expecting what was said). The plot was fast-paced and didn't focus too long on events that weren't pertinent to the plot, while slowly revealing some of the mysteries in just the right way.
The ending was satisfying and reasonable. It closed the conflict while still leaving open the possibility to return for a sequel. All in all, a good book worth reading.
I found this book in the bargain area of my Chapters and was kinda skeptical about how good it would be. I expected some kind of fairy world and magical blah blah, which I tend to hate, but it also hinted at something more interesting with the suicide idea.
I was surprised in a good way when I found out that this book was not about fairies! It is actually closer to books like the Otherworld series by Tad Williams, but without the tech aspect.
Another good surprise is that this book is aimed at adults!! No whiny teen characters, no censoring of language, and overall more realistic character traits. In general, the characters were intelligent if not entirely informed, and I can't think of any choices characters may have made that bugged me as illogical or irrational. I like fiction, not stupid fiction.
The writing was well done and interesting. There were no instances where the wording was awkward or required re-reading (unless you weren't expecting what was said). The plot was fast-paced and didn't focus too long on events that weren't pertinent to the plot, while slowly revealing some of the mysteries in just the right way.
The ending was satisfying and reasonable. It closed the conflict while still leaving open the possibility to return for a sequel. All in all, a good book worth reading.
August 27, 2016
Escrita como un cuento largo más que como una novela, Briarpatch es fantasía urbana de la que bien sabe hacer Tim Pratt.
Con conceptos que me recuerdan a La Ciudad y La Ciudad de Miéville y a varios cuentos que ya había leído de Pratt, lo que no le falta a la obra es sentido de la maravilla.
Lo que sí le falta es un elenco de personajes un tanto más creíble y menos unidimensional.
Aún así, es entretenida, lighthearted y se lee del tirón.
Un buen filler entre lecturas más sesudas.
Con conceptos que me recuerdan a La Ciudad y La Ciudad de Miéville y a varios cuentos que ya había leído de Pratt, lo que no le falta a la obra es sentido de la maravilla.
Lo que sí le falta es un elenco de personajes un tanto más creíble y menos unidimensional.
Aún así, es entretenida, lighthearted y se lee del tirón.
Un buen filler entre lecturas más sesudas.
August 29, 2014
Pretty much everything I love about Tim Pratt's stories and well-told stories in general all packaged up in this book. If you're familiar with some of his short fiction, you'll see a synthesis of various themes and concerns that have shown in his earlier work.
Highly highly recommend if you're a fan of weird, liminal, urban fantasy.
Highly highly recommend if you're a fan of weird, liminal, urban fantasy.
June 12, 2012
Pratt creates a fascinating world just behind our own, then populates it with profoundly damaged characters with contradictory agendas and lets them collide with one another until they're destroyed. A fascinating, compelling read, highly recommended.
January 27, 2012
The best thing about Tim's books is that you can reliably expect a satisfying level of weirdness. This one is no exception. A good read.
October 29, 2012
A slow, plodding first half, but saved by an excellent, tightly-paced second half.
May 7, 2020
The concept of the briarpatch is an interesting one. A parallel world, or series of parallel worlds, that contain the improbable and implausible, tenuously holding to an existence that few can see unaided. Pratt takes the ‘alternate world’ concept and runs with it in a direction that I don’t see done that often. It’s noteworthy that he not only did this in a way that is believable, following its own rules and reasons, but also in such a way that still even the experts on the briarpatch don’t really know what it is, can only guess at its true nature. While I like understanding the weirder aspects of speculative fiction, I can definitely appreciate it when large-scale things don’t get boiled down to something simple. Reality is a hard thing to understand, even reality as we know it. Why should an alternate reality be less so?
While the characters were not particularly deep as far as development goes, they were still realistically done, so I can’t complain too loudly about them. They were more than just archetypes, but there were times that they felt flat, as though their whole lives were about the things going on between the pages at that time. It kept the reader very centred on current events, however, so this isn’t entirely a bad thing. Still, as characters can really make or break a book, a little more development might not have gone amiss.
