Voice of the Fire

Vivid. Fun. Heartbreaking. Dark.

Beautiful historical fiction spanning centuries. Prehistorical medicine men practice occult magic amid twisted social dramas. Through his characters, the landscape, and his vision of an elusive demon-world, the author paints a gorgeous nightmare.

I love Alan Moore, and this is the best thing I've read from him. I wish he would do more novels.

Questo libro mi fu regalato molto tempo fa, ma ho tardato moltissimo a leggerlo. Ciò che mi frenava era un primo capitolo difficilissimo, scritto con un linguaggio che cercava di riprodurre i pensieri di un ragazzino del neolitico...
Solo recentemente ho avuto la forza e la voglia di superare quell'ostacolo e quello che ho trovato in seguito può essere definito un piccolo tesoro.
"La voce del Fuoco" è un libro anomalo, a prima vista potrebbe sembrare un libro di racconti, presto però ci si rende conto che, in realtà, ci si trova davanti ad un vero e proprio romanzo di crescita e il protagonista è nientemeno che Northampton, lo scenario in cui si svolgono tutte le storie e, tra l'altro, città natale dell'autore. Non ci si può show more sbagliare, dietro le voci di tutti i personaggi che di volta in volta ci racconteranno le loro storie si può sentire il suono di un'unica possente voce: la voce del fuoco, l'anima del Luogo.
Il libro non è una dichiarazione d'amore per la propria città natala, questo sia chiaro.. Le storie sono atroci e violente e Alan Moore le espone con una sorta di distaccato orrore, ma ci fa capire chiaramente quanto sia impossibile per lui, uscire dall'attrazione gravitazionale dei suoi luoghi e di quanto, sotto la pelle, essi scorrano in lui... show less

An overwhelmingly rich book, constantly harrowing and occasionally heartbreaking. It tells a dozen tales in radically different voices, putting you in some heads you'd never want to visit otherwise.

Moore's poetry is as purple and as earnestly effective as ever. If there's a flaw to the book, it's that the strained connections between the stories often distract from the present plot. They're necessary to the concept, but also repetitive. This doesn't harm the book much; you'll need that respite from some of Moore's visions.

Alan Moore è un grande stregone. Probabilmente ha appreso l'arte dei druidi e dei sacerdoti in un tempo nel quale i nostri nonni erano solo un pensiero di un alito di vento, e ora finge di essere nato poco piu' di 50 anni fa nel nord della Gran Bretagna. E' un falso. In realtà conosce questo mondo da alcuni secoli, e conosce il vecchio mondo molto meglio di quanto possano fare coloro i quali hanno visto vivi Anassimandro prima e Platone poi - pare che vi siano su questa Terra almeno 35 o 36 persone che possono dire questo. Poi ogni tanto, perche' l'immortalità è lunga da far passare, scrive.

Even if you take away Alan Moore's (arguably) greatest accomplishment (Watchmen), you still have a body of work that's fearless in its reach and execution. Even if you're not someone familiar with comics and Moore's influence in that world, I would be hard pressed to think of another creator - especially in the field of comics - who has has their work adapted for the screen more: V for Vendetta. From Hell. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. And though he's not technically the creator, Moore's widely acknowledged as the writer who breathed life into Swamp Thing. And though we shudder (for the most part) at the film adaptations, the work itself is still intact, and still endures.

Was a novel inevitable? I don't know, and it's actually show more hard to classify Voice of the Fire as a novel. It's certainly Moore's first foray into substantial prose fiction, and if you're a fa of his work it really goes out if its way to root itself in all three of the embodiments mentioned above - plot, language, and concept. Voice of the Fire is a reckoning of Northampton, England over the course of 6,000 years, using a series of interconnected short narrative episodes (I hesitate to call them "short stories") to cover a wide range of topics including magic, identity - both individual and geographic, betrayal, ritual, and morality. Motifs and symbols - both vague and explicit - carry over from episode to episode. The first episode takes place roughly around 4,000 B.C. and uses a unique language similar in both style and execution to Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban and, to a lesser extent, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Here we get the first of many recurring symbols - the Hob Man, the shagfoals, the mark of murder and the mark of betrayal. Later stories incorporate severed heads, a man dressed as a giant bird, and the use of magic in many different incarnations. The final arc, taking place on 1995 and featuring Moore, wraps the entire book back upon itself, the image of the serpent eating itself for eternity acknowledging, to me at least, not so much a single story going on forever but one that is destined to return time and again to the beginning.

Final words: It's definitely quintessential Alan Moore, and if you're a fan of his writing you'll love this. Take your time getting past the first chapter (the introduction by Neil Gaiman in my edition helped move things along) and the rest rushes past in a flurry of wind and water. show less

I read some of this in e-book format while I was out of town and then came home and finished up with the book I had sitting on my shelf for years. I'm a huge Alan Moore fan and this book continued to impress. Experimental writing styles, lots of historical and occult references, dark, gritty, cool and sometimes (too) cryptic. I didn't love every story, but most of them worked for me and some I really enjoyed.

I was very excited to see what Alan Moore's writing would be like outside of his comic work. I'm pleased to say that it does not disappoint. He really has a beautiful way with words, from the Joycean (I sort of feel like a goober using that word, but it seems accurate) opening to the closing in the author's own voice.

The novel seems to be an expansion of one of the most interesting themes in From Hell: an exploration of occult history. Only instead of a quick tour of magical London, we're seeing an in-depth biography of Moore's own Northhampton. It's a subject that he has a lot of passion for, and his own enjoyment makes it fun to read in return.