- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz; 1st edition edition (18 Oct 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0575072296
- ISBN-13: 978-0575072299
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.3 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 301,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Smoking Poppy (Gollancz Sf S.)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
One of the most respected names in genre writing joins the VGSF list with an extraordinarily powerful and moving story of one man's search for his daughter in the myth shrouded jungles of Thailand.
Product Description
Danny is approaching fifty, separated, lonely and bitter. He hasn't spoken to his wife in years; he despises his born-again son and is alienated from Charlie, his twenty-two year old daughter. But his alienation is forgotten when he learns that she has been arrested in Thailand for smuggling heroin. He flies out to Bangkok and discovers that the girl being held in Chiang-Mai prison is not Charlie. What follows is a desperate journey into the remote hinterlands of Thailand, where the jungles are ruled by drug gangs and haunted by the spirits. And dogging Danny's every step is a spectral figure, half glimpsed from the corner of his eye, brushing his sleeve in empty temples . . . SMOKING POPPY is about the love between a father and his daughter; it is an extraordinarily evocative journey into the sights and sounds of Thailand; a chilling descent into the supernatural. Graham Joyce's books are published around the world; they are elegantly written, full of brilliantly observed characters and always hugely readable.
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First Sentence
Oh that Charlie of mine, how I wanted her back. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Oh that Charlie of mine, how I wanted her back. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Smoking Poppy had me captive from the first sentence.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Smoking Poppy (Gollancz S.F.) (Hardcover)
Many people judge a book by its first page. If they are not hooked within a line or two, they'll put it down and may not bother to pick it up again. Smoking Poppy had me captive from the first sentence. It set the scene and the emotion for the entire book. Graham Joyce has taken a complex story and told it in a style that is both sophisticated and utterly simple. His characters are agonisingly, beautifully real, with real flaws and true inner strengths. Supernatural elements fit naturally into the story;credibility is not stretched, though imagination can run riot. The book works beautifully on every level. Smoking Poppy is about a man, Daniel Innes, who gives his life and his love utterly and uncompromisingly to his family who reject him just as utterly for reasons he cannot begin to understand. When his ex-wife calls him with the news that their daughter Charlie is in a Tawanese jail awaiting sentence, twenty years or execution, for drug smuggling he knows he must go out there,even though she has not spoken to him for two years. He does not know just what he is going to. Against his wishes he is accompanied by Mick, a team-mate from his local pub quiz, who has decided that Charlie is innocent,regardless of the facts and that they are going to prove just that, whatever it takes, and Daniel's estranged son. If I were to tell you any more I might spoil the story for you, so I won't, other than that it made me laugh and cry often as I became more and more absorbed by the events that unfolded. The thing I most liked about this book was that it managed to switch off my analytical brain and allow me to simply read and absorb. For years I've read books and watched films and dramas, noting key moments, clues and hints of what was to follow. Endings are rarely surprising and I tend to leave the room during the action scenes of films when the drama is building up because I already know where it's leading and get bored or annoyed at all the banging and crashing. With books I often keep turning pages unread until the plot picks up again. It has really spoiled my pleasure in stories that others find totally absorbing. This book broke the jinx. Nothing was quite what I expected from the first page on. The people behaved in character, yet were still unpredictable. The story opened up new worlds, new possibilities. I know so many Dannys, so many Micks in my life, perhaps because my home is so near to Leicester where the characters live their lives. Now I'm looking at these men with fresh eyes.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
21st century Dickens,
By
This review is from: Smoking Poppy (Gollancz S.F.) (Paperback)
Joyce's prose is lyrical and concise. His attention to detail is acute. His character portrayal is so convincing that it seems he may even be telepathic. The plot of 'Smoking Poppy' is so rivetting that I read this book in a single sitting, after which my mind was reeling with the impact of a vivid and harrowing journey. If you have ever watched the sun rise after staying up all night at a festival, if you have ever borne witness to friends or loved ones losing their minds to psychosis, education or religion - then this book is for you. You cannot fail to be enthralled by it. The book should particularly appeal to Oxbridge students, past or present, for reasons that will become clear when you read it!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Starts slowly, but stick with it,
By A Customer
This review is from: Smoking Poppy (Gollancz S.F.) (Hardcover)
'Smoking Poppy' tells the story of Danny, a recently separated electrician estranged from both his children. His life is suddenly turned upside down when his daughter Charlie is arrested for drugs smuggling in Thailand. So begins a quest to find her, with the help of his supposedly hapless drinking buddy Mick and devoutly christian son Phil.Things don't start off particularly promisingly. The main problem is the character of Danny, who isn't particularly likeable or believable. Supposedly a working class, honest to goodness bloke who's worked hard to send his daughter to Cambridge, his conversation is peppered with unrealistically flowery language - bizarrely, he uses the word 'apropos' every couple of pages. And this man who frequently describes how he feels at odds with his children's world, yet also describes more than one man as 'beautiful' - a very modern attitude for such a character. The other problem is that the first part of the book is very slow, with little action to keep you gripped. It seems like a love letter to Thailand's landscape, which is very well done, but not necessarily that appropriate; fine if you want to read a travel novel, but isn't this a thriller? However, 'Smoking Poppy' improves significantly halfway through. To reveal why could spoil the plot, so I'll simply say that the most interesting relationship in the book is opened up, and things begin to move at a more exciting pace. Something else which saves this novel from becoming dull is Mick. The failed wideboy with a heart of gold is far more likeable than Danny, and more three-dimensional. This could have been brilliant with a better central character and 50 or so pages chopped out of the opening section. If you like travel novels, the atmospheric description of Thailand will definitely appeal, and if you're a patient reader, this is definitely worth perservering with.
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