The Wanderer in Unknown Realms, John Connolly
I don’t quite know what to make of this book. It starts off well, and throughout it’s atmospheric and leaves me curious. The bit about the power of books is creepily powerful, and there’s some great description in the most uncanny bits. The main character is handled well, too, in my opinion: he has a past which he never has to elaborate on, but which nonetheless colours everything he does and says. But then you get to the end of the book and it suddenly… stops. As my wife pointed out to me, the ending is pretty classic horror stuff, with no closure, but… Then you’ve got the narrator, telling his story. To whom? How? Why? That aspect all rather broke my engagement with the story, because I like there to be a reason.
If you’re a fan of John Connolly or of creepy crustaceans in horror novellas, this might be your thing, but I don’t think I’d recommend it in general.
I found exactly what you describe with another Connolly book, full of promise but a lame and inconsequential ending, or at least one that I found rather unsatisfying. I don’t know if that’s the case with his short stories (I’ve got a collection of them on my TBR shelf) but we’ll see, maybe short form suits him better.
Christopher Lovegrove recently posted…A witch’s trial
Yes, this one just… ended. I have enjoyed one book of Connolly’s, though I can’t think of the title now.