Though oddly, it was the characters of Ismael and Echo that were the most developed. Ismael I can see, because he’s a very major player in the plot, trying to reach the light of a better world by exploiting people he himself sends to their deaths. He’s a complex man who has lived for centuries, full of obsessions and quirks and a rich sense of what I can only describe as “completeness.” Echo, too, was one of the more fleshed-out characters, though she existed mostly as Ismael’s tool. She didn’t allow herself to remain a tool, however, and was a powerful opportunist. While I can’t say that I liked her as a person, she was quite an interesting power, and she had a bit of an ethical turnaround while still staying true to her nature.
For all Pratt’s demonstrated creativity in coming up with the details of the briarpatch and alternate realities and how they work, he did commit one of the major writer no-no’s by telling rather than showing. Characters sitting down and telling somebody their backstory, or taking a chapter to explain how they met so-and-so, got so frequent that I couldn’t help but roll my eyes a time or two. Once or twice might be excusable. But there were times where a few sentences could have done just as well as an entire chapter, and the interludes took away from the tension of the rest of the story.
Still, I can’t deny that this was a novel that, for all it felt at times like it moved a little slowly, still kept me engaged enough to keep turning pages, wanting to know what happened next, or what new surprises lay in wait for the characters. The book didn’t need to be action-packed to be entertaining, or even to provide a sense of tension, and Pratt showed a good amount of creativity to string the readers along. This might not have been a book I would have gone out and bought sight unseen, but I’m certainly glad that I did take the time to read it, and I can say with certainty that it’s a book that at some point I will probably read again.
(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)
While the characters were not particularly deep as far as development goes, they were still realistically done, so I can’t complain too loudly about them. They were more than just archetypes, but there were times that they felt flat, as though their whole lives were about the things going on between the pages at that time. It kept the reader very centred on current events, however, so this isn’t entirely a bad thing. Still, as characters can really make or break a book, a little more development might not have gone amiss.
Though oddly, it was the characters of Ismael and Echo that were the most developed. Ismael I can see, because he’s a very major player in the plot, trying to reach the light of a better world by exploiting people he himself sends to their deaths. He’s a complex man who has lived for centuries, full of obsessions and quirks and a rich sense of what I can only describe as “completeness.” Echo, too, was one of the more fleshed-out characters, though she existed mostly as Ismael’s tool. She didn’t allow herself to remain a tool, however, and was a powerful opportunist. While I can’t say that I liked her as a person, she was quite an interesting power, and she had a bit of an ethical turnaround while still staying true to her nature.
For all Pratt’s demonstrated creativity in coming up with the details of the briarpatch and alternate realities and how they work, he did commit one of the major writer no-no’s by telling rather than showing. Characters sitting down and telling somebody their backstory, or taking a chapter to explain how they met so-and-so, got so frequent that I couldn’t help but roll my eyes a time or two. Once or twice might be excusable. But there were times where a few sentences could have done just as well as an entire chapter, and the interludes took away from the tension of the rest of the story.
Still, I can’t deny that this was a novel that, for all it felt at times like it moved a little slowly, still kept me engaged enough to keep turning pages, wanting to know what happened next, or what new surprises lay in wait for the characters. The book didn’t need to be action-packed to be entertaining, or even to provide a sense of tension, and Pratt showed a good amount of creativity to string the readers along. This might not have been a book I would have gone out and bought sight unseen, but I’m certainly glad that I did take the time to read it, and I can say with certainty that it’s a book that at some point I will probably read again.
(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)
August 14, 2019
Despite this book having a few flaws with the characters and the writing, this book remains to be one of my favorites. The conflict in this story, even though it's steeped in fantasy, it is very real, and something every one can relate to. Would life be better without pain? Would life be better if it was a constant high, a constant happiness all the time? What would become of a person if they believed in this surreal possibility, and tried to chase it?
