An unruly mess of bad ideas mashed together and wrapped in angst-ridden narration and meaningless dialogue. Duncan sat down and said, "I'm going to take every idea I have about the world and scribble it on little pieces of paper, lay them in order while blindfold, mix them up for good measure, and see if I can get someone to publish it because it's original and includes such an impossible number of loosely-connected ideas, I think it'll apply to everyone."PUKE ( )

Learned, well written, but I could not finish it. I could get no idea where it was going, ( )

I read this book at about the same time I dipped into In the Night Garden, and Vellum has given me similar grief for all that it's arranged more directly. Vellum has a simple set of four main characters, but each character is reoriented every few pages. Reynard-as-narrator, Reynard-as-villain, Reynard-as-questing-creator-god. Joey-as-sociopath, Joey-as-angel, Joey-as-Jack's-best-friend. Jack-as-Tom's-lover, Jack-as-manipulative-leader, Jack-as-underling-having-change-of-mind. Tom-called-Puck, who committed suicide, who was murdered, who is running for his life, who leads the reader to a whole new cast of characters. Phreedome, called Inanna, Anna, Ishtar, Tom's sister, Tom's mother, Tom's lover, depending on which story is being told, eluding Jack and Joey, fighting against Reynard, hunting for Tom. Finnan, Phreedom's lover, Phreedom's mentor, Tom's friend, Tom's betrayer, possibly the father of Phreedom's son, the other possibles being Jack or Joey, who raped Phreedome at a god's bequest.

If In the Night Garden is building as helix that loops into a ring, Vellum is a spiral decreasing to a particular point.

What should I rate this? Three stars? Four? This book was riveting, but the ending seems so unfinished. I'm reserving final judgment until I read the sequel. ( )

Vellum is a book that I'd been meaning to read for quite a while. It was always on prominent display in my nearby bookshops and the rough textured cover of the paperback version hinted at a great read.

On one hand this book is rich with cultural references, old legends and a grand scale. On the other hand, it moves back and forth through time and rambles from character to character. After an initially intriguing opening section (which lured me in) the book deteriorated. I gave it the 100 page test (read 100 pages and see how you feel then) and because I don't like giving up on books, it got the 200 page test. Then due to having to wait in a hospital for 2 hours it got to over 300 pages. It was then I realised how many of the seemingly disparate threads in the story were being woven together, but at that point I didn't really care anymore. The non-linear narrative was just too disjointed for me.

The lack of distinct characters in this book, their replacement with overarching characters that transcend time and location is confusing and for me, offputting. It's clear that this is a book into which the author invested a lot of time and research. It's just not for everyone and it's not for me. I definitely won't be picking up the sequel. ( )

This is one of those rare books that I could not finish. The story line bumps rapidly. The characters are not well developed. I really wanted to like this book. The prologue grabbed my attention. After that, I read the first 5 chapters and then began skimming to halfway through before I finally gave up. This book is too dark and graphic for my tastes and I cut my teeth on Stephen King. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1050982.ht...

It was tough work - this is not light reading - but I found it unusually rewarding for such an ambitious book. The plot doesn't really resolve - I may even get the sequel to find out if it does - but I really admired Duncan's delicate handling of linguistics and culture. So many authors get the language thing partly (Stephen Baxter) or completely (Robert Jordan) wrong; but Duncan does have an ear for words and how they may change and re-form over the centuries. Likewise, I was impressed with his confident handling of MacLean's Socialist Glasgow, revolutionary Dublin and the southern Caucasus - not quite at expert level in the latter two cases, but at least free of obvious howlers and successfully engaging my interest to keep me reading.

And I love the basic concept of the Book - indeed, my most serious complaint is that the book wanders away from the Book at the end. No doubt this is resolved to a certain extent in the sequel.

Anyway, a fascinating, rewarding read. ( )

Beautifully crafted sentences pull you through what is almost an impelling premise. Unfortunatley the plot is shattered across the ages and the characters aren't ones you care about either way... ultimately this book falls short of what seems like a good idea. ( )

This book was actually painful to read. I'm not entirely sure why I didn't just put it down. It was like reading modern art or listening to modern music, which, if you're into it, is fine, but if you're not, you just see something meaningless or hear disharmonies, that's only art or music because someone said so. Reading this, I felt like Duncan wrote bits of assorted stories on cards and then shuffled them together and called it a book. Some of the bits are chronological, some of them even make sense. Some involve the same characters, although it's hard to always be sure, since everyone seems to have the same name, or to change names several times. But it's not a narrative. There are bits, no more than a few pages each time that tell a coherent story, and the only reason I give this book even part of a star is because some of these bits are good. If he'd stuck with one of these ideas and fleshed it out, instead of flitting all over the place, Duncan might have had something worth reading. ( )

