The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (Chapter 4 Boniface)

A betrothal broken without explanation. A suspenseful chase by carriage and train. A country house hosting inexplicable vice. An intrepid heroine seduced by danger... And that's only the beginning! Chang is one of those characters you'll discuss with your friends. Gordon Dahlquist's mammoth (760 page) debut novel reads like a 21st-century imagining of a Victorian thriller. Pulsing with terror, erotic energy, and exhilarating invention, this is a fantastic and compelling saga -- part Wilkie Collins, part Jules Verne, part Sherlock Holmes, part Alexander Dumas. I and nine other booksellers had dinner last night with the author, on the Queen Mary. How cool was that. He got the idea for the book in a dream, and wrote a lot of it while commuting to his "day" job at Columbia Univ. It only took him a year to write This is his first book, but he's a playwrite. The book is very visual, and never boring. You must read every word, no skimming. A sequal is in the works!

The pace is breakneck, the characters involving, the mystery complex and cleverly revealed, just a tantalizing bit at a time. I read the whole book in less than 24 hours. Even though I sometimes thought there was a shade too much chasing, I was never tempted to skim. Brilliant! It would make quite a movie: I can see Vigo Mortensen as Cardinal Chang, Kate Beckinsale at Miss Temple, perhaps David Slade as Doctor Svenson? Go ahead, suspend your disbelief (you know you want to!) and just enjoy it.

Is Gordon Dahlquist actually Diana Gabaldon? GD/DG... clever really. I get a hint of Lord John and I know her fans would cry bloody murder if they knew she was writing this instead of working on the next Clare/Jamie Fraser book. If it is her it is a nice way to branch out... I don't know... it is just a little too familiar for me. I'm 80 pages in and could change my mind. Change it for me if you want...[I've since finished]

So since this beginning of a review was done some time ago, I came across an Italo Calvino idea that reads:

"The preliminary condition of any work of literature is that the person who is writing has to invent that first character, who is the author of the work. That a person puts his whole self into the work he is writing is something we often hear said, but it is never true. It is always only a projection of himself that an author calls into play while he is writing; it may be a projection of a real part of himself or the projection of a fictitious "I"--a mask, in short." The Uses of Literature

So, I thought I'd revisit this review since I finished the book and agree with some of the criticism that has gone on here. To me, the idea of the book- and some of its more clever twists- are better than the book itself. I think the story loses itself in trying to over-explain what is happening.

Also, I'd like to say, that given the Calvino reminder, I'm standing by my original assessment that this is Diana Gabaldon writing this and the picture of Dahlquist is her in drag. I can see where she would have projected herself into that fictitious "Gordon" and created this story and background for him. A typically good author submersed in the GD persona could easily have a hard time meeting typical DG standards.

I'm not generally a fantasy book afficionado, though I loved the Phillip Pullman books and grew up on Lord of the Rings, but when a friend recommended this book, I thought what the hell, I liked the cover and the first chapter was riveting in an odd and totally original way. Needless to say - I gobbled it up. The characters were fantastically vivid, and the whole imagined world so impressively conceived, I was literally on the edge of my seat. (I read a lot of it riding on the NY subway and found myself missing stops, and in one particular scene which I won't spoil for you, getting very red in the face...) It honestly didn't even feel long, the action moves incredibly fast - the writing had irony, wit and humor - it felt like fantasy wrapped in social satire - the glass books seemed to me to be an allegory for the dangerous force of all power hungry media structures that work on your base instincts and deprive you of your individuality, your critical mind, your creativity. I recommend this book to anyone who wants something really original.

I never write reviews but this book simply reminded me of why I loved reading as a child. The world within is familiar yet alien, the characters real but more alive than some people you will meet while out tonight!

Not since Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogyThe Reality Dysfunction (The Night's Dawn) has a world of the mind been so seductive and vibrant. I won't go on about it, Buy it for cheap and you'll be searching for a First Edition for your collection in no time.

Steampunk vision at its baroque best!!

While exciting things happen in the story, they are all told at the same monotonous pace, so that even extreme action sequences left me yawning.

When I was halfway through, I considered walking away from it, but decided to finish, just to find out what happened. However, since this is book one of a series, at the end, you still have no idea what is happening. As you can imagine, there is a 0% chance that I will be reading the next 2 books in the series, so I'm destined to never know what happened, and I'm alright with that.

BOOOO!!! HISSSS!!! I forced myself to read two thirds of this mess and finally just said - I don't care what happens to these characters because I know absolutely nothing would. The words just kept coming and coming, never ending, one after another and they added up to saying NOTHING worth keeping. If this book had been scaled down to about 250 pages I would say it was very original but not at over 700, with each chapter averaging over 70 pages that went on and on and on... kind of like this review.

Now I know what has been missing from the bookstores for ages. With "The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters", the grand adventure novel is back. Set in Victorian Europe, it is a fabulous tapestry of mystery, science fiction, sword play, sexuality and sensuality with a scheme to take over governments by a wonderful combination of sex and memory control. Gordon Dahlquist spins a plot worthy of Alexander Dumas, and his main characters Miss Temple, Cardinal Chang and Dr. Svenson are a wonderful rift on the three musketeers. And their nemesis? I'll just say she is one for the books.

