All the Bells on Earth

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Book!
Review: I loved this book! Not much more I can say, since it's been awhile since I read it, but this is a truly memorable novel. Blaylock is at his best when he tones down the quirkiness of his characters and presents his unique brand of fantasy in a more down-to-earth setting. This novel reminded me of some of the best work of Tim Powers, a friend of Blaylock's, and someone who is mining this same vein in his writing. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: More mundane yet still fascinating
Review: To me this one marks a small yet noticable difference between the earlier "classic" Blaylock (Paper Grail, Last Coin) and the rest of his stuff. The elements are all here, the regular people going about their lives in a quirky fashion, the fingers of evil magic cloaked in mundanity at the edges of everyone's awareness, it's all here. Something is just . . . different. I don't know what. There seems to be more of an emphasis on the horror aspects of the plot, it's more gruesome than many of his other books had been and a bit more downbeat as well. Walt is a typical Blaylock character, but he lacks just a tiny bit of the quirky charm that makes the others so memorable, you stand up and cheer for him through the story but more because you want the good guys to win. Blaylock has to stop the daffy older relatives thing though, it's getting a bit repetitive, this is the third book in a row I've read that features a weird uncle of some sort who is either an inventor or a dreamer or something else (Uncle Arthur in the Last Coin was by far the most original, though Uncle Roy from the Paper Grail was more enjoyable). The "regular life" stuff seems a bit more forced now, Maggie Biggs has to be the most annoying character I've encountered in a long time (which might be the point) and the rest of the stuff has a been there, done that feeling (except for the addition of the kids, which is handled realistically and face it, they're just darn cute). That said, Blaylock figured out how to make a compromise between poetic prose and a tight plotting, this is indeed a page turner, with brief short chapters advancing the plot almost constantly, there may be a lot of annoying subplots but they shift back and forth so quick that by the time it comes back around again you're almost looking forward to it. His prose is as good as ever and the book is overall really well crafted, I'm not ashamed to say that I finished it in a manner of hours and was quite satisified with the package I got. Yes, it's not "classic" Blaylock and I can't agree with some of the changes he's made in his style but it shows him attempting to do some stuff that's slightly different and if at first you don't succeed perfectly, we all know he'll try again. And I know I'll give him a chance.

Rating:
Summary: terrific faustian story
Review: What is the cost of making a deal with the devil? What sort of person enters such a deal? Can one slide into into one of these deals slowly without realizing it?

These are the questions this wonderful novel explores. Mr. Blatlock is, in my opinion, the contemporary master of combining fantastical ideas and very real, even mundane characters who tend to remind you of yourself.

I would compare this particular novel with Charles Williams' _Descent Into Hell_, which I read at about the same time. They are both fine descriptions of the road to hell and the people on it, from writers who understand that the danger involved are not just in the realm of fantasy.

Just check it out and see!