Gordon DahlquistRecensioni

This book is long. Very, very long. The basic story is interesting, set in late Victorian times in a fictional country that could be on the Baltic or North Sea. The narrative jumps between the stories of the three heroes, who meet at various points and then separate. It deals with conspiracies at the highest levels of society, concerning a mysterious substance which captures the experiences of people who have been exposed to it. There are chases, fights, airships, captures, escapes, country houses, sinister geniuses, femmes fatales, all the elements of a cracking good adventure story. But it's just so long. It would read much better if a third of the book was just edited out. I really wanted to like it but in the end it was such a slog to get to the end that I didn't enjoy it much.

This was my 2nd try at this book. It just isn't for me. I reaaly wanted to like it and read to page 100 but I have too many other books to read and this one wasn't keeping my interests.

In the end I found that I didn't like the book so much as I thought I would when I started reading it.

This book has three viewpoint characters,there is Celeste Temple the proper young lady,Cardinal Chang the assassin and Dr Svenson the man of doctoring and science.

Cardinal Chang first encounter Celeste on a train when she is covered in blood after going to the villains mansion to search for her fiancee to know why he vanished and broke it off so suddenly.I cant remember how the doctor enters the plot as he was pretty unmemorable and with all the other things you had to keep track of in this book you have to expect casualties.

So when I started reading this I had all my hopes up there would steampunk elements and good adventure throughout but I wasnt expecting all the eroticism that the backcover promises.

But when I first read it back in 2007 there was no mention of all that. So I guess it has been added later.

I dont have a trouble with sex in books I am not one of these people who only want "clean" reads but this one had me feeling a bit akward. In my head I thought of them as those awkward sexual scenes and made me wonder what purpose in bringing the plot forward they contributed to. There is a good reason the blurb of this book mentions "perverted religion" and "erotic literary adventure" because its a constant theme through the book.

The glass books of the title can be used to store a persons memories but it seems what most of them contain is memories of a sexual nature.I would have thought the technology could have some more practical use but then I am not part of twisted powerhungry cult who WANTS TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

And their evilest mastermind is a bi-sexual Contessa. :/

she even sexually harass the female main character...but its not that bad-for it releases the repressed WOMANPOWER in her. Yes remember when the blurb promised an erotic literary adventure? Thats it. Some people in other books get awesome powers but not Celeste,she only gets the power of realizing that being touched against her will totally made her break free of her role as a proper young innocent victorian lady. Now shes unstoppable!

I was surprised she didnt burn her corset

This author has a very odd notion about womens and their sexuality


At least thats what I assumed they wanted to do as much of the book confused me.Too many plotlines and too many unlikeable or easily forgettable characters didnt help either.

I know this though...sometimes I felt like I was trapped in the authors sexual fantasy world.

This book would be great for critical thinking and or gifted education classes for about grades 5-6-7. I do not want to give spoilers, but the reader figures out many things from clues given in the text. It would be excellent for students to go back and figure out how and when they reached conclusions. The book isn't very long and would offer discussion possibilities in class. FUN READ!

I very much enjoyed this, but I'd have enjoyed it so much more if there had been an editor, half the length, and that it didn't keep feeling so much like a partwork with repetitive recapitulations in every chapter.

I got lost towards the end - too many factions and characters and a slow pace.

10yo: Boring, but you still wanted to read and see what happened.

Een onwaarschijnlijk drietal bindt de strijd aan tegen de plannen van een aantal vooraanstaande mensen in het Victoriaanse Londen. Celeste Temple, een jonge vrouw die net in de stad is gearriveerd en gedumpt is door haar verloofde, 'Kardinaal' Chang, een huurmoordenaar en detective die ingehuurd is om iemand op te sporen en Dokter Svenson, de lijfarts van de kroonprins van Meckelenburg die over zijn gekomen voor de verloving van de kroonprins. Hun avonturen brengen hen naar een duister landhuis waar allerlei praktijken gaande zijn die met blauw glas te maken hebben. Dat blauwe glas is chemisch bewerkt en kan alle gevoelens, herinneringen en sentimenten van mensen in zich opnemen, zodat mensen gevoelloos worden. In het begin was het heel, heel vreemd, maar na een bladzijde of 100 had het me helemaal te pakken. Een enorm boek van 887 bladzijdes dat ik twee weken lang overal mee naar toe heb gesjouwd om niets te missen en geen leestijd te verliezen.½