Darrin has lost his girlfriend 6 months ago when she walked out of his life, along with his job, and has been in a slump ever since. One day as he is taking pictures along the Golden Gate Bridge, he sees Bridget, his ex, plummet to her death. About a week after Bridget left Darrin, Darrin's best friend, Nicholas sees a guy in the night club who he says he's been seeing hanging around Bridget. When Darrin looks at the photos he took of Bridget on the bridge before she died, he sees a familiar face, Ismael Plenty, who Nicholas says was hanging around Bridget.
Near the end, or even halfway through I felt like the writing dropped off a bit. More telling than showing, there’s telling us what the characters are doing and why, when I already know why. I guess that makes for easy reading but it kind of took away from giving the characters more life. For example, when one guy says “I’ll eat your heart,” the reader has to be told that the character doesn’t think this guy is kidding. Way to build up tension.
Most of the story’s conflict can be summed up in this line, “He (Ismael) believes that the best imaginable life is one in which there is no pain, only ceaseless pleasure. I do not agree. A little pain adds savour, and makes the pleasure more potent” (242).
Even despite many parts where there was telling rather than showing, there’s some amazing description (at least in my opinion) in this story. It’s more than simply describing the appearance of something, such as the briarpatch, “I think the spaces between worlds are so strange and terrible and lonely that human eyes cannot look upon them. And so we perceive the spaces as methods of passage: bridges, ladders, hallways, doors, tunnels…” (200).
Darrin has lost his girlfriend 6 months ago when she walked out of his life, along with his job, and has been in a slump ever since. One day as he is taking pictures along the Golden Gate Bridge, he sees Bridget, his ex, plummet to her death. About a week after Bridget left Darrin, Darrin's best friend, Nicholas sees a guy in the night club who he says he's been seeing hanging around Bridget. When Darrin looks at the photos he took of Bridget on the bridge before she died, he sees a familiar face, Ismael Plenty, who Nicholas says was hanging around Bridget.
Near the end, or even halfway through I felt like the writing dropped off a bit. More telling than showing, there’s telling us what the characters are doing and why, when I already know why. I guess that makes for easy reading but it kind of took away from giving the characters more life. For example, when one guy says “I’ll eat your heart,” the reader has to be told that the character doesn’t think this guy is kidding. Way to build up tension.
Most of the story’s conflict can be summed up in this line, “He (Ismael) believes that the best imaginable life is one in which there is no pain, only ceaseless pleasure. I do not agree. A little pain adds savour, and makes the pleasure more potent” (242).
Even despite many parts where there was telling rather than showing, there’s some amazing description (at least in my opinion) in this story. It’s more than simply describing the appearance of something, such as the briarpatch, “I think the spaces between worlds are so strange and terrible and lonely that human eyes cannot look upon them. And so we perceive the spaces as methods of passage: bridges, ladders, hallways, doors, tunnels…” (200).
July 23, 2021
Darren is happy with Bridgett. That is until suddenly Bridget leaves without saying goodbye, then Darren is not so happy anymore. He had thought he and Bridget could spend their lives together.
However, about a year later it gets worse when he sees Bridgett jump off a bridge into the water. He also sees another man that he has only once before. That man is a depressive cult leader who spreads depression all around. He was also the man that hit Darren's friend Nicholas with a walking stick.
Apparently, there is a whole other world and people can travel to it, if they know how to get there. Things don't work the same way there that they do in the regular world. Will Darren be able to come to peace? Will the depressed cult leader find happiness, or continue to hurt others?
The very perplexing but absorbing story is well worth the read.
However, about a year later it gets worse when he sees Bridgett jump off a bridge into the water. He also sees another man that he has only once before. That man is a depressive cult leader who spreads depression all around. He was also the man that hit Darren's friend Nicholas with a walking stick.
Apparently, there is a whole other world and people can travel to it, if they know how to get there. Things don't work the same way there that they do in the regular world. Will Darren be able to come to peace? Will the depressed cult leader find happiness, or continue to hurt others?
The very perplexing but absorbing story is well worth the read.
October 29, 2025
Guy Debord, Shunryu Suzuki, and Italo Calvino walk into a vampire bar...
