Sergey Gerasimov

Very very weird, convoluted, with an internal spiral structure that doesn't quite become apparent until too late and you've almost given up. It is the author's first English novel although he has written a few others plus many short stories in his native Ukraine. The feel of Russian folk tales and mastroika dolls does pervade the plot once you've recognised this, and the final twist is obviously foreshadowed from a little way out, bringing the tale to a neat conclusion. Although I'm not sure show more that any of it makes sense as such at any point.

This is a time thousands of years after The Great Phase Transition, when intelligent machines changed the nature of the universe so that it was no longer logical, and only intelligences that matched a human brain could exist. Absurdities abound. We follow the dynamics of a long lived extended family through this world. Tracing the life of the son of a woman and a witch's pear seed, embarks on his life's journey to re-find his true love and live together for eternity. His father cheated death fourteen times, and so his fate is to be punished by death fourteen times, and he must find fourteen secrets of immortality (over a thousand are known, but some are only of use to you if you are Homer, or a giant tortoise). They meet some very strange beings along the way. Think SF crossed with the most bizarre folk tales you've come across, and you won't be that far wrong. The mask game refers, as far as I can make out, to an angel (wearing diapers, she's a very young angel) who fires an arrow at the two lovers and pierces both their hearts, scoring a double bull's eye. The angel wears a lot masks and the couple amuse themselves for a while by asking the angel to remove them, but she quickly tires of this. The masks are not described at any point.

This really wasn't my cup of tea. But it reflects much better having finished it than it did during the reading of it. Once you've got to grips with the structure and the lack of logic (but pleasingly it is properly internally self consistent) it is still not that easy to grasp. None of the characters have any motivations, they all exists as the ideas within the story rather than carrying the reader with them. But at least it is correctly spelled and mostly of clear grammar. There are a few run-on sentences which become difficult to follow, but not many.

I very much doubt this will be widely popular in the English market, but there are going to be people who will thoroughly enjoy it. And a lot of haters who won't be able to get past the absurdity of it all. show less

An interesting take on a post-apocalyptic phantasmagoria, a society, socially similar to exaggerated ours, but with totally different physical possibilities. So all the "post-apocalyptic" stuff is "normal" there. Every chapter reads like a parable, and exposes new, quite fascinating details about the world. Usually, they come in a satirical wrapper, which reminds of Russian classics Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin and modern Victor Pelevin. In this manner, chapters are very dense show more with information. Each chapter is dedicated mainly to one of the number of characters, whose life paths would eventually intersect. Unfortunately, the abundance of imagination does not allow characters do develop in a captivating way and the plot to stay fast enough to be interesting to follow. Sometimes, it seems, the author wants to speed things up, but it comes at the expense of style and depth. The beginning gave a lot of promise. I think that, if I finished the book, the final product would keep me satisfied, but 1/3 way through I had to stop, because it didn't give back the way I expected. show less

This is definitely not a book that will appeal to a wide audience. It seems, pretty much, that unless you have an interest in the Russian Fantastical, this book will do nothing for you. Bits of it remind me of Lyudmila Petrushesvskaya, and, occasionally and very rarely, Mikhail Bulgakov. That being said, they are reminders - this book is most definitely not Bulgakov.

There are definitely bits of amusement in this book (I have to admit to laughing at the red bulls having wings bit), but the show more fundamental issue is that this book is long. Very long. Around 150 pages I more-or-less had enough. The fact that there were 250 pages left to go seemed insurmountable. Four hundred pages of Russian Fantastical magical realism can quickly become a slog. The short chapters make it easy to take a break, but then, picking the epub back up again, I'd spend the first ten minutes reading searching through trying to remember what had happened, how that character got to this place, or even, who that specific character was. In one sense, it's great that the author doesn't hold your hand or over-explain things; he assumes you are intelligent enough to follow along. On the other hand, there were plenty of times when I did not feel intelligent enough to keep all the different strands of story straight; you almost need a rubric and to make notes of what happened the last time you saw a certain character.

So I'm pretty much torn. Part of me is impressed at the detail put into creating this world and keeping the momentum going for 400 pages. Another part of me is annoyed that I spent so long reading this book, especially since it clearly needs another go at copy-editing (spelling changes, i.e. Laurence vs Lawrence, verb tenses occasionally switching from past to present for no reason, spelling mistakes, spacing errors, etc.). I have a feeling Gerasimov writes amazingly intricate short stories and novellas. But this book was a lot of work to read through and I'm not one hundred percent sure it was worth it. show less

At first, i felt this was a series of short fictions, but gradually as i inevitably was drawn on to reading, i got the links better - we are held together by the unusual characters and the birth of a strange young man beset by plagues for 14 years (or 14 events) due to complications in his unknowing father's life. grotesque and yet oddly charming characters are witty creations, woven into the story with partially satiric intent - although i suppose i was not sure entirely what the comments show more were. i was almost drawn on against my will, which is a good 'trick' and admirable. the writing is adept and colourful - mild misogyny throughout is not totally appealing but oh well - the men are not always so great either. a real experiement in reading i am glad to have undertaken show less