On a whim I picked up Vellum and it's sequel Ink and didn't even bother to check the summaries in the flaps. Blah blah blah, Angels vs Demons, fight to the death, blah blah blah, toss it on the credit card and move on. I just wanted a new book to read on my lunch break at work. Usually I read utter crap at work because it's what's on hand (I've even read two of the Buffy tVS novels this way, ugh).

Somehow I struck gold this time.

Instead of a mindless Angels vs Demons gore fest with no mythological basis, I found out that the short blurb on the back lied to me. While there is a war, that's not what the story is about. The story is about Language, and more loosely myth. Not just any myth and not just and language however, it spans every major mythology and relates to the original Language of God that was stolen from mankind at Babel.

Plot synopsis; There is a language so pure that voicing it can rewrite reality itself, and there are former humans out there that want to use it to rule the world. When they learn the Cant, they leave humanity behind, embrace the buddha/christ/godhead within them and become Unkin. Taking up the guise of angels and demons straight out of catholic myth, two sides have waged war for centuries. Whispering words of the Cant into the ears of their minions as a form of control they will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. But not everyone wants to become a god. There are a few out there who just want to exist without having to choose one side or another, and three in particular that really should have been allowed to do so. Inanna, queen of heaven, Prometheus, the original rebel, and Jack Flash, Jack the Giant Killer/Mad Jack Carter/Calico Jack/Flash Gordan/Jumping Jack/Narcissus/etc, have been pushed just a little too far. Across time and space history is slowly being rewritten and the powers that be are starting to get worried. Can a half mad alcoholic Irishman, a trailer trash white girl, and a flaming homosexual more interested in shiny objects and drugs than the rest of the world really win against a collection of beings so practiced in warfare that their names are legend?

It's got a great start, a strong middle, and a good ending. Though maybe not in that order.

The good; lots of hard mythology basis, good solid characters. vivid world(s), very descriptive, blasphemous on occasion (is it ok to list that in the "good" category?), and addicting. Obvious influences from Phillip K Dick, Lovecraft, James Joyce, and other masters of literature.

The bad; There is a fine line between genius and insanity, Duncan staggers drunkenly back and forth from page to page. Given how well he describes those characters that descend into madness and schizophrenia, I have to question his own mind too. A nonlinear perspective and storytelling style means that it can be downright impossible to decipher what is happening to who and when. Is Phreedom Messenger pure human and seventeen years old in 2015, is she five years old and the goddess Inanna in ancient Sumeria, or is she twenty year old Anna in Britain waiting for her fiance/brother to com home from war in 1915? All of it and none of it is true because time is wonky when you've got the voice of god, and most of it never really happened because history keeps being changed.


TL;DR Version; Twisty, jumpy, minor slash, weird ideas, thought provoking. Maybe not for people who prefer everything laid out in a nice logical pattern. The single most unique thing I have read in at least 6 years.

Inspite of it's problems, a strong 4/5!

 

Well, I was intrigued enough to go off and try and find out more about it. I came by this site. It's certainly a fascinating premise. Nonlinear storytelling is something I especially enjoy, if struggle to follow, at times. The myriad of intermixed mythologies seems almost intimidating in it's scope, to be honest.

You said it was difficult at times to know what was happening to who. Was that just hyperbole or is it genuinely that confusing?

Doubts aside, it really does seem fascinating. I'm tempted to go and buy it, even if I have dozens of other books I should be reading. Damn you Caitiff.