In general, I was dissatisfied with this. It was both too long and too short (48 hours and 750 pages long), and both too Victorian and too anachronistic (the phrasing got in the way of comprehension more than once, and yet there were all sorts of happenings that would have attracted significantly more comment; the opening story point where our heroine's fiance breaks off the engagement without anyone apparently caring being the first and strongest example).

Not to mention that it isn't, actually, Victorian England - the city is never named as London, various geographical references mean it can't possibly be, and significant names are quite different. These alternate-universe elements never seem to form any coherent picture of the intended changes, however, leaving me with the peevish certainty that the author just wanted to write about Crowley and the Golden Dawn without having to do any research or, you know, be accurate. (And, for me, the lack of backdrop of overflowing spiritualism that characterised London in this era really reduced the depth of the book.)

I further peevishly assume that that was because he wanted to talk more about sex. Especially with the women (and look, I get that women's sexuality was especially a Thing in Victorian times and that therefore sexual liberation and confidence is actually an interesting point of exploration, but Celeste gets all kinds of sexually assaulted and quasi-lesbian stirrings, and the two male protags just plain don't, and it made me feel not-happy for the entirety of the book).

Style-wise, I found the lengthy point-of-view chapters to be a hindrance to the pace of the story - the same ground was gone over again and again as the characters crossed paths (and sometimes retold their stories more than once), and then it was a hundred-fifty pages since we'd last been with character A and I couldn't remember what cliffhanger we'd left him on. And, frankly, didn't much care. While I found Celeste Temple to be plucky, involved, interesting and developed (with still one moment of ear-smacking plot-required girlish stupidity), Doctor Svenson and Cardinal Chang were, frankly, tedious. Honestly, I was far more interested in the Contessa than anyone else. Why couldn't this have been her story?

Overall, I didn't enjoy this, and it was only being stuck without anything else to read in the most tedious patches that meant I persevered through to finishing this at all. I certainly shan't be picking up the sequel.

Quote-Bomb!
Was that what death meant—no answers, a finally locked door? As my foot touched the floor I decided what was wrong, because death always left a why, and a how, and a what next. Questions weren’t the same as answers—they didn’t tell me this dead girls name—but for her sake I wasn’t going to let them go.

Why did we know the things we did? When did the knowing settle in, like a circling bird to the earth?

She stood in the center of a spinning globe, transfixed and taking refuge in the patterns.

I almost understood—because we learned by adding one thing to another thing to make a third we hadn’t known before—except May didn’t add things the way we did. She felt them, like the weight of an object in the dark of a pocket, hidden but still at hand.
That was May’s everything. That was May’s heart.

Now her part of any conversation would be left unsaid, and any direction she would have gone walking would always be empty. Her absence extended in lines of numbers made up of smoke, backward in memory ad forward in futures never to occur.

LOTS of good quotes in this book. Unfortunately, all of those quotes occurred in the last 20 or so pages of the book.
I mean, this book was alright. It was sort of sci-fi, but not really, because the sci-fi elements weren’t center to the story, nor were they really explained. This book was about people and how people to the same things in different ways. It’s about questions and answers and that there’s not an answer to every question.
The characters—were a little flat. Most of them were robots, true, but still.
The plot was very minimal.
The world was hardly explained.
Normally, that would earn a book a great big F. But, for this book, I think that was sort of the point, so I’ll let it slide.
This book made a point. It was interesting, but not very exciting.

10yo: Boring, but you still wanted to read and see what happened.

This being my 28th read of the year . . .