Dahlquist gives each of his triumvirate their own plot line which he beautifully dovetails in variations throughout the story into a fully satisfying climax.

I agree with other reviewers that say that this book is to wordy. I don't know if it's to wordy, or if author just complicates it when something has to be said. I don't know ow to describe it exactly. I mean... couldn't get throught this book. It waddles. I tried to read it, thinking that the premise was good, but at page 80 I decided to stop suffering trying to make sense of it.

Totally original, well written, awesome characters, hilarious, suspensful, a book you will devour. I could not put this or the sequel down until I fininshed, I read them for hours and hours at a time. I hope these books keep coming. Utterly fantastic read.

I have a penchant for long, challenging novels, and "Glass Books" is certainly both. But don't let the words "long" & "challenging" discourage you from reading it. It is bizarre and unique, firmly rooted in a universal subconscious, both the author's and our own (by now you no doubt know that the creative impetus of the book sprung from a dream). It is also very visceral, a gothic mystery that you can totally get absorbed into.

After picking up and discouragingly putting down novel after novel looking for a great summer read (I also enjoyed last summer's Dracula epic, "The Historian"), I finally found a winner!

This was an absolutely delicious romp of a novel. It took hold of me and would not let go. Exquisitely written, without being precious or overworked, it races along like a great adventure tale in the style of Wilkie Collins or Neil Gaiman. At first, I read it for the "what happens next" factor, but then I really fell in love with the characters. (My boyfriend read it as well, and we've argued over which character is the best; he is a "Svenson-ite," I am a Chang-ite). More than just a thrilling story, it turns into a novel with surprising emotional heft. The end is unforgettable.

I read this painful piece of trash roughly three+ years ago when I was working at a bookstore. It had been sent as an advance reader copy and it looked promising. HOWEVER, this book is one of the most painful things that I have ever forced myself to get through. I read every last word hoping that somewhere, ANYWHERE, a point would be made, or something explained to justify the marketing campaign that was accompanying this book. WRONG. SO WRONG. Tedious is being nice about how awful this book is - I would give it a negative rating if I could. It meanders. It's overly descriptive. There's no point to any of the action. You relive the events of the book three times each through the eyes of different characters. This book is so bad that I'm still upset about the time I lost reading it, not to mention the number of trees that had to die to print this colossal waste.

Fun, suspenseful tale that will keep you up late into the night, eager to find out "what happens next." Ignore all the comments about it being too wordy and convoluted - it's a great book that seems to be supremely underrated. Flawed ending, but since there's going to be a sequel, I guess that was on purpose. It's great, buy it!

To compare this work with Diana Gabaldon's novels is ridiculous. The characters are superficial and behave like video game constructions not human personalities. The plot is driven by external events entirely, the characters do not develop. We see them only from the outside as we would in a game. The plot is a series of violent encounters. The settings are very reminiscent of Myst without the beauty--featuring lots of fantasy gizmos.

I love a richly crafted novel set in a historical-seeming world. I gave up reading this after about 200 pages.

I'm starting to wonder if the young editors at publishing houses read books for pleasure any more. How anyone could confuse this with a novel is beyond me.

My late mother had a way of describing books like this: "There are too many words on the pages." Now I know what Mom meant. I forced my way through this seemingly endless novel, and it was like pushing a big rock up a long hill. The first-time author has vivid characters and a good sense of adventure, but, boy-oh-boy, is he ever long-winded! Buried somewhere in this 800-page doorstop is a really terrific 400-page fantasy novel, screaming to get out.

Note the interminable amount of time it takes, over and over, for people to get from Point A to Point B. This book is all about transportation. Even the chase scenes seem to be in slow motion. And that coy "this-is-really-London-but-we're-not-going-to-call-it-London" device is truly irritating. With all the endless traveling, we still don't know where we are.

On the other hand, the story has its charms, and the "glass books" are a great concept, and the three main characters are a perfect team. If you have a great deal of patience, you'll be reasonably entertained. But this sure ain't the fantasy blockbuster the ads are claiming it to be. There is no magic here--it's been drowned in an ocean of words. The only word that's missing is economy, something a novelist can only learn with experience (and editing). Maybe next time....

Have you ever read a book that seems promising based on the description and the beginning? But once you've gotten about 300 pages into it and still not much of substance has been revealed all you want to do is throw it against the wall? I'm afraid that, to me, this is one of those books.

As another reviewer mentioned- this would be a fantastic book if its editor actually did their job and turned the book which is around 750 incredibly long winded pages into a 300 page novel. Pages are spent describing a main character pouring her tea and arranging her scones.

If you decide to purchase it, good luck getting through it- sometimes it's worthwhile, but overall- wait for the paperback. I really wish I did.

Way too many pages, dragging my interest down, down, down. No book should require more than 700 pages. I doubt I will finish it, the ebbs and flows are too frequent. Too many other books on my shelf awaiting attention and merit.