I finished it a few weeks ago, but was holding off on the review until I could say something more profound. I have since given up thinking of something to say. Go read what other people said instead.
For the five of you who haven’t heard of it, Vellum involves a bunch of characters who are also other characters, either immortal or reincarnated or metaphorical or all of the above. It jumps around from character to character, taking place in 2017 and World War I and the far future and the ancient mideast and other times and places, some of which are our Earth and others of which aren’t. Roughly, it involves people who are trying not to take sides in a war among angels.
Despite this, it is not confusing. It’s mysterious, in an all this neat stuff is related, let’s keep reading to find out how way, but not in an I have no idea what’s going on help way. And it’s really hard to set down.
(I’m sure though that if I knew more mythology and history, I’d see more parallels and general nifty stuff. But even being relatively ignorant was no hindrance.)
Also, Duncan’s prose rocks.
(Here is an essay he wrote about style.)
(Here are two passages from the book.)
I have only two complaints: First, that there are three fonts and two of them were hard to tell apart. Since there didn’t seem to be a need for three fonts, this wasn’t a big issue. Second, that the book stops, rather than ending, and the rest of it (Ink) doesn’t come out until 2007.
I feel obligated to say something about hype. Apparently there was a lot. I was oblivious, although I put this book on my to-read list after hearing someone on some panel at some convention last year say good things about it. (Most likely World Fantasy.) By the time I found the book in the store and decided to buy it, I’d forgotten who said what, and decided to buy based on the usual flap-pageone-pagerandom trinity.