The Distance Travelled

The Distance Travelled, Brett Alexander Savory. Necro Publications, 2006. Limited 100. A fine production for a limited, including interior art and an extra color painting. I enjoyed this book, despite the device driving the plot: literally searching for pieces of a diagram puzzle. At times, the descriptions of hell were monotonous (everything red and hot), but that's what hell would be, right? Red and hot and monotonous. And, now and then, in the early stages, the characters were a bit inconsistent in that their actions did not match their words. For instance, Stu would tell Pigboy not to pick on Gus, and then Stu, himself, would pick on Gus. Intentional on the author's part? I don't know. Not consistent enough to tell. But the characters are what really made this an entertaining read. Each one was interesting and had opportunity to be witty, and often a great sarcastic remark would be made. There isn't any great human depth or meanings in life revealed within this book, but now and then an interesting nugget appears: "Who needs daily torture sessions when you can just sit in a dark room and think about the life you wasted, the time you threw away?" And as I approached the novel's climax and subsequent resolution I feared a sentimental happily-everafter ending, but was pleasantly surprised with a more thoughtful (if somewhat depressing) conclusion. All my little gripes aside, this was a solid and well written story with memorable characters (of those familiar with China Tom Mieville, there is a giant rat -- a King Rat -- by the name of Tom China).