Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith: May 2004 Book of the Month Discussion
 

Figured I'd set up the thread to get things started ...

Just wanted to mention that I really love the way that this guy hangs words together. In a like blouses on a rack at a trendy boutique kind of way.

A question to folks who are reading ... you don't have to answer right away, but have you spent any time thinking what Neighborhood you might like or choose? Which one, or develop your own.

I only just started reading the book this morning, but I have to say, he really nailed my feelings about mornings.

Mine is still being "handled" by the post office... any chance this'll freak out the post mistress any more than my usual stuff?

I dunno.. what's your "usual stuff" and why does it freak her out?

"Postmistress"..... sounds vaguely kinky... or do I just have a dirty mind??

Anyway. Neighborhoods. I'm currently partway through chapter 4. None of the Neighborhoods mentioned so far would suit me. My best would be one for people who sit around and read all the time.

I'm liking it so far... I'm thinking it's a weird combination of Philip K. Dick and Scott Adams.

I'm not far into the book yet, but I have two thoughts on it. The Neighborhoods look like a different approach to the pocket governments Neil Stephenson has in Snow Crash.

Also, I find the style of the book reminds me a lot of Phillip Dick's work.

If the quality of the writing is this good the whole way through, I'm going to be very happy.

yes it is as good as that all the way through. In fact it gets better and a little stranger the further along you travel.

Another week and it'll be time to start picking next month's book chooser! Start discussing, people! (I admit I'm just as guilty--my excuse was E3, so any day now I'll be able to start reading.)

Here, I'll help: Michael Marshall Smith is neither a marshal, nor a smith. Discuss.

I finished it. I may need to go back & look over a couple things.... I really liked it, though. I think it's fair to say that the ending takes a couple very sharp, fast turns that were for me at least completely unexpected. Umm... hmm. I'm not sure when we're allowed to start spewing spoilers?

That's kind of why i'd been holding off on majorly serious commenting.

And to answer my own question from the start of the thread, I'd probably live ... uh I mean RULE in Red.

As to which neighborhood, I'm Color all the way but I'd love to see anyplace so badass that even Stark will never go back in there (Turn).

And as far as which other authors whose infuence might be present - Clive Barker's style, characters and metaphysical transitions are all over the place - esp. Rafe.

I really like this book - about 90% through it - saving the last bit till I can finish it in one sitting.

Since we are getting down to the end of the month, I'm going to assume that anyone who was going to read the book has finished.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about the book was the exploration into the nature of dreams and dreaming, Jeamland and the rules of it's operation were fascinating, but well known. I did keep wondering, though, if The City were not just a facet of Jeamland ... and the reason Stark could never get home was that he didn't really want to go there, that his fantasy was far better than his reality and so he remained.

I also enjoyed it because following someone into their dreams and visions and dealing with the sludge that one finds there is an important part of shamanism. I guess it was just interesting to see those things outside of a religious context.

Am I the only one that found Jeemland a letdown? I was impressed with the future world the author took time to create for the first half or so of the book, but then he went all hokey and took events into Jeemland. The idea worked, but I didn't find the dreamworld at all as interesting as his 'real world'. I know Jeemland is central to the book, it just didn't grab my attention. I think I was spoiled with Gaiman's version of how things work in the dream world.


IMHO extreme genre jumping mid-book is generally a bad thing. It is good that Marshal put in some foreshadowing that Stark had strange exceptional abilities or else I would have really been annoyed with the shift from sci-fi detective in the beginning to speculative fiction/almost fantasy at the end.


What caused the neighborhoods to close in on themselves? When Stark talks about his childhood, neighborhoods hadn't developed yet. Countries don't just fall apart into city-states. The author intentionally left this a mystery, but did he leave clues? I didn't pick any up.

It wasn't clear to me that *all* the countries had... just England. But you've got a good point... I can easily imagine several scenarios where a country breaks down in to city-states. But most of them involve a catastrophe that destroys most technological capabilities, which is not the picture we get of the world Stark is living in. Of course it would build back up after such a catastrophe.

On the other hand... there is the right-wing secessionist movment that's looking at taking South Carolina out of the USA.

I didn't mind the ending... I thought the whole use of Jeamland throughout the book was already bringing in a "fantasitic" element, so I didn't feel the stuff at the end really turned into genre-jumping.

If you liked the different lands, you might like a book called Amnesia Moon. Very very strange book, cant recall the author.