Rating: 
Summary: What if???
Review: A fascinating, intriguing, well-written story. Wilson is not, like some authors, afraid to ponder the "what ifs", but to also carry them through. This is my favorite of his books. And it has a great ending!
Rating:
Summary: What if???
Review: A fascinating, intriguing, well-written story. Wilson is not, like some authors, afraid to ponder the "what ifs", but to also carry them through. This is my favorite of his books. And it has a great ending!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting story, well written
Review: After reading BIOS by Wilson, I wanted to find more from him because I liked his writing. Mysterium was as good as I had hoped.The plot was well developed and the characters were interesting. Also, as I found in BIOS, Wilson is very good at letting you get important information about the setting through the plot instead of having to explicitly describe things. I also liked that the author at least made mention at the beginning of the book about how the world that was left behind reacted to the disappearance of the town. In other similar stories I've read, I've wondered about this, but it was never addressed. One thing that I think could have made this book better was if the author had written more about the town and the characters before the event took place. I think this would have given the reader a better idea about who the characters were before this happened to them. Something like what Stephen King did so well in The Stand. In any case, I enjoyed Mysterium and would recommend it. I will continue to look for more from Wilson in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting story, well written
Review: After reading BIOS by Wilson, I wanted to find more from him because I liked his writing. Mysterium was as good as I had hoped. The plot was well developed and the characters were interesting. Also, as I found in BIOS, Wilson is very good at letting you get important information about the setting through the plot instead of having to explicitly describe things. I also liked that the author at least made mention at the beginning of the book about how the world that was left behind reacted to the disappearance of the town. In other similar stories I've read, I've wondered about this, but it was never addressed. One thing that I think could have made this book better was if the author had written more about the town and the characters before the event took place. I think this would have given the reader a better idea about who the characters were before this happened to them. Something like what Stephen King did so well in The Stand. In any case, I enjoyed Mysterium and would recommend it. I will continue to look for more from Wilson in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Pleasantly Surprised
Review: I found this at a used bookstore too. I hadn't heard of Robert Charles Wilson and boy! what a good book. He writes well and the plot about an alternate universe is intriguing. I kept thinking about the Dark Tower in Stephen King's mythos. I am going to see if the local library carries other of Wilson's works. I think he's definitely going to be somebody to pursue! I highly recommend this one. I couldn't put it down. And usuallly, I'm famous for buying cruddy books at the used bookstore. This one is a gem!
Rating:
Summary: A real shame it's out of print
Review: I just found out that this book is out of print. That's really too bad, because I recommend it very highly, in fact I think it's better than any of his other works. I would have liked to have seen more exposition of the new world, but it's a fascinating read nonetheless. Reprint it publisher guys!
Rating:
Summary: A real shame it's out of print
Review: I just found out that this book is out of print. That's really too bad, because I recommend it very highly, in fact I think it's better than any of his other works. I would have liked to have seen more exposition of the new world, but it's a fascinating read nonetheless. Reprint it publisher guys!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic!
Review: I picked this one up on a whim from a used bookstore, and was very pleasantly surprised. A quick read full of great sci-fi elements. Definitely track down a copy of this book if you can!
Rating:
Summary: A book full of possibilites.
Review: If you enjoy alternate reality works, this one is for you. It's not the run of the mill, what if we turned left instead of right at this point in history. It has a fresh and daring perspective that explores concepts and ideas I've never seen in these types of books. If you haven't read any of Mr. Wilson's other books, after reading this one, you'll understand why they are hard to find
Rating:
Summary: Full of Ideas
Review: Mysterium was a bit of an unusal book in that I found the majority of the characters to be extremely rich and vividly drawn for such a short book (similar to many of Orson Scott Card's characters)...but I found the overall plot to be somewhat shallow, almost like the book needed another 100-150 pages to fully flesh out the storyline (unlike Card...who also tends to write shorter books, but most of his feel more "fleshy"). This being said, I rather enjoyed Mysterium. Especially, Wilson's tendency in the book to try and cram a lot of ideas into a small space (even if he doesn't always succeed). Wilson covers everything from Gnostic Christianity to theories on the origin of the Universe. He then links all of his ideas with a thread that at times seems somewhat tenuous, but not so much so that it does not get one "pondering the imponderables" about the nature of our existence. Are we the dreamers or are we part of someone else's dream? This was (roughly) a question posed by Shakespeare in one of his plays...at least I think it was Shakespeare. But whomever said it, the question seems very apropos to the heart of this book. Mysterium is the first work of Wilson's that I've read and even though the story itself could have been a bit better written, Wilson's ideas were extremely intriguing...I look forward to reading more of his work.
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