Pandemonium: Reviews
Believable characters, a multilayered plot and smooth prose define Gregory’s
darkly ambitious debut novel… The trim
prose keeps the pace intense and the action red hot through some emotionally
disturbing scenes and heavy backstory. Absorbing psychological discussions of
possession abound, from Jungian archetypes to the eye of Shiva. Readers will
delve deeply into Gregory’s highly original demon-infested reality and hope for
a sequel. (Sept.)
Full review at Publisher's Weekly (scroll down to see it)
…Rising sf/fantasy star Gregory, winner of the Asimov's Reader's Award for his novelette "Second Person,
Present Tense," demonstrates his skill at full-length storytelling in a debut novel that breaks new
ground while paying homage to some of the genre's most iconoclastic authors, A.E. Van Vogt and Philip K. Dick.
Most libraries should introduce sf fans to this bright new voice of the 21st century.
Full review on Library Journal (scroll down to see it).
Locus Magazine, reviewed by Paul Witcover
Any unusually strong debut…. Gregory's appropriation of pop-cultural icons is shrewd, amusing, and, as with Valis, often surprisingly poignant. As things get progressively weirder and wilder… Pandemonium bristles with frantic, feverish inventiveness, twist following twist at a dizzying rate.
Full review (this site)
Locus Magazine, reviewed by Faren Miller
Pandemonium pays sometimes impish homage to a variety of sources (as the final
notes and Acknowledgments point out), but also manages to be moving and quite
memorable in its own right.
Full review (this site).
November 2008 issue
[Pandemonium] offers surprises, insight, and amusement on nearly every
page…
…leaves the reader wanting to know more of this world and the characters who inhabit it… But there’s also the probability that expanding
Pandemonium into a longer book could have made the story feel bloated and overwrought. Instead,
Pandemonium rushes by like an out-of-control freight train…
Pandemonium… swims confidently against the tide of grand space opera and epic fantasy that dominates much of current science fiction and fantasy.
[The novel] is the work of a young writer willing to play with the conventions of science fiction and fantasy and turn them in to a fresh, new vision of the world we live in.
Full review.
Sci-Fi Weekly, reviewed by A.M. Dellamonica (A-)
In a book filled with spiritual conundrums and deranged mystics, the heart of this novel is Del's relationship with his brother Lew.
The pair share a complicated, utterly believable family bond.
… Their mutual devotion helps them rise above this childhood programming, and it is a pleasure to watch this unfold.
… At times, Pandemonium dances up to the cliff's edge of metafiction, riffing on previous well-known SF stories.
… These references to other works and authors are playful but never frivolous: They're integral to the plot and ultimately make perfect sense.
…Pandemonium is inventive, quirky and darkly humorous, with a hero whose journey is far from typical, taking readers down an often creepy road to some very unexpected places.
Gregory creates two fascinating families—one human, one demonic—and brings them together in a catastrophic collision whose outcome is surprisingly poignant.
Full review.
SFGate, website of the San Francisco Chronicle
Gregory gives his novel a unique and compelling setup and follows through with a
loose but propulsive plot. The writing is tight, the characters well realized.
For die-hard science fiction fans, there's also pleasure in discovering that, in
at least one alternate timeline, Philip K. Dick is still alive, although
possessed by an entity that calls itself VALIS. All in all, "Pandemonium" is a
wickedly clever entertainment.
Full Review
SF Signal
review by Karen Burnham
Pandemonium may be Daryl Gregory's first novel, but it's not the work of a novice. He is already a stand-out short story writer…. His writing is conceptually brilliant and very personal--qualities that also inform this novel…
Gregory does a particularly good job drawing the relationship between Del and
his brother; they are loving and surface-level casual, but there's a constant
undercurrent of tension. I especially appreciate the way that you feel that
Del's mother, brother, and others have independent lives outside of Del's
drama--lives they'd like to get back to, but are on hold for a moment. It's a
particularly good portrait of the sort of human condition less often addressed
in genre lit: even when mental illness/difference is the trope (of which there
are nigh-unto-infinite examples) stories often fail to address the impact on
families.
…I'm already looking forward to his next book, to see what else he'll find to say about these issues and others. I know, whatever it is, it will be worth reading.
Full review.
Pandemonium… looks to me like a contender for awards from the horror,
science fiction or fantasy camps, depending on who stakes their claim first…
Gregory's premise is certainly clever, but he backs it up with good writing. The
prose, pacing, plotting and characterization are all top notch; careful, quiet
and sleekly powerful when necessary. Gregory supplies the sort of grit and
details to make this surreal world seem as real as long wait at the airport, but
a whole lot more exciting.
Full review (this site) and their site
A few weeks ago, I'd never heard of Daryl Gregory… In the course of a couple of days I read a half-dozen or so of Gregory's stories, and quickly came to a conclusion: Daryl Gregory can write like a son-of-a-bitch.