Any contemporary fantasy book that name checks psychogeography is a starter. But the book starts to slog along when all the characters start chasing after each other in the Briarpatch. Once Darrin and Harczos meet up and start doing an Invisible Cities rendition in the Briarpatch the book starts to pick up again.
Interesting read, interesting concept.
But, I don't understand how the Wendigo exists in the books rendition of the Native American folklore. It was an very interesting construct and I would like to know more, perhaps in a sequel.
Any contemporary fantasy book that name checks psychogeography is a starter. But the book starts to slog along when all the characters start chasing after each other in the Briarpatch. Once Darrin and Harczos meet up and start doing an Invisible Cities rendition in the Briarpatch the book starts to pick up again.
Interesting read, interesting concept.
But, I don't understand how the Wendigo exists in the books rendition of the Native American folklore. It was an very interesting construct and I would like to know more, perhaps in a sequel.
March 9, 2024
I can see the aspects that Pratt loves exploring. I think there are other novels in which he did it better, so this is not my favorite. I did ultimately appreciate how the story resolved for the characters. I have always respected that Pratt explores endings that may not be ultimately fair, but that make sense.
August 13, 2024
Treads familiar but still enjoyable territory, touring an urban/parallel world fantasy with an interesting set of outcasts (who betray each other in pursuit of their own agendas) and a few nifty speculations about the nature of subcreation and afterlife.
November 5, 2019
One of the most delightfully bizarre fantasies I've ever read.
In scale and imagination, Tim Pratt reminds me of another fine fantasy writing Tim - Tim Powers.
This is definitely The Good Stuff!
In scale and imagination, Tim Pratt reminds me of another fine fantasy writing Tim - Tim Powers.
This is definitely The Good Stuff!
January 16, 2020
An exceptional fantasy that stretches the boundaries of alternate realities and immortality.
September 15, 2024
It was ok. Not as good as his other books.
December 12, 2024
Surreal plot. Just weird enough. I’d read another one in this world.
January 14, 2014
Darrin's life's been going downhill since his girlfriend Bridget left him for no reason. Six month later, he sees her again... right as she jumps to her death off a bridge. Trying to make sense of this tragedy, Darrin begins to discover there's more gong on... not just in his life, but in his relationship and the whole world. There are pathways people can learn to see that lead to other world, fantastic, improbable, and occasionally dangerous. Some people call it the Briarpatch. And what happened to Bridget is wrapped up in it... as is, potentially, a chance to find her again.
I'm generally more of a science fiction guy than a fantasy, but when I do like fantasy, this is one of the types I like. A mysterious other world just adjacent to our own, unseen by most, full of pathways that lead to improbable places or doorways that open on impossible vistas. It's the same sort of thing that attracted me to Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Now, it's not quite in that calibre... there's nothing wrong with the prose, but it doesn't quite have the same power to carry you along as these other books, it's more simple, utilitarian. But the author does a really good job with the fantasy element that attracted me, hitting that particular pleasure button well and repeatedly. The fantastic elements are, largely, compelling and, though somewhat a random hodgepodge (as these books tend towards), there are some really imaginative vistas here as they dip into some of the improbable worlds. For sheer sense of wonder, I probably liked the Briarpatch worlds better even than the fantastic elements of the previously mentioned Neverwhere (though, in Gaiman's defense, he originally conceived the story for a television miniseries, and was probably writing with a TV budget in mind).
The characters are interesting, quirky enough to make you want to learn more about them, but not so weird that it's hard to relate, at least to the ones we're meant to relate to. The plot and pacing are pretty good, with some qualms. There's sort of a tone shift as you go through the book... as you can read from the description, it obviously starts out in a pretty dark place, and there's something of a bitter tone to the early half, like the author's trying to depress the reader about even fairly ordinary lives. A tendency towards deliberate emotional cruelty or callousness in some of the characters that can also make one bleak about human nature. In fact, there's a part early on that, for people in certain depressive situations, it might not be entirely wise for them to read because while the book itself doesn't exactly counsel suicide, there are characters who do, in a rather persuasive way. As the story goes on, the bitter tone fades, but by the end... it's almost too upbeat. There's a point in the book where are lot of people are heading to the same place at once, primed for a confrontation... and after that confrontation, the book meanders, like it's lost it's way, and then quickly tries to wrap everything up, and to get there, they have to skip over some important emotional beats for many characters, they simply change in a few pages, if not entirely off panel. It makes the end somewhat disconnected from the rest of the plot, both in pace and feel.
