Rating: 
Summary: Tried to love this tale!
Review: This book starts off like a comet! It gets under your skin quickly and leaves you wanting to know more! About 2/3 through, where I should be really juiced, the pacing falters and I'm left only wanting to read it in the bathroom, so to speak. I thought surely, with such fine reviews, and with my love of magical realism, that the pace will hook me again, or maybe it was a fluke....
The pace picks up again for a short while, but stutters again to a slow grind. It's possible that Chistopher intended this and I'm not entirely sophisticated enough to grasp the whys therefore. It could be that he was emulating life's inconsistant pacing. I will assume it was art rather than oversight.I did vaguely sense a subtle, Christian pantheic theme, and I am surprized no one noted it. The eternal battle between God and the Devil. I don't mean good versus evil... I mean characters meeting and encompassing the range, primarily through subtle shades of grey - both good and evil- to accomplish tasks that seemed to be towards some greater good/evil. These, accompanied by whole cast of strange, quirky angels and demons as an accompanying chorus, I thought would surely turn out to be something larger and universal. Deconstructing this bit was rather entertaining.... I therefore conclude, that if you find the book's pacing substandard, I suspect the myriad possibilities in plot deconstruction might well hold your attention through the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Seeing through a telescope and a microscope - simultaneously
Review: To the punchline, first: if you enjoy the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or loved "Fall On Your Knees" by Anne Marie McDonald, or simply admire a successful poet's translation to prose, you will thoroughly enjoy this book. Buy it, borrow it, look over the shoulder of the person in the seat next to you - just read it. Now the review: I won't repeat the plot of this book: you can read that above, and it is every bit as complex and fascinating as it sounds. What I will say is that Christopher has created a unique, believable world that doesn't just invite you to suspend your disbelief, it virtually compels you to do so. At every level - the plot, the setting(s), the lush descriptions of events, locations, feelings and people - the author impresses and amazes with his love of language, and his ability to paint with words. Reading this book is like viewing a huge canvas painted by a master, as visually appealing in the mind's eye as it is to the ear (both inner and outer). As a whole, it is impressive; at the detail level, every line counts. I found myself doing something that I absolutely never, ever do unless reading non-fiction or the newspaper: reading sections out loud, to my companion, as if I were reading "truth". And despite the length and breadth of this novel, Christopher successfully maintains our interest, forcing the reader to choose between moving on quickly, to see what happens, and lingering on the page to enjoy the poetry. So why only four out of five possible stars? you ask. Well, here's my only quibble: all of the characters speak with the same voice. As well-drawn as they are, as much as they stand out from one another (despite the above-referenced unusual and very similar-sounding names for most of the characters), as soon as they open their mouths, it's as if they have identical histories, training, and IQs. Whether it's a ten year-old boy, a student of arcane languages, a rock star or a ruthless businessman, they all speak with the same cadence, enunciation, and complete lack of stuttering, verbal tics or other identifiers. This becomes a bit of a problem, given the complexity of the story, because without these cues the reader (me) has to periodically look up the page to remind himself of who is speaking. Frankly, given the evidently incredible talent of the author, I was surprised by this shortcoming. However, don't let this quibble keep you from reading this story, because that is exactly what this book is, in its finest form: STORY. Or, to be accurate: STORIES.
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