Very unique book if there ever was one! It takes the epistolary novel to a whole new level. Like no pastiche you've ever read! Recently found amongst some obscure papers of H.P. Lovecraft, this new manuscript chronicles a complex and mysterious quest by Allan Quatermain deep into the deserts of Ethiopia in 1872.
Read this ENTIRE description and check out the sample before you buy. Better yet, borrow this book for FREE.
This novel is a pastiche of H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain stories and of, to a much lesser extent, various and sundry tales of the Great Detective. Moreover:
(1) The book not by any means a Great Detective mystery. Rather, it does no more than quietly allude to the detective and offer a picture of his destiny oddly crossing paths with Quatermain’s.
(2) This novel is structured like a child’s nesting toy—rather like a set of Chinese nesting boxes—insofar as the reader is invited to explore multiple layers within layers, of framing devices within framing devices, books within books, and narratives within narratives along with concomitant shifting points of view—beginning with the title page.
(3) Further, this book can be viewed as a kind of light-hearted parody, or send-up, of the once common practice of casting works of fiction in the form of fact for the sake of verisimilitude. Countless authors have indulged in that conceit over the centuries—from Horace Walpole and Johannes Wilhelm Meinhold through Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur Machen, H. Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and A. Merritt to, more recently, Ian Cameron, Michael Crichton, Nicholas Meyer, Lin Carter, and Umberto Eco.
(4) This work should also be seen as this author’s paean to the progeny of the above literary art form, the pastiche, which often comes equipped with literary conventions such as framing devices, pseudo-prefaces, footnotes, and so forth. His goal has been to take this pastiche convention to a whole new level.
(5) At the same time, this novel is built on a framework of allusions. For example, the title page is a parody of, and an allusion to, turn-of-the-century publishing conventions, while the dedication is an allusion to H. Rider Haggard’s preferred style of trumpeting his allegiance or loyalty or friendship while in his more serious moods, and there are endless allusions to all manner of genre tropes. Of course, this is nothing new, being at heart the same sort of structural foundation employed by, for example, George Lucas in Star Wars and Sergio Leone and Quentin Tarantino in their various films.
"Immensely enjoyable!"—John Betancourt, Publisher Wildside Press
“Really quite a good deal of fun...strikingly unique.”—Jim Sanderson (Goodreads)
“I've just finished reading . . . and I must say it's one of the best books I've ever read. It's absolutely amazing.”—N.G.
"RECOMMENDED: A sheer joy!"—Gary Lovisi in SHERLOCK HOLMES: The Great Detective in Paperback and Pastiche (2008)
"I couldn't wait to finish the book and at the same time not wanting it to end."—JWC (Amazon)
"I won't say I couldn't put this book down. Of course I did, several times, to eat, to sleep. But I didn't WANT to!"—Anonymouse (Amazon)
"There is humour, horror, action, suspense, mystery and history. But above all, there is an open challenge to all the readers to go through this complex web of stories and get to the end to work out one's own solution for the mystery of life. Are you up to it? Go on, give it a try. If nothing, you will enjoy a jolly good story."—Riju Ganguly (Goodreads)
“[A] masterful tale . . . Quatermain's narrative is actually "revealed" several times over in the course of the document's existence . . . I found the book to be very entertaining and difficult to put down. I have this nagging itch for stories that reveal the mysteries of time, and THIS LITTLE EXFOLIATE especially provided me gratification as I sifted through its many layers”— Golden Fleece (Amazon)
YOU'VE BEEN FAIRLY
advertisement