Finally finished up on Barker's sequel to "The Great and Secret Show", 1994's "Everville".
Looming high above the city of Everville on a mountaintop is an open door. A door that leads to the dream shores of Quiddity. And no one in the town below will b changed by this fact.
Phoebe Cobb, a doctor's receptionist who is soon to forget her old life, and go in search of he lost lover in the world on the otherside of the door.
Tesla Bombeck who is aware of the terrors that lurk in Quiddity's far side, now must solve Everville's past mysteries is she is to keep them at bay.
And then there's Harry D'Amour who has been tracking the ultimate evil all across the US, and now will find conjured in Everville's sunlit streets.
So there are several characters coming back in this one, especially Tesla. Things here are also taking a much weirder turn this time around. I actually get to see just a little bit more of the world Quiddity and also of its inhabitants that I only ever got hints of. And then the setting that is the titular town where the story now takes place a few years after the events of 'The Great and Secret Show". Of course the weirdness is still there, and weirdness is what I'm very much here for!
The Art trilogy, or what much there is of it, as it hasn't been finished as of yet, isn't perfect by any stretch, but it is good. I would really like to see this trilogy, and currently Barker has been working on several projects, with some of them being close to finished, don't know if one of them might be a third and final book for the trilogy, but it might be something that I'll certainly be keeping my eyes on if it might be.
by i-the-muso-1968
2 Comments
I actually read Everville first and had no idea is was a sequel until I’d already finished it. I only read The Great and Secret Show years later.
I think I liked Everville more that way. It seemed so crazy and random and surreal without any prior information.
When I first read Everville 25 years ago I didn’t care for it. A few years ago I indulged an audiobook version listening to both books buffered with The Last Illusion in between. This time around I actually really liked Everville, maybe a bit more than The Great and Secret Show with the exception of the first chapter in the dead letter office which is in my top 3 opening chapters in any novel.