Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

Briliant ..... Never a dull moment!

Mix Ryder Haggard, Conan Doyle, Miss Marple and Emanuelle and that's close to the feel of this book. Not an easy read - requires some concentration - but very well worth the effort. You really can't guess what's going to happen next!

Absolutely exceptional...from an overwhelmingly refreshing, evocative imagination.

Some books you feel proud to be reading. An old battered copy of Dickens for example. The collected works of Dostoyevski. Other books are more guilty pleasures. These are the kind of books you read under your covers, lates at night, torch between your teeth, unable to sleeep, heart beating.

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is one such book.

The first thing to be said about Glass Books is that it is very long. The hardback copy weighs in at something like 750 pages. I don't know what made me pick it up in the bookshop. Perhaps it was the shiny blue cover with the centre cut out showing white and a mask. It was intriguing. It seemed to suggest the kind of book you read when you were a boy, when you read just for the fun of it. Books that took you to strange lands, fantastic adventures, good vs evil and everything in between.

This is exactly what Glass Books is.

The book is set in an unnamed European country, but which is pretty similar to England. It is set in the 19th Century. There are decorous hotels, horse drawn carriages, grand parties, piles in the country, and best of all, airships. I love books with airships in.

It opens with Miss Temple, newly arrived in the city, being dumped by letter by her fiance, Roger Bascombe. Miss Temple wants to find out why she has been dumped and sets out to follow Roger. He goes to the train station and gets on a train. All the passengers are masked and there are references to strange deeds. Miss Temple despite herself is drawn in, she dons her own mask and follows the passengers to a large mansion in the country. A masked ball is taking place. And also a murder. And behind the murder something else. Miss Temple is taken prisoner. She is going to be inducted into some strange ceremony. It involves glass books and big machines, pipes, men in helmets like those on a diving costume. By her own devices Miss Temple manages to escape, she kills two men.

She starts to run.

The novel then cuts to Cardinal Chang. He is an assassin. He wears darks glasses and a red coat. He was also at the masked ball. He is there to kill the colonel. But the colonel was already dead. And now people are trying to kill him. And his beloved love, a prostitute has been taken prisoner. She is to be initiated into some strange ceremony. It involves glass books.

The novel cuts to Dr Svenson. Dr Svenson has been charged with looking after the prince. The prince too is at the masked ball. He is involved in something sinister. Dr Svenson finds a blus glass card in the prince's belongings - it contains... it contains.... well, that is what the novel is about.

The story cuts between these three characters, they meet, they work together, people try to kill them. There are bad guys, loads of them. There is lots of running, chase sequences, near death misses.

This book is like a cross between Wilkie Collins and Flash Gordon. It is almost unputdownable. It takes great skill as an author to make someone want to carry on reading, but with this I did. Even the cliffhangers have cliffhangers.

And on top of this the world it describes is complete - I was totally involved and on a huge scale. There are underground prisons, shows on a grand scale. I didn't want it to end.

But unfortunately it did. And my brain is still ringing with it.

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