Kroese, Robert: Mercury Falls
Robert Kroese's debut novel is clever. The plot is clever, the writing is clever. The principals engage in witty banter, ostensibly insouciant in the face of nearly certain doom.
"'No worries,' Mercury said. 'I think I've figured out a way for everyone to live happily ever after.'
'Everybody?'
'Well, almost everybody. And not so much happy as only mildly disgruntled.'
'And the 'ever after' part?'
'Actually,' said Mercury thoughtfully, 'it's more like 'for the very short time future.' So, to modify my original statement slightly, I've probably found a way to keep almost everyone from becoming more than mildly disgruntled for the very near future.'"
Reading the book, one appreciates the author's ingenuity as well as the fact that he writes well. But it's not an easy book to become invested in. One doesn't really care about the characters, and the machinations of the many parties involved in planning or planning to thwart the Apocalypse are eventually too complex to bother following. By the end the cleverness just seems too much. I think the book would have been better if it were perhaps a third shorter, so that Armageddon wrapped up before the reader has time to lose interest. This, of course, is my own take. My eventual lack of patience with the book may just be due to my preferences: readers who were able to enjoy more than one Jasper Fforde novel (I couldn't) are likely to enjoy Kroese as well.
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