The resolution was a let down, not just in how it came about but in how complete it was... sure, it's not like everybody's story is over, or at least, many are moving on to completely new stories, but there's a strong sense of everything being tied up nicely so that there are no loose ends. And in most fiction, you want that... but it just feels wrong, in a briarpatch, to have it end that way. There should be loose ends, and tangled messes that don't ever get undone, and maybe a few thorns.
I guess another way to put it is that, without realizing it, I was hoping it would be the first book in a series. Which, in a way, is a decent endorsement of the book itself. And while it doesn't seem to be a series, there is room for more stories, and if they came, I might like to see them.
I'm generally more of a science fiction guy than a fantasy, but when I do like fantasy, this is one of the types I like. A mysterious other world just adjacent to our own, unseen by most, full of pathways that lead to improbable places or doorways that open on impossible vistas. It's the same sort of thing that attracted me to Stephen King's Dark Tower series, and Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Now, it's not quite in that calibre... there's nothing wrong with the prose, but it doesn't quite have the same power to carry you along as these other books, it's more simple, utilitarian. But the author does a really good job with the fantasy element that attracted me, hitting that particular pleasure button well and repeatedly. The fantastic elements are, largely, compelling and, though somewhat a random hodgepodge (as these books tend towards), there are some really imaginative vistas here as they dip into some of the improbable worlds. For sheer sense of wonder, I probably liked the Briarpatch worlds better even than the fantastic elements of the previously mentioned Neverwhere (though, in Gaiman's defense, he originally conceived the story for a television miniseries, and was probably writing with a TV budget in mind).
The characters are interesting, quirky enough to make you want to learn more about them, but not so weird that it's hard to relate, at least to the ones we're meant to relate to. The plot and pacing are pretty good, with some qualms. There's sort of a tone shift as you go through the book... as you can read from the description, it obviously starts out in a pretty dark place, and there's something of a bitter tone to the early half, like the author's trying to depress the reader about even fairly ordinary lives. A tendency towards deliberate emotional cruelty or callousness in some of the characters that can also make one bleak about human nature. In fact, there's a part early on that, for people in certain depressive situations, it might not be entirely wise for them to read because while the book itself doesn't exactly counsel suicide, there are characters who do, in a rather persuasive way. As the story goes on, the bitter tone fades, but by the end... it's almost too upbeat. There's a point in the book where are lot of people are heading to the same place at once, primed for a confrontation... and after that confrontation, the book meanders, like it's lost it's way, and then quickly tries to wrap everything up, and to get there, they have to skip over some important emotional beats for many characters, they simply change in a few pages, if not entirely off panel. It makes the end somewhat disconnected from the rest of the plot, both in pace and feel.
The resolution was a let down, not just in how it came about but in how complete it was... sure, it's not like everybody's story is over, or at least, many are moving on to completely new stories, but there's a strong sense of everything being tied up nicely so that there are no loose ends. And in most fiction, you want that... but it just feels wrong, in a briarpatch, to have it end that way. There should be loose ends, and tangled messes that don't ever get undone, and maybe a few thorns.
I guess another way to put it is that, without realizing it, I was hoping it would be the first book in a series. Which, in a way, is a decent endorsement of the book itself. And while it doesn't seem to be a series, there is room for more stories, and if they came, I might like to see them.
January 31, 2012
Briarpatch is about Darrin, who witnesses his girlfriend jumping off a bridge months after she left him with no explanation. He knows she left him for a mysterious man named Ismael Plenty. Unconvinced that his girlfriend would kill herself, he uncovers a bizarre consipiracy, engineered by Ismael Plenty, and centering around himself.
