Starred review from December 18, 2006
This stimulating and bruising sequel to Scottish author Duncan's neo-Joycean Vellum
(2006) projects the endless battle between good and evil onto a kaleidoscopic multitude of parallel alternative realities. Duncan's debut introduced bionanotech-enhanced humans, who clashed with ordinary humans in a 2017 apocalypse. The Carter family of Glasgow guarded the God-commissioned titular Book, but now the scribe and angel Metatron has hidden the Book somewhere in the infinite folds of a realm called the Vellum and is preparing to die. Meanwhile, a host of eerie characters, including foul-mouthed Jack "Flash" Carter, Puck-figure Thomas Messenger and Jack's shrink, Guy Renard Carter, search for the Book. Full of riffs on myths from throughout human history as well as allusions to Euripides'Bacchae
, this enormous, stinging, poignant hymn engenders a terrible beauty all its own.
February 15, 2007
This sequel to "Vellum", Scottish author Duncan's debut fantasy novel, is so multilayered that it can in some sense stand on its own. Guy Reynard Carter, the first-person narrator in various incarnations at various points, sums up the author's meta-realistic approach like this: "The same story can beand istold in different ways by different writers, each one taking their own path, branching the story out from one dimension to two." The Evenfall disaster of 2017 is again a touch point, but "Ink" is more fantasy and less science fiction than "Vellum" was, and it also has a more hopeful strain. Duncan's series is reminiscent of Kevin Smith's film "Dogma" in its alternative culture representations of gods and angels. It is also a successor to Samuel Delany's infamous "Dhalgren" (1974) in its blend of literary styles and apocalyptic and sexualespecially gaythemes. Suitable for larger public and academic library fantasy collections.Sara Tompson, Univ. of Southern California Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
February 15, 2007
In the sequel to " Vellum "(2005), the Covenant has been broken, but the angel and demon unkin still compete for power over the worlds of the Vellum. Playing out against a backdrop of futurism and fascism and little pockets of stagnant order--havens, where the bitmites make all the things humans have ever dreamed up possible--the split parts of Mad Jack, Joey Narcosis, Phreedom, and the rest of their crew seek to rewrite the Book of All Hours and bring the angels and demons to their knees for good. Duncan's multilayered storytelling--a mad ride through alternate histories of the twentieth century and beyond--makes for a complex and tangled narrative whose strands are slowly woven together to a satisfying denouement. As in " Vellum," Duncan draws on classical sources in " Ink," this time Euripides' " Bacchae" and some of Virgil's pastoral works, to great effect. " Ink" delivers beautifully on the promise of " Vellum," with an excellent mixture of adventure, danger, and the fantastic.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)