Damnation is the
afterlife… not quite Hell but possibly in the same neighbourhood. Many a
not-quite-as-bad-as-he-thought man ends up there to spend eternity drinking,
gambling and not doing much else. Not out of choice - there simply isn’t all
that much to do
Though eternity ends
quickly for some - there’s a theory that if you go a year without killing
someone then you’re redeemed for Heaven. No-one has succeeded so far; though
Thomas, the town chronicler, is trying.
The men eke out their
existence in the saloon, trying not to antagonise the werewolves or annoy the
town’s vampire; and trying to not get into any gunfights they might lose.
But things are
changing - there’s a new gunslinger in town, better than any before. And
following him is rarest of all, a woman.
This book is, in many
ways, pointless. It’s full of unknowables, with virtually no world building, no
set motivations, little understanding, conflict without foundation, characters
without purpose and no real conclusion
Which is excellent.
Which is the whole
point.
The cast is in an
afterlife… an old west afterlife - people die and appear in this old west town
which was the original era for most of the people there. But time is clearly
moving on - so we don’t know if, as the years pass, this town will evolve
especially as new characters are descending down to the town of Damnation where
they spend their days eating pork, drinking whiskey, gambling and having
various gun battles.
But the core
foundation of Damnation is even “Damnation” is an assumption. No-one really
understands the nature of it’s town, why they’re there, where they go when they
die, what its purpose is. What’s really fascinating is us being presented with
a lot of really interesting rules and theories but ultimately it all rests on
no-one knowing: of people living every day without real purpose except to live
another day
I think beyond
anything else that is the underpinning foundation of this book. We get conflict
and more structured purpose later on and we definitely have individual
character arcs. But the first half, maybe even third, of this book does an
excellent job of world building - or theme building rather. We have all these
people in this afterlife eeking and existence and struggling for… well…
nothing? Anything?
This is an excellent
foundation to underpin the feeling of almost desperate hopelessness with the
place, in some ways even the desperate pointlessness of it - and of that thing
thread of survival they cling to. It underpins all the characters as people
come and go, new leaders, new gun slingers who leave their stamp on the town
before fading when the next threat comes. And people die, even people who have
been central for so long and it fades and changes
Which is what makes
Thomas an interesting character and the closest thing we get to an actual
protagonist without there actually BEING a protagonist - because he’s as close
to a literary man of anyone there. A reporter, he wants to know and he wants to
document - and it’s through his desire to chronicle the town that we get the
true sense of how things work, who everyone is but above all the powerful
underpinning theme because that is the essential background for the plot -when
things change
When we get a
gunslinger who seems more able to hold his own, not least of which because he’s
at least partially benevolent. Things begin to change. But things change far
more when a woman arrives… and that all sounds ominous and portentous in the
blurb but it gets true meaning after the lead in showing how much change she
brings: bringing not just her but actual life to this dead land and what that
means to a land without both meaning or real change. And when those changes
come and we have an excellent battle with the werewolves, and the town vampire
sets up and everyone has some real moral conflicts from people who have
all kind of passively embraced the idea they’re evil and they’re damned
And that itself is
fascinating - because they’ve decided they’re damned they accept (most) evil
and it’s not exactly embracing it in a twirling moustache and cackling idea,
but just a passive believe that they’ve all done something terrible (even
Thomas has an excellent back story). But to have all these passive people now
begin to actively interrogate themselves and their surroundings after so long
of sinking into stupor really really works.
And Ms Parker works,
albeit more as a catalyst than a character. She is a character, she has a back
story and we have a duly established competence - which was especially
important in this largely female derived world - both due to the lack of female
entrants assumed to be because women are not as part of the violent world.
Which I think is something of a whitewash (both exacerbating the danger of the
old west and dismissing how much women were involved) but does explore the
dangers and incredible vulnerability of a woman, pretty much alone, in a town
full of aggressive, morally grey-at-best men. She navigates this extremely
dangerous situation without us having to actually see any abuse or sexual
assault and without us glossing over the danger and vulnerability she’s facing.
There is some racial
diversity in mentioned - but not involved - Native Americans who live separate
and a few POC who don’t really register on the plot at all. There are no LGBTQ
people.
Through all this it sounds quite serious and dull but it's also surprisingly entertaining, with a lot of humour and banter that really works.
This book is just so
very different from anything I’ve read because of its reliance on tone and…
world not!building. This makes it a really hard book to review because all the
things that make the book special - the lack of explanation, the character
passivity, the confusion, the lack of motivation or useful exploration of well
anything are all elements that would make me throw a book against a wall. But
it works here, it is needed here - it creates this whole unique feel and theme
which sets up a whole different level of stories which I can’t wait to see
fully explore this world and finally answer all of these fascinating unknowns