Darrin and Ismael are Briarpatch babies, though Darrin is unaware of this. Of uncertain origin, the Briarpatch babies have the ability to step into a series of interconnected worlds of varying degrees of probablility: some with hospitals that include machines that heal you by taking better bodies from alternate versions of yourself, some where you might be attacked by werebears. Ismael wants to find the perfect world, the one where the light itself causes you to forget all need and be perfectly satisfied. Because, you see, Briarpatch babies are immortal. And immortals get bored, and despair, and want to move on to the afterlife. At least Ismael does.
To learn to see the Briarpatch, you generally need some sort of shock. Ismael has decided to drive Darrin to despair. He convinced Darrin's ex-girlfriend to kill herself (to get to the light of another world - a way denied to Immortals). He convinced Darrin's BFF to get Darrin fired. Then he staged an affair between Darrin's BFF and his new girlfriend. Nothing quite works out the way Ismael wants to, though. Darrin is made of sterner stuff.
Briarpatch is a really low key, personality driven fantasy. I liked it because of the themes. It contrasts delight in life with a yearning for transcendence to create what is essentially an anti-dualist fable. There may be something wonderful in the next world, but this is the one you have to kick around in until you get there. Darrin and some of the cohort he picks up on the way, including an ex-suicide haunted by Darrin's ex-girlfriend, and a man driving an automobile from an alternate detroit around the Briarpatch in order to find a version of his wife so that he can ask her if she commited suicide, or just sat too long in an enclosed garage, all have engaging voices. They are driven but not anxious, despairing but still curious about the world. They all are dealing with the question of why we continue to exist in the face of disapointment in small but pragmatic ways. It may turn out to be the great question of secular life, once we are free of disease and war. Darrin is not a passive man, but the loss of the love of his life has made him so, and learning to love his life gives him freedom again.
I also liked it because it's it pretty, surrealist book. The touristy trips into the Briarpatch are filled with glossy snapshots of irreality: vampire bars where you tip the bartender in blood, the Pontiac Wendigo itself, and city ruled by bees will feed the heads of people who like some Dali with their Drama.
It is very low key fantasy. It's got some sex and booze and poker in it. You can't advertise for life without the elements that make it fun. If you need swords with your sorcery, this may not be for you. If you're not up for a read with a little bit of meditation, save it for later. But if you want something pretty and meditative and earthy, this would be a good next for your reading list.
Darrin and Ismael are Briarpatch babies, though Darrin is unaware of this. Of uncertain origin, the Briarpatch babies have the ability to step into a series of interconnected worlds of varying degrees of probablility: some with hospitals that include machines that heal you by taking better bodies from alternate versions of yourself, some where you might be attacked by werebears. Ismael wants to find the perfect world, the one where the light itself causes you to forget all need and be perfectly satisfied. Because, you see, Briarpatch babies are immortal. And immortals get bored, and despair, and want to move on to the afterlife. At least Ismael does.
To learn to see the Briarpatch, you generally need some sort of shock. Ismael has decided to drive Darrin to despair. He convinced Darrin's ex-girlfriend to kill herself (to get to the light of another world - a way denied to Immortals). He convinced Darrin's BFF to get Darrin fired. Then he staged an affair between Darrin's BFF and his new girlfriend. Nothing quite works out the way Ismael wants to, though. Darrin is made of sterner stuff.
Briarpatch is a really low key, personality driven fantasy. I liked it because of the themes. It contrasts delight in life with a yearning for transcendence to create what is essentially an anti-dualist fable. There may be something wonderful in the next world, but this is the one you have to kick around in until you get there. Darrin and some of the cohort he picks up on the way, including an ex-suicide haunted by Darrin's ex-girlfriend, and a man driving an automobile from an alternate detroit around the Briarpatch in order to find a version of his wife so that he can ask her if she commited suicide, or just sat too long in an enclosed garage, all have engaging voices. They are driven but not anxious, despairing but still curious about the world. They all are dealing with the question of why we continue to exist in the face of disapointment in small but pragmatic ways. It may turn out to be the great question of secular life, once we are free of disease and war. Darrin is not a passive man, but the loss of the love of his life has made him so, and learning to love his life gives him freedom again.