Pandemonium is Daryl Gregory's first book-length work to be published, and to my thinking it's the single best debut novel I've read in years. The back cover blurb doesn't even begin to do this book justice.
…Gregory's short fiction displays certain central obsessions--a keen understanding of cognitive sciences; an interest in families and questions of relationships and maturity; and an obsession with popular culture, in the form of science fiction, superhero comics, pulp novels, etc. All of these factor into
Pandemonium, to great effect. To give much more than a broad summary of the plot threatens to spoil too many of the surprises, so I won't bother. (Should I admit that the ending was so affecting that I actually teared up in Starbucks while reading it? No, perhaps not...) I can say, though, that the writing is accomplished and polished, employing a first-person voice that is deceptively conversational and familiar, but which is capable of spinning out devastatingly clever turns of phrase when needed, laugh-out-loud funny in places and knuckle-whitening-terrify in others.
Pandemonium is simply a stunning debut, and I for one can't wait to see what Gregory does next. Highly, highly recommended.
Full review.
The madcap story elements of Pandemonium work because they are always presented in conjunction with, not as a substitute for, Daryl Gregory's skillful writing.
…
Pandemonium seems in part a clarion call for today's writers to find 21st Century ways to wow readers the way Action Comics and Black Mask once did. As it happens, Daryl Gregory is one of a new generation of writers with the talent to do it.
Full review.
Sometimes though, I’ll end up finding a book that’s a real gem and a read that
I’ll quite happily get lost in for hours at a time. Daryl Gregory’s debut novel
is one of those finds, I loved it and if you’re a fan of urban fantasy that’s a
little bit different then I think you’ll like it too."
…
"‘Pandemonium’ is one of those books where, once I’ve finished it, I’m left
thinking, ‘wow, did all of that really just happen?’ There is a lot going on and
it’s a real credit to Daryl Gregory that he distinguishes between what needs to
be tied up and what can be left vague. The result is a book where a complete
story sits comfortably in a wider world that offers the reader tantalising
glimpses of the bigger picture."
…
"I reckon ‘Pandemonium’ could well be my ‘surprise find’ of the year’; as well
as being a thoroughly entertaining read it got me inside the heads of all the
characters and really made me think about what I was reading…. Nine out of Ten."
Full review (this site) and their site
Strange Horizons, reviews by Amy O'Loughlin and Dan Hartland
Two long reviews, so you can compare and contrast. Laughlin first:
Daryl Gregory's snappy and clever debut novel… is intriguing, challenging, and stirring. …Gregory has produced a debut novel that combines suspense, philosophical conundrums, Jungian psychological theory, aspects of American pop culture, and a touch of neuroscience with skillful and ambitious storytelling.
Hartland's opinion, however, was definitely mixed:
For all its intelligence, this isn't a reverent book. The use of Dick is only the start: O. J. Simpson pops up, taken out by the Truth; backwater America's tacky tourist traps are made sinister and satirised; conspiracy theorists are spot on, but still barking mad. But having built all this wit and ambiguity to critical mass, the extended denouement of the book feels more like a collapse than a climax. It isn't that Pandemonium stops being entertaining: Gregory has enough twists, and his characters enough zip, to keep us entertained. But it does feel as if, for all its cleverness of construction, the book isn't quite sure what to do with itself. The plot thunders towards a satisfying end, but its ideas seem paused at page 140.
Full reviews.
Here’s one of those novels that blurs the distinction between fantasy and
horror, although in this case I don’t mind at all. … This one is not just a lot
of fun, it’s also an impressively written novel. This one may be the debut novel
of the year.
Full review.
4 stars. This is a clever and fast-paced ride through the American pop-culture
landscape. The references come fast and furious and a good deal of the fun is in
figuring out the source material. The underlying premise is also fascinating,
and Del's journey is both triumphant and heart-breaking.
Full review.
ConNotations is the Bi-Monthly Science Fiction, Fantasy and Convention Newszine of the Central Arizona Speculative Fiction Society, Volume 18, Issue 4, August/September 2008.
…Pandemonium is a complex and intelligent
book of human aspiration, well-written and with a hero you care about in
a world of shifting realities. — Pam Allan.
Full review (see page 22 of the pdf).
Kansas City Star (9/21/2008)
Read this debut for its pop-culture acidity and for Del’s meeting a possessed Philip K. Dick.
Full review.
Matt Stagg's Enter the Octopus Blog
This fast-paced gonzo tale full of oddball pop culture nods that will delight and amuse science fiction fans, who will enjoy playing “spot the reference” as much as the story itself.
Full review.
H2bl0g—notes de proyecto liquido by Hernán Ortiz
Full review. (in Spanish)