Monstrum

by Donald James

Book Overview

The final book in Philip K. Dick's VALIS trilogy, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer brings the author's search for the identity and nature of God to a close. The novel follows Bishop Timothy Archer... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804118914
• ISBN13: 9780804118910
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Ivy Books
• Length: 436 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

More than a mystery

This book was such a pleasant surprise that I couldn't let go of it for weeks after I read it - and ended up going back to it at least twice since then. Donald James creates an entirely believable landscape in 2015 Moscow, and tells the possible story of the country through the eyes of his characters. I think one of the main reasons why I fell in love with Monstrum was the protagonist character, Vadim, a would-be passive police inspector who just wants to have a quiet job and a quiet apartment where he can miss his dead son and a wife who left him. Instead, through little fault of his own, he gets involved in events seemingly beyond his control. And as he stumbles through life, increasingly becoming more and more involved, making choices and searching for the truth, one can't help but ache for his fate and for the fate of those around him. Female characters here are also especially interesting - I haven't seen such strong, complex women in many other novels. Donald James is a historian and that is a great plus for Monstrum: he knows the shifts and spirals of history. The future he imagines for Russia (hopefully it can be avoided) is in tune at once with this country's turbulent past and its ambivalent present. I don't think even after 2015, this novel will possibly be outdated: instead it could be thought of as an alternate reality. A serial killer mystery is overshadowed here by its political connections, and that gives the writer room to go in many surprising directions.While dark in content, it's ultimately uplifting, and wonderfully so, since after as much as the characters go through in this story, they deserve some hope at the end. This is a mystery with a heart of a romantic quest and a historic novel - and it does honor to all these genres. I so wish he would write a sequel. There is room enough for it. I probably will be waiting hopelessly for it, but my point is...this book is too good to pass up.

A modern Russian fairy tale

Being a Russian living in Moscow I have a certain advantage over the readers who were not brought up in Russia and have no knowledge of the Russian literary tradition.You can believe me - this book is superb if you see it in a way that makes the enjoyment unhindered. Please do not compare it to Gorky Park and the schlock of this kind. Also it's unwise to test the novel's characters and events against the patterns of the real life. Just see it as a modern Russian fairy tale.I am sure the author is familiar with the Russian fantastic tradition of Bulgakov, Odoevsky, etc.- the authors inspired by E.T.A.Hoffman.If you'll read these tales you will see that usually they start with quite veritable everyday happenings and the characters occupation and rank is stated. But a few pages later the fabric of reality is torn and the world of supernatural is shining through the gaps.The mood of the novel is dark - it's definitely Russian. Cowards turn into heroes and the heroes are traitors, former classmates are united by vodka but one of them is the chief of the secret police and another - the prime suspect. I was amused that one of the reviewers could not buy the fact that the rebellious general's husband was recruited as the dictators body double. What would you say about Stalin's comrade Molotov, who had his wife rotting in a death camp and still stood at the Mausoleum near his boss, flinching at his jovial inquiries about the woman's health?So see this novel as a perfect opportunity to experience the life very different from your own and even if you do not care for the Russian literary tradition the novel's beautiful(and mostly evil) heroines, courageous underdogs and exotic settings will make a couple of your evening very enjoyable.

Simply Brilliant

Don't fool yourself it is a difficult book to read and I strongly recommend a sound knowledge of Russian history and Russian habits. Otherwise superb read,deep and breathtaking,original,and a well executed novel. Bravo Donald.

A Riveting Police Procedural, and Much More!

Comparisons of _Monstrum_ to Martin Cruz Smith's _Gorky Park_ are apt. A very similar sort of thriller, Donald James' novel follows the investigation of homicide inspector, Constantin Vadim, as he searches for a serial killer operating in the rubble of war-torn Moscow, circa 2015. The future setting doesn't really give this book a science-fictional feel, but allows James to add a complicated political underpinning to his serial-killer plot. The Anarchists and the Nationalists have just stopped fighting a civil war for the soul of Russia and the clean-up and aftermath of the war only hamper Vadim's investigation, as they also make it possible for the serial-killer "monstrum" of the title to operate. The characters were very absorbing, the mystery first-rate, and James' exploration of the human condition very gripping. The conclusion did feel a bit rushed, following a long, leisurely set-up, and the book is a bit too dependent on Vadim's inability to develop political beliefs of his own, but this was, on the whole, a riveting mystery and I'd highly recommend it.

Clever and different. Excellent read--couldn't put it down!

"Monstrum" is a clever story with various twists and turns--part science fiction, part thriller, part murder mystery, part political novel. I became one with Constantine--felt his humanity, his idealism, his pain. But Montrum is more than a story about a series of mass murders--it is a commentary on the state of the world: who is the real monstrum--the mass murder loose in Moscow's slums or those political figures who run the world? Read this book--it is wonderful on many different levels