Vellum: The Book of All Hours: 1 [Hardcover]

"In Vellum-a monstrously brilliant and often hilarious novel of mad Irishmen, bad angels, femmes fatales, and demons-we are presented with the tale of a war occurring throughout the breadth and depth of time and space. Hal Duncan has, at the very least, created the Guernica of science fiction."
-Lucius Shepard, author of A Handbook of American Prayer
"A mind-blowing read that's genuinely unlike anything you've ever read before . . . Vellum" "has expanded fantasy's limits like nothing published in years."
-SFX (five-star "must-read" review)
"Duncan's writing is fluent and powerful. He possesses an imagination capable of both conjuring worlds and capturing the intricacies of moments. Vellum is more than a novel; it's a vision."
-Jeffrey Ford, author of The Girl in the Glass
"A remarkably ambitious debut novel. For lovers of innovative fantasy, it's a must-read."
-Interzone
"Vellum is a revelation-the opening gambit in the career of a mind-blowing colossal talent whose impact will be felt for decades."
-Jeff VanderMeer, author of City of Saints and Madmen

A Confident debut...a compelling alternative look at the world and its history

prepare to be amazed..this is a truly monumental work which should set the standard for 21st century science fiction

A magnificent, fantastical literary epic of Heaven and Hell in direct conflict, with sleeper agents who will murder, rape and torture at their master’s command, and where the heroes will be lucky to save their own skins.

It's 2017 and the End Days are coming, beings that were once human gathering to fight in one last great war for control of the Vellum - the vast realm of eternity on which our world is just a scratch. But to a draft-dodging Irish angel and a trailer-trash tomboy called Phreedom, it's about to become brutally clear that there's no great divine or diabolic plan at play here, just a vicious battle between the hawks of Heaven and Hell, with humanity stuck in the middle, and where the easy rhetoric of Good and Evil, Order versus Chaos just doesn't apply. Here there are no heroes, no darlings of destiny struggling to save the day, and there are no villains, no dark lords of evil out to destroy the world. Or at least if there are, it's not quite clear which is which. Here, the most ancient gods and the most modern humans are equally fate's fools, victims of their own hubris, struggling to save their own skins, their own souls, but sometimes... just sometimes... sacrificing everything in the name of humanity.

Every so often a publisher is privileged to come across a novel of such extraordinary innovative talent that it causes a sharp intake of breath and wonder. Twenty-one years ago, Macmillan discovered such a work with THE WASP FACTORY by Iain Banks. Now, in VELLUM by Hal Duncan, Macmillan is proud to have discovered another Scottish writer destined to make similar impact.

The sheer sophistication of writing, the diversity of imagination, the constant challenges posed to the reader, VELLUM is both unputdownable and mystifying.

It's 2017 and the End Days are coming. Beings that were once human gathering to fight in one last great war for control of the Vellum - the vast realm of eternity on which our world is just a scratch. But to a draft-dodging Irish angel and a trailer-trash tomboy called Phreedom, it's about to become brutally clear that there's no great divine or diabolic plan at play here, just a vicious battle between the hawks of Heaven and Hell, with humanity stuck somewhere in the middle.

Flashing brilliantly from Sumerian mythology to a futuristic California, from the Battle of the Somme and the Glasgow labour riots to an expedition through the Caucasus to locate the City of the Dead, and ultimately into that enveloping grey storm known as Evenfall, this extraordinary, deeply moving, multi-charactered, multi-actioned yet highly original plot adds its own broad new dimensions to the riches of imaginative fiction.

VELLUM is an astonishing masterpiece of literary fantasy on a huge scale. It is the first of two novels in The Book of All Hours.

I thought what I'd do here is let folks know a bit more about my upcoming debut, Vellum. Anyhoo, I'd be curious to find out how many other writers do this sort of thing when they're working on a novel, but I know I had a lot of fun trying to come up with a blurb. Hearing that movie trailer voice in your head can make you come over all silly solemnity, but actually trying to summarise a 180,000 word Modernist, metafictional, mosaic novel with a 3D theory of time underpinning the narrative... well it's an interesting writing exercise. So...

It's 2017 and angels walk the earth, beings that were human once, now unkin, remade by the ancient machine-code language of reality itself. Now, with the very book in which reality is written lost somewhere in the Vellum - the vast realm of eternity on which our world is just a scratch - the unkin are gathering for war.

On one side there's Metatron and his Covenant of angels, out to create Heaven on Earth even if it means an apocalypse to clear the way. On the other, there's the splinter-groups of ancient gods still hungry for the power that was once theirs, bitter enough to destroy the world if they can't rule it. And caught in the middle of it all are a handful of refuseniks still young enough to remember what it's like to be human... and to want to stay that way:

There's Phreedom Messenger, trailer-park tomboy, searching for her brother, Thomas, on the run in the Vellum. There's Seamus Finnan, the draft-dodging Irish angel hiding out in the desert, friend and mentor to both of them, who taught them just a little too much for their own good. And then there's Jack Carter, Covenant footsoldier, pawn of Metatron, a sleeper agent who doesn't even know he's unkin, who doesn't know that when he answers the phone, hears a certain word, another part of him takes over, and who doesn't know why he's haunted by a face he doesn't recognise, the face of someone he's been ordered to hunt down and kill... Thomas.

As Phreedom tracks her brother through the twisted timespace of the Vellum, determined to save him from the Covenant even if it means her own destruction, Jack, a time-bomb waiting to go off, is also on his trail. In the Vellum, a falling angel and a renegade devil are about to come to blows. In the Vellum, blood magic made in hell is about to come face to face with nanotechnology forged in heaven. Past, present and future will collide with other worlds and ancient myths.

And the Vellum will burn.

Hal Duncan lives in Glasgow, and this is his first full-length novel.