Status Updates From The Wanderer

Oh, for a few bags of post-apocalyptic cement! That's the way we do it!

Ah, okay, credulity restored. You're off the hook, Duncan. Or whatever your name happens to be at the time.

"A Treatise on Dust," while a fine story, seems to be unhitched from the rest of the stories by a long way. Is it set in the early 19th-century? The others are clearly set in the mid 20th-century at the earliest. Wouldn't the other characters be incredulous about Duncan sharing his story? How old was he when he told it at The Nightingale? 125 years? That raised no eyebrows? Needs justification, at least.

Jarvis effectively dances on the jagged line between supernatural credulity and banal insanity. The characters often call themselves into question but, ultimately, they know what they have seen and experienced. The question is: when should and should the reader at all suspend disbelief? That tug and pull keep roping me back in when I'm ready to dismiss the narrative as hokey.

Well, "One Moment Knelled the Woe of Years" was . . . disturbing. The horror is effective, but I'm not 100% certain what I think of it. The denouement will be telling. Curious to see how this ties out with the rest of the book.

So far, this is one of those rare books that are composed of interlocking short stories where the conceit that ties them all together is actually appropriate and well-written, though clearly written as a binding agent. I'm curious to see how it holds up through the course of the book. Some people, I see in their reviews, don't think highly of it. For me, thus far, it's good enough.

I was listening to Black Sabbath's "Born Again" album while reading "The Lamia". The staccato, disjointed, yet strangely coherent narrative of the story fit the music rather well. Knights and demons and mistaken identities all a moil.

Ah, a string of short stories composing a novel, a'la 1001 Nights (no pun intended). Much easier to read the post-apocalyptic threads than in The Purple Cloud.

An intriguing, post-metafiction intro story. Fantastically well-written and atmospheric, with hints of disasters to come!

I do love a good metafiction!