Drood by Dan Simmons

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I love it when books make no sense whatsoever. And there is no finer example than this one. It's told from the viewpoint of Wilkie Collins a contemporary of Charles Dickens. Wilkie Collins was a real figure who worked with Dickens. This book details the last five years of Dickens life. This was interesting enough. It told a lot about how Dickens made his money and about his writing and lecture tours.

The main thrust of the book is the character named Drood that Dickens sees after Dickens experiences a horrific train accident. Drood is mass murderer and sweeps Collins and Dickens into his web of terror. Or so we are led to believe for thousands and thousands of pages. We also talk about another book by Simmons called the Terror. It is frequently referenced but I don't think it will help clarify this story any.

I don't know what this story was supposed to be. Was it a character study of Collins? Then why not write a biography? Was it a horror novel? Well it wasn't very scary? It's basically a thousand pages of Collins gradually taking more and more opium products and going crazy. But you don't really know that because Collins is writing the story and it's all very lucid. I say pass.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Did you know that Wilkie is often credited with having written the first "Detective Novel" (The Moonstone). I read it many moonstones ago and remember it only as slow going due to the Victorian pacing and language.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

That was one of the things brought up in the book. I always thought it was Poe who wrote the first detective novel? The book "Moonstone" was written during the course of Droop.