12-09-14:Tad Williams Is Caught 'Sleeping Late on Judgment Day'
As Below, So Above
The contradiction at the heart of any private detective character is a dynamic union of opposites. The detective may be on the side of the angels, but he's perfectly willing to mix it up with and like the devils he's supposed to hunting down. Generally, the detective seems to have more in common with those he's pursuing than those for whom he is supposedly fighting. He may end up on the wrong side of the law while fighting for right.
Given that Tad Williams' detective, Bobby Dollar, is in fact an angel, the complications are exponential. The first two installments of his story, 'The Dirty Streets of Heaven' and 'Happy Hour in Hell' are delightful stepping-stones to 'Sleeping Late on Judgment Day.' Readers are advised to begin at the beginning with the expectation of deliverance in the latest. This book successfully ups the ante for fun, charm and hilarity. Williams displays a mastery of hard-boiled vernacular deployed in and intellectually and ethically rich vision of religion brought down to earth.
As the novel begins, Bobby Dollar is in a pickle. He's been set up and served up to Powers that partake of Lovecraftian otherworldliness through Christian hierarchy. Having broken laws, most of them eternal to get into this mess, he's going to have break more to get out. Given that his earthly life ended in some as-yet unspecified past and this life began soon after, the potential for snuffing him seems ever real. Williams uses his fantastic settings to contrive a possibility of demise that no mortal detective could ever face, and uses it to evoke real tension.
It's just one of many smart moves to be found in these books, which combine a pitch perfect smart-ass voice with a smart mystery played out against an intricately developed backdrop. With world-build all the rage, Williams tasks himself to build a world within ours that reflects the Judeo-Christian mythos brought to earth, as it were. There, he uses the fantastic setting to complicate his mysteries while mixing human and inhuman motivations.
The upshot is that Williams can deal with knotty and often abstruse philosophical notions in a physical, character-driven story. Free will, universal love and eternal punishment for our sins are all up for grabs here, but dealt with out in the open. It makes the fun —and there is a lot of fun in Williams' consistently laugh-out-loud prose — even more fun.
If you've read the first books, this one will make you equally happy and impatient for more. If you like detective novels and hate urban fantasy, give these a try, as Williams has that voice down. If you like monsterific horror novels, where the monsters have character and purpose beyond killing, you'll be happy to read these. And if you like comedies, well Tad Williams profane comedy will evoke heavenly laughter. If you sleep late, it will only be because you stayed up late reading.
New to the Agony Column
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Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."
09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."
08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]
07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."
04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It