This book was not enjoyable. Duncan may have accomplished something, but that something is not great. For a book to achieve true greatness it cannot be as leaden and indecipherable as this book. If there was a focused point to this novel it is lost in the Vellum. I understand that this may be the point, which would force you to decide whether or not you want to read a novel that is trying to show you that life is pointless. Personally I don't believe that this is the case. I do think that the author is trying to show us something, but that it is lost within the layers of his academic pretentiousness. I enjoy an academic read as long as it doesn't feel as if the author is just trying to impress you with their genius. At times this book feels that way. If you want to read a book that plays with mythology you should read Gaiman's American Gods. I personally didn't enjoy that book much either, but it is a far better read than this novel. Do not read this book unless you appreciate experimental literature that feels at times like an experiment gone awry.

Note: At times this author shows potential. There are scenes scattered throughout the novel (although broadly) that are interesting and well written. I think that this story would have been much better if the author hadn't treated it like a sandbox to play in. I realize that the author shifts time, character, and perspective because he is showing us the non-linear and yet eternal nature of the vellum. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work. You leave this work feeling as if nothing has been gained. Instead, this novel feels like a very long writing excercise. ( )

For a debut novel, this one's pretty amazing. Duncan mixes mythology, parallel worlds, real-world history, literature references and whatnot into a mess of ideas and intertwining plotlines. Making sense of this book is hard, harder than with most books, but it's well worth it, as Duncan writes well.

He has this habit of recycling characters: most storylines, whether they're set in, say, World War I or the North Carolina in 2017, tend to feature similar cast playing similar roles with some twists involved. I suppose it all wraps up somehow, though reading the book once left me a bit dazzled. A second reading might be helpful.

I know some people will hate Vellum: if you want straight plots, this one isn't for you. Amazon reviews certainly prove this: as I'm writing this, out of 40 reviews this book has ten five-star review and ten one-star reviews. I for one didn't love the ending, which seemed a bit - stale, perhaps? But I'm hoping Ink, the sequel, will fix that. In any case I'm falling towards five stars: I think this is one of the more impressive fantasy novels I've read.

(Original review at my review blog) ( )

fascinating, surreal, but seriously needs a good editor--too repetitive and rambling ( )

at first, i thought i was disappointed.
later on, i wasn't so sure.

the book both kept me hooked and felt like a huge burden. the non-linear structure was a real bitch at times: usually i prefer, well, easier books.
at least, easier in some ways.
and it's true there was not much of a story.

in the end, though ... i dunno. the end felt sort of boring. predictable kitchen philosophy things-turn-out-well [at least somewhere] type of ending.
it felt like a lukewarm ending to a cold book. i didn't mind the coldness, but the slight warming..? no. thank you, but no.

thus, no sequel for me. ( )

http://home.earthlink.net/~karen20000... ( )

http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.a... ( )

Vellum is a real rarity - a genuinely stunning first novel, built by a superb writer, on a wildly imaginative concept.

Duncan's book is dense, with a complex, non-linear plot, and a mass of slightly obscure external and intenal references. There's nothing that I spotted that will baffle Google though.

His style, while lucid is quite dense, and lyrical. He resembles in tone some of the earlier fantasy writers, Dunsany, Morris, McDonald and sometimes even Lovecraft, but his voice is his own, and is worth listening to.

This is fantasy as a powerful novel, written by someone who has clearly read a lot of other novels. Unlike many recent fantasy writers, who only grasp the surface of what Tolkien tried to do, Ducnan understands what he really meant by 'Fairie' and goes there. If you find people like Eddings, Brooks and Feist a bit tedious, and a bit repetitive, as I do, try Duncan - fantasy writing for grown-ups.

Summary :- This is the best fantasy novel I've read this century. Do yourself a favour and read it too. ( )

It was interesting and worth reading. Not a book I'd really read again but I'm not sorry I read it. I'm still not completely sure what it was about.
It would probably appeal to people who prefer the more magical realism end of the fantasy spectrum, and if you're looking for a plot forget it, well it has a plot, just not a linear plot.
It is interesting in how some people seem to tap into archetypes and become something beyond normal.
It just wasn't my kind of book. ( )

http://www.sfsite.com/11a/ve235.htm ( )

Boring. Very boring. Extremely boring.

