The Wasp Factory: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Weak - highly overrated - not really even disturbing...
Review: Sorry, but this book was a real let-down. If you buy it, don't expect to be shocked or disturbed deeply. I found the book to be moderately interesting, but kept thinking it was leading to something bigger at the end. It never materialized.

Rating:
Summary: intriguing but ultimately incoherent
Review: This is an entertaining look into a pretty bent mind, with some nice vivid and bizarre imagery. What kept me reading, though, was not just the bentness or the imagery in itself, but the sense that Banks knew what he was doing, that it was all going to come together in the end and add up to something greater. It didn't. There's no particular insight at the end, no new ground broken, just an attempt to sort of sum everything up in terms of a single annoying little contrivance. This made me look back at the rest of the book and see it as fairly shallow and sensationalistic, however arresting some of the scenes are in themselves. I should also note that anyone who thinks this book is really out there or mind-blowing or whatever probably has never read Thomas Pynchon.

Rating:
Summary: The greatest novel of the post-modern post-punk era!
Review: Banks creates a landscape of brutal beauty, peopling it with characters who walk a fine line between being casually mad and causticly sane, in this his first work of non-science fiction. A cult classic in the UK and Canada for 15 years, this book deserves to be read aloud from the highest towers and preached at the pulpit. Banks delivers something most writers are simply incapable of producing: jaw-gapping, pulse-racing, heart-wrenching prose that you can believe in.

Rating:
Summary: All In All a Very Interesting Look At A Unique Psyche
Review: As our Canadian friend has already pointed out, this book is very short.It has some very poetic and even strangebut beautiful passages. Even I have toagree about the point of it all though,it seems to be all "said @ the end".Nevertheless, it is worth the read. I have also heard some people make comments about this book being 'just another childhood psychotic novel' etc.,but what you have to remember is that this book was written in the 1980's which makes it very original. It may bethe other books that deserve those kind of remarks...

Rating:
Summary: WICKID!
Review: An outrageous storyteller with an outrageous story. If you have a brain, read it!

Rating:
Summary: Dark nature versus perverse nurture
Review: This novel shook me up several times. So much is related in a matter-of-fact style and I was caught, unable to "look away" from these scenes of disturbing violence. Told by the narrator -- the strange, destructive Frank Cauldhame, here is a novel of unique power. What I expected to be little more than a well-crafted thriller turned out to be one of the most shocking novels I've ever read and one which had me wondering how Frank came to be this creature. I couldn't help wondering what it all meant and how much I could trust Frank's view. Still don't know. One thing I understand for sure: even the mad have their reasons. This novel caused me to examine a number of questions. I didn't feel that the author was attempting to provide answers for me but in creating a realistic yet bizarre character caused me to think. Regarding the "surprise" ending -- I wasn't expecting it and I advise other readers not to pay too much attention to it. This novel must be evaluated based on every page -- not just the last few.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing, viceral futility....too much reality for some.
Review: Critics of this book attack it's mightmarish cruelty, mistake the interraction of the weird with the normal for a device representing something more, and dismiss a good read as a bloody roller-coaster. What's wrong with that? Nothing, exept TWF has much more body than its blood soaked surface suggests. Remember the time you first talked to a compulsive swearer in a bar and gloated over their lack of imagination and vocabulary? Didn't you come round to see that person as whole, funny, capable of the same depth as you if you gave them time? TWF is like that. It is viceral, strange and maddening. It is also taught, subtle and delicate, but not in any conventional way. If TWF was an LP the Dead Kennedy's would be the musicians. But does that make it bad? I don't think so. It is a product of it's time and place just like every other text you ever read. Read it. Don't read the hype and hoo-ha about it.

Rating:
Summary: A HIGHLIGHT IN 20TH CENTURY LITERATURE
Review: Disturbing it maybe, worrying it certainly is, however it is a must read. The imagery and prose is outstanding but that aside you ar still left with the fundermental requirement for a novel - a good story. Don't waste time looking for hidden meanings or an alternative agenda because there isn't one. Banks set out to shock and he did.

Rating:
Summary: An unusual look at an unusual boy's unusual life.
Review: I read this book in the early 1980's and it has stuck with me ever since. To delve too deeply into the story would be to take away from its impact. The main character is an "evil boy" who kills family members for his own well stated reasons. The book is jarring and, at times, exceedingly graphic and violent. But then, that is who the boy is. Whether you end up liking it or hating it, and I am sure there will be those in the latter camp, it will keep your interest and it will stick in your mind long after you turn the last page.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent - absolutely unique
Review: This excellent novel delves into the twisted mind of a young man who lives a lonely life with his father in Scotland. A quality psychological shocker. If you fancy something different, try this!