Peter McLaughlin > Recent Status Updates

On p. 216, Buehlman describing a demon: ‘How unlike a bird it was, though it had wings, or at least explained itself with them; no bird could just hang in the sky like a still image of itself.’ How sad that the man has clearly never seen (even a YouTube video of) a kestrel!

I'm not sure whether it's an unfair advantage, or actually a handicap, to title your novel with a line from Shakespeare. On the one hand, every time I catch the spine of this book in the corner of my eye, it suddenly becomes the centre of my attention, because my brain's like 'fuck, remember that line? that's a fucking amazing line.' On the other hand, when I pick it up, I am now expecting Shakespeare.

This is a book and a half. I'm not a hundred pages in and I am already pretty confident this will be the best book I read all year. The density of insight is unbelievable. (Also I get to listen to the Specials while I read it which is good fun.)

The introduction seems compelling, but when I spot-checked a few particularly interesting claims, it was not clear that Sells was correct. I won't commit to saying anything stronger until I've read more and checked more, but I have shifted to a more sceptical footing.