As always, beautifully written, but doesn't seem to advance the story much. What is the point of Bobby Shaftoe and the many, many repetitions of the war between witches and werewolves? ( )

Please see review on my blog: Underground Man

http://undergroundmangeomatt.blogspot... ( )

galley copy ( )

My first thought: if you have NOT read Aegypt and Love and Sleep, don't attempt this one. You will be so incredibly lost that you'll probably give up on it. And this is another one of those books that probably isn't for everyone-- I just don't think readers who stay mostly in the path of mainstream books would like it.

You really have to take these books as a whole (Aegypt/Love and Sleep/Daemonomania), and at the time of this writing, the bad news is that the 4th book has not yet been written. So again, I'm at a loss to really explain to others what is happening here because the overall picture is not yet complete in this series that explores the esoteric truths of Hermeticism and the search for gnosis (if you don't know what this is go look it up).

Once again, Pierce Moffett is at the center of it all, and again Crowley has filled the "book within a book" with the story of Dr. Dee of Elizabethan times, and Giordano Bruno, who discovered the truths left behind from the time of Aegypt. This time, Dee is warned that the great wind of change (the passage between two ages) will usher in a war ..."of all Christ's churches against their enemies: those who invoke the gods, daemons and angels of heaven and earth from the places where they reside." (167). This becomes the truth in Dee's time, ending the world as he knew it and beginning another one, and in Pierce's time (1979), as the "powers" try to rid the world of anything not under their control. In Pierce's time, the realm of the powers centers on The Powerhouse, a sort of cult disguising itself as a church (that practices a bizarre kind of therapeutic cure based on exorcising demons) that offers people what they think they need -- run by a mysterious figure named Retlaw O. Walter. (As an aside, one of the funniest moments was when Pierce sees the name written down and asks "what's his middle name? Otto?") Rosie Mucho's ex-husband, Mike has been sucked into this world as has Rose Ryder, and Pierce finds himself realizing that he must take some kind of action to end things, but he's not sure what it is that he has to do, just that at this time, in the passage of time before the new world. The world is malleable and he cannot allow things to be shaped by these powers; Christianity as it was is no more and cannot be allowed to be reformed to be the basis of the next world because of the risk that more people will be caught up in the fraudulence of it all.

I I'm sure better people with better brains than myself have seriously pondered this book and that there are better insights than mine out there somewhere. I really loved this book, and if you're brave enough, I recommend it. ( )