Glimmering

Rating:
Summary: A roller coaster ride from today to the end!!
Review: As a librarian, I have thousands of books at my fingertips everyday, but I chose to read Hand's novel. First of all, the millenium will be a hot topic for some time to come and hopefully even after that! I felt like I was in the room with her characters, peeping in on the taping of a movie or something. Her words are so vivid with color and reality. I liked how she hopped from reality to fantasy or was it the other way around? What is reality anyway? I would say it's how you see things. Hand has done a great job showing us how she sees things! Can't wait to read her next book.

I would also like to comment on the cover. As a librarian, I've seen people drawn to the book by it's cover only. As for Hand's cover, I give 5 stars to Hasselberger for the design and either Eguchi or Mydlowski for the actual photograph. I would love to know where this gargoyle exists if at all.

Rating:
Summary: What in the H-E-Double Hockeystix Was THAT?
Review: I have long been a die hard fan of intense science fiction. The one star I'll give Hand for this book is for her excellent use of deep imagery in the work to invoke almost physical responses from the reader.

However, the rest of what makes a story into a novel is missing. The characters are lackluster (at best), having no real passion or direction, and gaining none as the story progresses. For a while I was truly enthralled by the read, one page pulling me into the next until I had burned through the first three hundred pages in as many minutes.

And then it died...not in a blast, or a convoluted plot twist, or even in any way that could be defined as heroic, romantic, philosophical, or otherwise. It faded as if it had never been. The story just seems to stop (like a car stalling silently on a fast highway) the story coasts in neutral for about 150 pages, flares like the engine sputtering to life for a heartbeat, (but not really) and then sliding onto the shoulder, making you wonder why you got in the car at all!

Even if you like the occasional anticlimactic plot twist, this takes the concept a step further, where the only characters who receive any sort of finality die in ignoble, boring ways. I am also a male reader, but unlike one of my fellow reviewers, I don't need a huge hollywood style ending.

I would, however, like an ACTUAL ending.

Rating:
Summary: Hey, let's try to appeal to the mainstream...
Review: OK... I understand that pop culture is what sells these days, but I don't think that you should push it to the extreme. Elizabeth Hand has tried to turn the next millenium into a Generation X sex fest. I am having a hard time finishing this book, due to the fact that I want to gag each time I read about Leonard Thorpe and all of Jack Finnegan's past homosexual activities and Trip Marlowe's narcissistic sexcapades. Who ever made the comment that this book is like Stephen King rewriting TS Elliot must not have read either of these authors. Elizabeth Hand should take time off from trying to write novels, and either write _Star Trek_ episodes or write for FOX's _Dark Angel_.