The central fantastical idea in the novel is that humanity is haunted by a number of disembodied spirits that can possess people. Each spirit has its own trademark behaviour and often prefers people with certain characteristics, and so they can be recognised and given names. When a person becomes possessed by such a "demon", such as on the book's first page, people around wonder "Which demon is it this time?". For instance there's the "Angel of Death", which possesses little girls, dresses the possessed body up in a white night gown and prowls hospital wards of the terminally ill, delivering an apparently magical kiss of death to inmates. Each demon can only occupy one body at a time. They rarely stay for long in one body. I'm not sure if they can "exist" without a human body. It may be that every demon is constantly possessing someone on the planet and playing out its built-in scenario repeatedly without pause. In one scene, a demon jumps instantly from one man to another in a group attacking its original body of a few days past and knocks them all out.
The book tells of a man who was possessed by a demon at age five and has suffered strange psychiatric problems since. We follow him as he tries a last-ditch effort to get help, and as a consequence ends up having violent adventures over a period of about two weeks. Many winks and nods to fans of genre fiction and comics. It's a pretty good novel, though to my taste it suffers from pacing problems. The main characters do far too much gratuitous travelling to and fro, and I sometimes got impatient. This criticism is of course a bit of a compliment in itself since it shows that I cared about what was going to happen next. And pacing is a difficult part of the novelist's art since it's hard to read your own prose as if you didn't know what was coming. But still, this novel is not as good as Daryl Gregory's best short stories. But I'm looking forward to his second one, The Devil's Alphabet, due out in November!
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Martin, what first brought me to Sci blogs was your review of Stephenson's "Anathem." It is ironic(coincidental!) I'm in the midst of re-reading "Diamond Age," when you've chosen to review another book. At any rate the book sounds interesting, I'll have to remember it and give it a shot sometime.
Errr, Mike, take me through that one more time, will you?
First I reviewed a book, then I reviewed another, and by a surprising coincidence... you are now reading the author treated in my first review?
Wasn't a big deal Martin. What brought me to science blogs was sheer boredom one night. I googled a book I'd enjoyed. You'd just reviewed said book...it was your most current entry. I've spent the last couple of months here getting more of a kick out of science blogs than many other web sites. Essentially, I was just making conversation. What brought me here and the last book you reviewed is....oh, hell, never mind...it's not worth it. Again, just trying to have a conversation...I guess this is a glaring example of how written communication is not like conversation....sheesh....
Well, I'm glad you're here and commenting!