About the Author

Hal Duncan lives in Glasgow.

Reviews

This sequel to Vellum, Scottish author Duncan's debut fantasy novel, is so multi-layered 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 be-and is-told 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 sexual-especially gay-themes. Suitable for larger public and academic library fantasy collections.-Sara Tompson, Univ. of Southern California Lib., Los Angeles Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

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. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.