Post by Dante on Oct 5, 2012 5:35:21 GMT -5
Yesterday there was a knock on my door. "Who could that be at this hour?" I asked. As it happens, I was right. Hachette had generously and without my knowledge delivered an advance copy of Lemony Snicket's "Who Could That Be at This Hour?" to my door, and subsequently to me. My gratitude is as intense as my excitement, which is very. "I will of course be 100% discreet," I said, "apart from reporting how amazing it is." This is my report.
Thirteen years after he first wrote, and six years after The End, we have a book that's before the beginning, starring a younger Snicket with a more mature writing style, asking questions without answers about a crime that hasn't been committed. If you're a fan who's been asking "Is Lemony Snicket back?", or if you're not a fan yet but have been asking "Are this guy's books as funny as his name?", then you were asking the wrong question - no, Lemony Snicket's asking the questions here, and the best thing you can do is enjoy reading about him as he does so.
A Lemony Snicket book is three things, in no particular order and all at the same time: Funny. Clever. Mysterious. This is more true than it's ever been. In fact, "Who Could That Be at This Hour?" is more everything than Snicket's ever been. He is funnier. The wit of this novel is fused with the text and harder to disentangle from it. Every joke and punchline is as black as the ink it's printed in and blends in perfectly with the story. He is cleverer. This is a detective story with clues, motives, opportunities and a single true sequence of events that ties them together. It's fair, and an armchair detective can solve the crime, but they will not as they'll be too busy turning the pages in the most unputdownable novel Snicket's ever written. And it's more mysterious. The small story of the book is solved to satisfaction, but the big story of the series is still looming above us, asking us many questions that we can't know the answers to but can make good guesses. This is the sort of book that built fandoms in the early 2000s, with so much still to discuss and so much to anticipate after the last page. It's not often that people will wait eagerly for questions rather than answers, but Snicket's started a series that'll do it.
The stage and its actors are chosen with great skill. Stain'd-by-the-Sea is as bizarre and compelling a setting as any ever written, a fading town whose lines and lives are vividly expressed, and where every reader will half-wish they had once lived, or could live now. The characters are full-blooded, three-dimensional but each making every effort to hide their third dimension. S. Theodora Markson, detective for a certain organisation who thinks she's far better than her abysmal ranking. Moxie Mallahan, the last journalist in town and sole upholder of a legacy that is lost. Ellington Feint, so mysterious she practically has question marks on her forehead. The shadow Hangfire, more monster than man. And of course Snicket himself - too brave for his own good, too smart for his own good, too dedicated to do any good. If anyone can solve the crime, it's him, but in the end who will it help? For fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events, this is the story of how Snicket the boy shrinks into Snicket the man - although he's not the only familiar face. You don't have to read the story of the Baudelaires to understand this one - but if you have, you'll find this new story rife with references to the old one, and they are references which will make you shudder.
We can't pass without mentioning the art by the cartoonist Seth. With twenty illustrations, not counting the collage of mysterious events emblazoning the cover, we are now getting more art than ever before, in more detail than ever before. Practically every character is illustrated, although as ever, our hero never shows his face. All the best scenes and views are represented, giving the town of Stain'd a new half-life that makes ever new illustration worth waiting for. And those too have their new dimension, for the illustrations are two-tone, drawn in black and blue, an extra level of shadow and sadness which makes this book what it is: Like nothing else out there.
The book is 258 pages long, as long as the middle books of Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. It's a good place to start: Where things start getting complicated. And they're going to get very complicated. And you won't want to miss a single detail. You'll need them all to solve the mystery, and have a good chuckle as you do so.
"Who Could That Be at This Hour?", the first of four All the Wrong Questions, is released on October 23rd by Little, Brown & Co. in the United States, by Egmont in the United Kingdom, and Hardie Grant Egmont in Australia. I advise you to invest. After all, what else ever happens on a Tuesday?
Thirteen years after he first wrote, and six years after The End, we have a book that's before the beginning, starring a younger Snicket with a more mature writing style, asking questions without answers about a crime that hasn't been committed. If you're a fan who's been asking "Is Lemony Snicket back?", or if you're not a fan yet but have been asking "Are this guy's books as funny as his name?", then you were asking the wrong question - no, Lemony Snicket's asking the questions here, and the best thing you can do is enjoy reading about him as he does so.
A Lemony Snicket book is three things, in no particular order and all at the same time: Funny. Clever. Mysterious. This is more true than it's ever been. In fact, "Who Could That Be at This Hour?" is more everything than Snicket's ever been. He is funnier. The wit of this novel is fused with the text and harder to disentangle from it. Every joke and punchline is as black as the ink it's printed in and blends in perfectly with the story. He is cleverer. This is a detective story with clues, motives, opportunities and a single true sequence of events that ties them together. It's fair, and an armchair detective can solve the crime, but they will not as they'll be too busy turning the pages in the most unputdownable novel Snicket's ever written. And it's more mysterious. The small story of the book is solved to satisfaction, but the big story of the series is still looming above us, asking us many questions that we can't know the answers to but can make good guesses. This is the sort of book that built fandoms in the early 2000s, with so much still to discuss and so much to anticipate after the last page. It's not often that people will wait eagerly for questions rather than answers, but Snicket's started a series that'll do it.
The stage and its actors are chosen with great skill. Stain'd-by-the-Sea is as bizarre and compelling a setting as any ever written, a fading town whose lines and lives are vividly expressed, and where every reader will half-wish they had once lived, or could live now. The characters are full-blooded, three-dimensional but each making every effort to hide their third dimension. S. Theodora Markson, detective for a certain organisation who thinks she's far better than her abysmal ranking. Moxie Mallahan, the last journalist in town and sole upholder of a legacy that is lost. Ellington Feint, so mysterious she practically has question marks on her forehead. The shadow Hangfire, more monster than man. And of course Snicket himself - too brave for his own good, too smart for his own good, too dedicated to do any good. If anyone can solve the crime, it's him, but in the end who will it help? For fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events, this is the story of how Snicket the boy shrinks into Snicket the man - although he's not the only familiar face. You don't have to read the story of the Baudelaires to understand this one - but if you have, you'll find this new story rife with references to the old one, and they are references which will make you shudder.
We can't pass without mentioning the art by the cartoonist Seth. With twenty illustrations, not counting the collage of mysterious events emblazoning the cover, we are now getting more art than ever before, in more detail than ever before. Practically every character is illustrated, although as ever, our hero never shows his face. All the best scenes and views are represented, giving the town of Stain'd a new half-life that makes ever new illustration worth waiting for. And those too have their new dimension, for the illustrations are two-tone, drawn in black and blue, an extra level of shadow and sadness which makes this book what it is: Like nothing else out there.
The book is 258 pages long, as long as the middle books of Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. It's a good place to start: Where things start getting complicated. And they're going to get very complicated. And you won't want to miss a single detail. You'll need them all to solve the mystery, and have a good chuckle as you do so.
"Who Could That Be at This Hour?", the first of four All the Wrong Questions, is released on October 23rd by Little, Brown & Co. in the United States, by Egmont in the United Kingdom, and Hardie Grant Egmont in Australia. I advise you to invest. After all, what else ever happens on a Tuesday?