There's only so much repetition I can take, and this exceeded the limit, and then some. I've managed three hundred pages, so it's not as if I didn't give it a fair try. A few books I've not finished through laziness, but this joins the ranks of those (half a dozen, I'd estimate) I've consciously decided not to waste my time on. The writing style is very mannered, but I suppose that is acceptable, but the book just doesn't go anywhere. ( )

I *really* liked this. I found it reminiscent of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and Roadmarks and Creatures of Light and Darkness, not in a derivative fashion, but in an evolutionary fashion. (Upcoming opinion piece in ASIM on just this topic, actually). I loved the fragmentary nonlinear narrative, and the repetitions, and the alterations, and the inconsistencies, and the complexities, and the wonderful headbendiness of it all. I thought it was a courageous and sharp book; I wonder if it will retain its power in ten or fifteen years, when it's no longer quite so topical, however.

I did find the last hundred pages or so sort of anticlimactic. I was hoping for a bit more oomph in The Big Reveal, as it were, but it may just be that (a) I've been writing along similar thematic (although very different structural) lines and (b) I'm a trained professional.

All that aside, however, this book is An Achievement.

It's hard for me to put my finger on my exact feelings of this book. If I had one word in which to describe it, I suppose the word would be "disjointed." It was very clever, expertly written, and I loved the mythology and the correlations between everyone.

The problem I had with it is more a matter of my own personal taste than a true criticism of the book. With such a convoluted story and so much jumping from one reality to another, one version of the same character to another, I never felt like I really knew the characters and I was unable to get attached to them. To me, the most important thing in any story is the characters, so this hindered my enjoyment and made it hard for me to force myself to continue.

This had been recommended to me by someone on a House of Leaves forum, and I was very excited, as that was one of my favorite books. But House of Leaves was extremely focused on its characters, giving one a very deep look inside their heads. Where with this one, I couldn't always guess what a character's true feelings are.

If one likes a challenge and a lot of mythology, and doesn't mind not getting to know characters very well, then this is very much worth reading. Actually, it is worth reading no matter what, I'd say. ( )

An extraordinay first novel. Richly written, so richly indeed that it sits a little heavy on the stomach. Duncan is very consciously playing games with style, and some of it is pretty dense (I've heard passages described as spoken-word poetry). You have to be in the mood for conscious poetic artifice -- but if you are, you'll find it a feast.

You also have to be ready for an extremely complex and non-linear plot -- not just the presentation but the events themselves can't be constrained to a linear narrative. The Vellum of the title is (very roughly) a metaphysical substrate our world rests upon, which contains both our linear time, a 'lateral' notion of alternative possibilities (think classic SF alternative histories) and a 'vertical' layering of archetypes whose actions reverberate through all their incarnations. The complications arise because certain individuals (naturally, the focus of the story) can move to some extent freely through the Vellum, and this ability, as well as that archetypical reverberation mcguffin, is not restricted by standard notions of causality or temporal sequence.

In other words: trying to follow a 'plot' will make your head hurt. But golly it's worth the effort, once you start to get your head around it -- every re-reading gives me more correspondences I hadn't noticed on the previous run-through. (For more on Duncan's metaphysics see his blog, http://notesfromthegeekshow.blogspot.... for instance the entry under 'Vellum' at http://notesfromthegeekshow.blogspot.... )

Despite all the complications, Duncan can write a rollicking good story. (Actually he writes lots of rollicking good stories, and the complications arise from trying to take the pieces we're given and tie them all together into a whole.) He's also got some passages showing a true genius for voice -- unfortunately some of his characters sound rather too much like himself, which makes them sound like each other, but there are some extraordinary efforts. The torture of Seamus Finnan and his incorporation of the archetype of Prometheus, in which an overdone folksy Irish fades into and blends with the stately and epic phrasing of legend, is an absolute masterpiece.

In summary: Duncan is possibly an acquired taste, definitely not for all palates. But I'm going to go on buying everything he produces; I suggest you don't do the same without trying him first, but try him you must. ( )

An extremely esoteric type of fantasy fiction. An interesting story but often very difficult to get through. If you can get beyond all of the jumping back and forth, it is a book that gives you an alternative way of viewing connections. Worth the read in my opinion. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2006/04... ( )