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A review by wendleness
Not the End of the World by Christopher Brookmyre
5.0
Not the End of the World = ((Religious fundamentalists ^ self-righteous indignation) + B-movie convention) x chaos
The first Brookmyre without Parlabane, set in America with only one Scottish character… this book starts off not looking so promising. It is Brookmyre though, so give him the benefit of the doubt.
A slow and steady, but mysterious and intriguing start, I had to wonder where the hell this book was going. I made a few guesses, and of course was completely wrong, but if I'd have been right it would have been no fun.
I have a lot of hate and anger for aspects of this book, but that is hate and anger I was supposed to feel. As well as eliciting those emotions from me, Brookmyre also manages to squeeze a bit of pity out of me for the same character. Damn you, Brookmyre, you can't just let me hate a man in peace? You have to give him a back story and make me see how his insanity makes sense to him. You have to create well-written and well-rounded, believable characters.
I think this book is a marked improvement in the subtleties of Brookmyre's writing. It was while reading this book that I realised I would happily read anything Brookmyre wrote, because he would write it so well, and so interestingly. I decided he should write non-fiction books, hell, write text books for school children. He would make dull subjects interesting in the way he presented the facts. And so, when I subsequently learnt he had had to cut 20,000 words from this book because he had waffled on a little too much about the Minoans, I was not surprised, but disappointed, because I would have read them.
The first Brookmyre without Parlabane, set in America with only one Scottish character… this book starts off not looking so promising. It is Brookmyre though, so give him the benefit of the doubt.
A slow and steady, but mysterious and intriguing start, I had to wonder where the hell this book was going. I made a few guesses, and of course was completely wrong, but if I'd have been right it would have been no fun.
I have a lot of hate and anger for aspects of this book, but that is hate and anger I was supposed to feel. As well as eliciting those emotions from me, Brookmyre also manages to squeeze a bit of pity out of me for the same character. Damn you, Brookmyre, you can't just let me hate a man in peace? You have to give him a back story and make me see how his insanity makes sense to him. You have to create well-written and well-rounded, believable characters.
I think this book is a marked improvement in the subtleties of Brookmyre's writing. It was while reading this book that I realised I would happily read anything Brookmyre wrote, because he would write it so well, and so interestingly. I decided he should write non-fiction books, hell, write text books for school children. He would make dull subjects interesting in the way he presented the facts. And so, when I subsequently learnt he had had to cut 20,000 words from this book because he had waffled on a little too much about the Minoans, I was not surprised, but disappointed, because I would have read them.