I haven't given this a star rating because I think that it might look/be unfair. I have to say that I struggled to get into this book. It is set up as an intellectual challenge, and that is no bad thing - it just wasn't my sort of challenge.

If you like cryptic crosswords then this may be your kind of thing. (Does that make sense?) The book has the density of meaning of some poetry, and like that it asks you to re-read and tease out meaning. I'm afraid that isn't my cup of tea. I will sit with a poetry and do some of the work but on the whole with a larger text like a novel I prefer the author to do the work. Shallow as it may make me, I demand to be entertained.

That isn't to say I want a Dan Brown. Intellectual and Entertainment are not opposites. For example Barth or Borges or Nicola Barker all manage to marry the two successfully.

So I suppose I would say although I wouldn't recommend the book as being a favourite I would say 'give it a go'. It is certainly not a bad book. It is worth publishing and definitely worth trying because I get the impression that if you do like it you will really like it. It just wasn't for me.

I concur with the other reviews that the format and style of this book is unique. Although I never felt compelled to sit and read the entire way through, I did enjoy the intellectual challenge inherent in the style. In addition, I also felt that the first 2/3 of the book were far superior to the final third. All in all, enjoyable and unusual. ( )

See full review on my blog.

This book chronicles a three day battle between the forces of “The Source” – the true deity of the universe – and the “god of man,” the focus of mankind’s “religion, idolatry, and … blind worship of false gods.” From these few, short quotes you can probably already guess at the general world view underlying the story – mankind has created a false god through the sheer force of thousands of years of belief, and that god, thanks to the inherent illogic of its definition, is skewing the balance of the universe and now the time has come to destroy it.

I found this book quite hard to get into but then I happened to read the note about the author in the end pages, most of which is repeated on his website. Iimani is a “Experimentalist of the literary Impressionist style.”:

The literary techniques “maypoling” and “vertical storytelling” are employed in this work. These techniques are designed by the author to enhance the surreality of the characters’ mental and emotional experiences.
“”

Knowing that I was supposed to feel somewhat confused reassured me somewhat and allowed me to relax and go with the flow and get into it more. Still I found the book a little hard going. Aside from being intentionally confusing I also found the prose overworked at times, lots of alliteration, unnecessary adjectives and somewhat forced metaphors which all came over more as literary masturbation rather than as necessary to the story. Compared with someone like Murakami, who also aims for a surreality in his stories, it was extremely florid.

Also, and this probably is as much to do with my sci-fi predilections as it is a major fault in the book, but I for a story where ‘multiple dimensions’ were such a significant factor there was very little attempt to explain or justify their existence or relationship with each other.

There were several good points to the book, I enjoyed the Descartes inspired sensory deprivation chapter which was just part of a strong leaning towards the Continental tradition in philosophy. I thought the characterisation was good and the story itself ended up with a good mix of triumph and poignancy.

Overall, this was an above average book, though one you have to work at rather than a page turner. I probably wouldn’t seek out any other books by the same author but wouldn’t be averse to picking one up if I came across one cheap in a second hand store. ( )

Jodi Rhodes thought he'd woken from a bad dream, but the lingering pain at the center of his chest and the sensation of something growing on his bed won't disappear once he opened his eyes. And the feelings only grow worse thanks to a disturbing phone call from his girlfriend Tiari. Hearing her distress, Jodi, quickly catches a cab hoping to reach her before something terrible happens. Something that could change the course of the world, however, has other plans for him, not allowing him to reach that destination.

The main issue I had with "Anathema Rhodes: Dreams" was the amount and type of adjectives used. Yes, it sounds odd, but take for example, a sentence from the story:

"The truculent bleating of the taxi's radio dissolved into a low recalcitrant grumble, and soon, its chatter was displaced by the sound of my own desultory thoughts." (p. 62)

I freely admit to searching the dictionary for three of the words in that sentence -- truculent, recalcitrant and desultory. I've heard them before but never used them in general conversation with friends and family and co-workers. It was almost as if the author were saying "I can use big words, and if you don't know what they mean, you shouldn't be reading this book." This feeling frustrated me to no end as I continued reading.

The characters took a tip from the wordiness. They each spoke as if seated in a study group of pseudo intellectuals debating metaphysics and the spiritual state of the world as a whole. It didn't matter if the character was a Spanish college professor, a child, a monster (or whatever the creatures were) or the main character Jodi -- they each sounded like the same person and came across emotionally flat.

And yet, the times when I felt the author stopped concentrating on the words and focused on the story, he created some fantastic visual impressions: the chapter describing Adrianna P.'s encounter with a strange man beneath her bed who only wants her to come and play with him; Tiari's horrific encounter with multiple unformed versions of herself melded to the walls or trying to claw across the floor though most of the body didn't make it through from whatever dimension it called home; the haunting vision of hundreds of ghostly children slowly filing down the stairs and through the front door of an apartment -- amazing scenes that I can still picture even two weeks after having finished the book.

As for the story itself, I'm still not quite sure what it was about. In between the fantastic visuals, most of the characters discussed the state of the world, how two versions of the same God actually existed -- one from which all things came and one created by Man, how one of them needed to be destroyed. It came across more as a lecture rather than a story, more highbrow than what the average reader would enjoy. ( )

I really enjoyed the first part of this book. It was strange, interesting, and intelligent, with suspense, sharp (and frightening) images, and a little bit of light science speculation. But as the plot and resolution began to unfold in the second and third parts, everything I admired about the first disappeared or was lost in the overly drawn out descriptions and unreadable dialogues.

It’s frustrating and bothersome because the first part (comprising about 2/3 of the novel) is actually quite good. I’m not sure what happened in the last 1/3, but it’s as if someone else wrote it, disregarding the story’s earlier tone and pace. Perhaps that confused structure is the point. After all, the word is periodically emphasized throughout. But – even so, it comes off as more exasperating than confusing, and - most unfortunate of all - it left me disappointed. ( )