Ink: The Book of All Hours [Paperback]

I remember when T.V. Guide used to rate televised movies that it gave a "two-star" rating to Charleton Heston's version of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" and a three-star rating to "Batman Returns." And I remember thinking that surely a second-rate "Caesar" deserved a better rating than a first-rate "Batman." I had similar thoughts about Duncan's "Ink." The book has considerable flaws -- for example, it is an incoherent mess. But its learning is so pervasive, its concept so grand, and its plotting so intricate that I hated to give it less than five stars when I have given five stars to, e.g., a Suzie Grafton mystery novel.

Perhaps the least bad way to read this book is to treat it as a series of loosely connected short stories involving the same (or similar) characters placed in different settings in different worlds. This book and its predecessor, "Vellum," is based upon the idea that the universe is a series of alternative worlds somehow connected to each other by "folds" in an overworld (or something like that -- as is often the case with this book, it is hard to tell whether Duncan's vision is inscrutably subtle or merely incomprehensible). Moreover, each of the different "worldlets" can be altered by the actions of the characters both in that world and in some other word (and apparently in the overworld as well). In turn, the worlds, the worldlets, and the overworld are somehow controlled by a book, called "The Book of All Hours" which exists, in various forms, in the various worldlets, and this book in some manner controls the fate of the world and worldlets themselves. How this plays out is a bit confusing. Finally, it appears that doing something -- it is not clear what -- with the Book of All Hours can cause the worldlets to coalesce (or collapse) into one (or perhaps more) universes.

Anyway, the characters are put through their paces in different stories in different settings in different worldlets. Whether these different stories are supposed to be simultaneous, serial, or whether the notions of time itself are irrelevant or plastic is not always clear. But it is fascinating to observe how what purports to be the same human material acts very differently in very different contexts -- a theme that has not received as much fictional treatment as one would think it deserves.

Duncan attempts to wrap all of this disparate material up in the last fifty-or-so pages. His long (too long?) denoument imagines his surviving characters in one world where they seem to enjoy one unified and rather peaceful existence. In my opinion, Duncan's mountainous plot has given birth to a mouse, but his alternative may have been to leave his magnum opus in shaggy-dog land.

Perhaps the most interest comment on Duncan's efforts was found in Fantasy and Science Fiction's review of "Vellum." The reviewer concluded that he really had to read to book over to be certain he got what it had to offer. I only wish I could be sure that Duncan has enough to offer to make the effort worth its while. Maybe T.V. Guide had it right, after all.

Vellum was terrific, but Ink does not live up to it. This book could have benefited from a great deal more focus on the author's part, and some serious slashing and burning on the editor's part. I did make myself read to the end of the book, because I'm like that, but it wasn't worth it. The ending was so bad that I actually threw the book across the room! Duncan may have genius, as I thought when I read Vellum, but only tiny slivers of that genius appear in Ink. An extremely disappointing follow-up.

Just finished Ink, which I read straight after finishing Vellum. I wanted this to be a great book (although I would have settled for a really good one), but unfortunately it just feels like my time was robbed. The duology has some really cool imagery, good use of language (some might find it too flowery in places), some interesting play with history, some neat takes on religion--but despite all that, it just doesn't add up to much of anything.