Vellum was one of my favorite books in the last couple years so it’s only right that FBS brings the second and closing chapter to Hal Duncan’s Book of all Hours, Ink.
I have interviewed Hal on two occasions, most recently here, and when Vellum debuted here.
Synopsis:
Once, in the depths of prehistory, they were human. But in a moment of brutal transfiguration, they became unkin, beings who possessed the power to alter reality by accessing the Vellum: a realm of eternity containing every possibility, every paradox, every heaven . . . and every hell. The Vellum became a battleground where forces of order and chaos fought across time and space. The ultimate weapon in that bloody war spanning through history and myth, dreams and memory, was The Book of All Hours, a legendary tome within which the blueprint for all reality is inscribed, a volume long lost amid the infinite folds of the Vellum.
Until, in 2017, it was found by Reynard Carter, a young man with the blood of unkin in his veins.
Until Phreedom Messenger and her brother, Thomas, were swept up in an archetypal dance of death and rebirth.
Until a hermit named Seamus Finnan found the courage to re-forge his broken soul, and a self-proclaimed angel called Metatron unleashed a plague of AI bitmites.
Now, in the aftermath of the apocalypse, several survivors search desperately for the remnants of themselves scattered across the Vellum like torn pages, determined to use the blood of the unkin to rewrite The Book of All Hours, and to forge a new destiny for themselves and all humanity. Reality will never be the same.
Publishers Weekly says:
em>”This stimulating and bruising sequel to Scottish author Duncan’s neo-Joycean Vellum (2006) projects the endless battle between good and evil onto a kaleidoscopic multitude of parallel alternative realities. Duncan’s debut introduced bionanotech-enhanced humans, who clashed with ordinary humans in a 2017 apocalypse. The Carter family of Glasgow guarded the God-commissioned titular Book, but now the scribe and angel Metatron has hidden the Book somewhere in the infinite folds of a realm called the Vellum and is preparing to die. Meanwhile, a host of eerie characters, including foul-mouthed Jack “Flash” Carter, Puck-figure Thomas Messenger and Jack’s shrink, Guy Renard Carter, search for the Book. Full of riffs on myths from throughout human history as well as allusions to Euripides’Bacchae, this enormous, stinging, poignant hymn engenders a terrible beauty all its own”
Who Can Win?
Open to all FBS Members.
How do you Win?
PM me and you are entered.
When is the deadline to enter?
Let’s say April 1
Good luck to all who participate, and a special thanks to Del Rey.