I also liked it because it's it pretty, surrealist book. The touristy trips into the Briarpatch are filled with glossy snapshots of irreality: vampire bars where you tip the bartender in blood, the Pontiac Wendigo itself, and city ruled by bees will feed the heads of people who like some Dali with their Drama.
It is very low key fantasy. It's got some sex and booze and poker in it. You can't advertise for life without the elements that make it fun. If you need swords with your sorcery, this may not be for you. If you're not up for a read with a little bit of meditation, save it for later. But if you want something pretty and meditative and earthy, this would be a good next for your reading list.
August 24, 2011
I recieved this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The Briarpatch is a network of worlds parallel to our own. It is a glimpse of an alleyway out of the corner of your eye that is gone when you turn to look at it. It is the sight of a moonlight colored bridge floating in the sky. It is a pack of wild bears running around that once were people. It is beautiful. It is harrowing. It is the Briarpatch. And for the handful of characters in this story, it's something that will change their lives forever.
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, since there arn't many other reviews about it out there yet. I have to say that I was hooked from the first page. The author begins the book by informing the reader about the main character's (Darrin) girlfriend commiting suicide. It was such an intense and captivating introduction to the story that I literally could not put it down for hours! This book is simply fascinating. The idea of the Briarpatch and hidden worlds laying about right next to/overlapping our world is just incredible. It was such a unique story, unlike anything I've ever read before. I would reccomend this book to anyone who enjoys urban fantasy or scifi stories!
I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, since there arn't many other reviews about it out there yet. I have to say that I was hooked from the first page. The author begins the book by informing the reader about the main character's (Darrin) girlfriend commiting suicide. It was such an intense and captivating introduction to the story that I literally could not put it down for hours! This book is simply fascinating. The idea of the Briarpatch and hidden worlds laying about right next to/overlapping our world is just incredible. It was such a unique story, unlike anything I've ever read before. I would reccomend this book to anyone who enjoys urban fantasy or scifi stories!
May 26, 2016
A totally gripping urban fantasy by one of the best fantasy/sci-fi writers of the 21st century.This story had me up all night wondering if the hero would ever find out the truth about his dead ex-girlfriend.
The mystery surrounding just what the Briarpatch is was so compelling it had me double-checking every dark shadow you see from the corner of your eye in the small hours of the morning.
If you like this story then I recommend that you read Tim Pratt's The Nex. Although not connected in any way, The Nex could easily be what you would find if you could reach the centre of the Briarpatch.
The mystery surrounding just what the Briarpatch is was so compelling it had me double-checking every dark shadow you see from the corner of your eye in the small hours of the morning.
If you like this story then I recommend that you read Tim Pratt's The Nex. Although not connected in any way, The Nex could easily be what you would find if you could reach the centre of the Briarpatch.
July 26, 2013
Briarpatch by Tim Pratt is a dark, very moody tale. When the story starts with a suicide the reader quickly learns what they are in for. Pratt, however, breaks away from the pack and proves that he can weave a unique and extremely engaging story. Like most Chizine books, this one is full of concepts and ideas that takes normal storytelling, throws it out the window, and replaces it with a type of world that even the most experienced reader has yet to explore.
Briarpatch review at SFReader.com
Briarpatch review at SFReader.com
March 27, 2014
I'm disappointed to say this, as Ranger Girl and The Nex are some of my favorite books, but this scores a big fat three star meh. For some reason the characters, plot and world completely failed to grab me - it's not a bad book, just oddly unmemorable. I'm pretty much reduced to reviewing it from a social justice perspective - it gains points for a respectful, consensual sex scene, loses them for a slightly problematic depiction of mental illness, and I'm rather bemused to find that's all I have to say.
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