I dislike most genre fiction as it too often ends up formulaic and bound primarily by the markers of genre instead of seeking first to be a good example of the written word. Happily Glass Books is one of the exceptions. It's certainly a steampunk novel with it's attendant zany technological whimsy but it is foremost a exciting and well written adventure story. Sure, there's a dirigible, but it isn't there to distract the reader from a host of other literary flaws. The plot is twisting and engaging, and the characters, while in Victorian style are all clearly heroes or villains, are well developed and unique, each drawing empathy, admiration, and ire in their own ways. Overall, the book was a little long, but lots of fun. It felt like reading [b:The Three Musketeers|7190|The Three Musketeers|Alexandre Dumas|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165607715s/7190.jpg|1263212] again.

A resounding "meh." The characters were fairly uninteresting, and despite copious action sequences, the book managed to be rather dull. By the end, I was hoping they would all crash into the North Sea. Perhaps the length is at fault: it's nearly 900 pages long. Many of the confrontations seemed to be repeats, and in general it could have used an editor. The book is at its worst when attempting to have moments of tenderness; Dahlquist should have just stuck to action, which he can do competently if not thrillingly. Also, the reviewers seemed to be reading it as though it weren't a fantasy novel, which seems to be missing the point.

Interesting book although it leaves you with more questions than answers. There were times when I really wasn't sure I liked it but all in all, it was enjoyable. I don't mind books that don't answer every question so I did like it but if you have an issue with not really understanding what's going on, you might not.

Dahlquist's 'The Dark Volume' really is a page-turner! I literally couldn't stop myself reading page by page by page until it was finished and I enjoyed all of it as much as the first in the series. As a Crime/Mystery Fiction novel, Dahlquist's novel really fits the bill, it's full of danger, corruption and dastardly plans to take over the world, one mind at a time. The characters are brutal and damaged but brilliantly portrayed with as much detail to their persona's as to make them real to life. The book is written eloquently and is full of suspense with each twist and turn, reeling you into the mystery and the character's criminal activities.
Definitely a book to be read by all crime and mystery fans and I'm most certainly looking forward to the next, hoping once more that all evil plans can be conquered after all (but with Dahlquist's favour for suspense and cliff-hangers, I really doubt it!)

In the end I found that I didn't like the book so much as I thought I would when I started reading it.

Sort of a cross between _Eyes Wide Shut_ and _His Dark Materials_, this book seethes with repressed sexual urges and is riddled with lots of fog-drenched chase scenes...exciting and vibrantly enthralling in its complexity -- layer after layer of plot getting peeled away...cliffhanger of cliffhangers!

4.5/5
Beautiful book, complex, engrossing. You can't read it fast, as you really need some time to digest the information you are given. I've missed out on a book two as well, but the prologue in the beginning will actually give you a brief description of what happened in previous two books so you won't feel lost when the action starts right where it left in book #2.

You won't find repetition in Gordon's writing, so you have to stay sharp. He also describes the same situation from three points of view - Miss Temple's, Dr Svenson and Cardinal Chang which gives you very deep understanding of each big scene, it becomes truly three-dimensional.

The Chemickal Marriage is pure alchemy, exquisite flight of fantasy and so much more. I'm awed by Mr. Dahlquist imagination and such deep world-building.

Cardinal Chang is by far my favorite character, although Dr Svenson and Celeste Temple are superbly written as well.

I can't even describe any of the plot to you because it's way too complex, I also think that it's very steampunkish and at times unexpectedly erotic. Overall, great series, and much recommended.

complex, long, but interesting. Won't be reviewing this one.

Not a patch on the Glass Books. Dahlquist sounds tired and by the end so was I.

Why have the baddies run the risk of doing illegal things for money when they could sell the glass books like Apple does and live happily ever after?

Some memorable scenes but too much running along corridors, repetitive shredded underwear and stuff done to bound women.

Very strange. Not so many answers for all the questions raised. Almost like reading the TV series "LOST" only you didn't get to stare at hot guys...