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Title: The Paper Grail by James P. Blaylock ISBN: 0-441-65127-5 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: February, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Wonderfully Offbeat Grail Quest
Comment: The quiet curator of a small museum in California has no idea what he's getting into when he begins a trip to claim a rare Japanese sketch for his museum. He finds himself in the middle of a life-and-death struggle for the Paper Grail, an origami cup with mystical powers over land and water. Blaylock slips adeptly from the everyday to the sublime, pitting unlikely heroes -- failed small businessmen and eccentrics -- against some pretty likely villains of our time: greedy real estate tycoons and cynics who would use the Grail's powers for their own aggrandizement rather than the good of the land. You're more likely to enjoy this beautifully written, highly literate book if you have read a good deal of Arthurian literature and if you're familiar with the Pre-Raphaelite artists of the late Victorian period. Fans of Tim Powers' _Last Call_ should definitely read _Paper Grail_: to judge by the dedications, the two authors were probably trading ideas the whole time they were writing.
Rating: 5
Summary: Makes you want to move to California
Comment: I've known people who have lived in California and they never said it was anything like this. Perhaps if it was more like Blaylock's books and less like reality (that being earthquakes and mudslides and the constant feeling that the entire state is going to fall into the ocean . . . but darn isn't the weather nice?) I'd want to actually move there. In any event, in the hands of Blaylock the state and the entire coast becomes a magical place full of mystery and mundanity at the same time. Oddball characters strive for a powerful piece of paper while at the same time trying to pay their rent and get a date. All the people in this book are wonderfully strange (if they're the good guys) or bizarrely strange (if they're evil) but it gives the book a certain angle that very few of today have, the constant contrast between what's normal and what's magical and the thin line that separates them is great. It's fantasy that can exist without elves and trolls and stuff and still be epic and be finished in a concise three hundred pages without an entire two thousand year history. It's about real people and real magic and the things that it can make you do. Both good and bad. Simply put, it's for people who want to be entertained while at the same time immerse themselves in a place that's not all that different from where they might live. No matter how normal they're life might seem.
Rating: 4
Summary: Wonderful contemporary-fantasy quest
Comment: This is the 2nd best Blaylock I've read (best: The Last Coin) and has all the classic Blaylock plot elements: an assortment of quirky characters in a northern California backwater, and a mystic treasure with its aging guardians pitted against the bizarre machinations of a grotesque, eccentric villian. Nothing like fast-paced action but a marvellous unfolding of plots and characters.
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Title: The Last Coin by James P. Blaylock ISBN: 0441470750 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: May, 1996 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Dinner at Deviant's Palace by Tim Powers ISBN: 0441148786 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: July, 1985 List Price(USD): $42.00 |
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Title: Land of Dreams by James P. Blaylock ISBN: 0441503470 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: September, 1988 List Price(USD): $3.50 |
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Title: The Rainy Season by James P. Blaylock ISBN: 0441007562 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Digging Leviathan by James P. Blaylock ISBN: 193023516X Publisher: Babbage Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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