Roofworld

Rating:
Summary: Starts great but quickly goes downhill
Review: Christopher Fowler has an atmospheric setting and a nifty plot to hang his story on but that can't last for three hundred pages. The characters are undeveloped to the point of being annoying. Scenes seem to be writing in such a rush that everything melts together. And of course we get the standard police-trying-to-solve-a-mystery subplot.

Rating:
Summary: Marylebone never felt so special
Review: I am not a new comer to Christopher Fowler's books, and have been waiting some time to get my hands on this early book. Normally a writer develops a style throughout his work, and if you read later works before the early stuff, you can feel disappointed, or e'en like you are reading the work of a different writer. Not so with Fowler. This early work is just as riveting as his later offerings. It is fresh and bright, for all its moody and dark descriptions. In this novel Fowler writes of a people who glid from roof to roof on wires, and dispise the world below for its corruption. However, factions develop in 'roofworld' and a war begins, this war means bodys on the ground. Apart from the mysterious dead falling from the sky there is a second, though equally important story based on the ground, that of a book deal. These two stories mix, ultimately becoming one very engaging read. Some parts of the book may appear obvious when you are reading them, but they turn out to be the opposite, and Fowler has merely duped you into thinking that you have heard it all before, and that you are so, so, clever. The London setting is fantastic, but some of the descriptions (of music or high culture, for example) are a little dated, but as long as you can remember them, you can wallow in the past, rather than becoming lost in things that don't exist anymore. As I had been looking forward to reading this for such a long time, I could easily have been disappointed; and I am not so great a fan that I cannot criticise. However this book, is nearly perfect. The story is well written and original enough to keep you suspending your disbelief, the setting is described so atmospherically as to allow you to visualise London whether you have been or not. The characters are engaging and are a wide enough mixture as to make youmourn their deaths and "whoop" at their trumphs. The bad point is theslight dating, and that is about it. This is a brilliant introduction to Christopher Fowler's work, and is good enough to make you want more. I highly recommend this to anyone, whatever type of book you usually like, forget prejudice and pick this up.

Rating:
Summary: C O O L !
Review: I picked up this little gem from my local library a few years ago, I sat down and read it, a few hours later I was disappointed to find the librarian telling me to leave, I was imagining myself flying through the air above Londons poor ground dwelling mortals below, I was mesmerised by the thought of a hidden society in this day and age of security cameras living an exciting but deadly lifestyle.

Modern day London is rocked by a stream of horrific murders, two unlikely people are drawn into the roofworld community, people who have left the world below to pursue an alternative lifestyle, however a dangerous faction exists within their secretive society one dedicated to controlling the roofworld by any means. This is a horror novel, with some truely gruesome scenes, not for the faint hearted, I recommend this book to horror fans, it offers more than just the usual blood curdling screams. Go buy it borrow it just get it, read and enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Takes itself too seriously
Review: Roofworld is very frustrating, in part because it could have been so much more. The protagonists are poorly constructed and the concepts, while great, do not take flight. The secondary characters in Roofworld form a freak show and the Roofworld's `Ambassador' is not introduced for some time - and then only as a shrivelling, pitiful character as the street world's main character. A few action sequences where we never get to fixate on one particular person makes this a very limp narrative.