Paul, Anna and Zach all died in a tragic accident
But the afterlife is not all good. Once the Commons where
all people gathered to complete their Journey and find out where they’re going
next. But now Mr. Brill controls the Essence of life and creation, their power,
the potential of their journeys all trapped and enslaved to increase his power
and control and create his corporate empire.
These three have the potential, together, of finally
loosening Mr. Brill’s stifling grip and restoring things to their natural
balance.
In some ways we have a classic adventure story – with a
normal boy, Paul Reid, discovering that he is so much more special. He enters the
Commons as a normal person and discovers how very very special he is as he goes
along, gains new powers and collects companions who are super loyal to him
It’s classic – but things are classic for a reason; it’s
the every man adventure story that is often fun when done well – and this is
definitely done well. What makes it special is the world.
This huge world that is made up of the imaginations of
everyone who has ever passed through is so random. In a wonderful way. Whether
it’s the ferret whisperer or the Mososaurs or the hippie soldiers (I LOVED the
hippie soldiers in their peace symbol uniforms) and the humbolt squid and so
many other random images and creations. It works because The Commons is created
from the minds of so many people, everyone who has died and passed on to the
next journey
It is fascinating and rich and incredibly fun and zany
and the sheer vastness of it makes it an excellent read. It also combines with
the complex, multi-faceted plot with three different figures all doing
seemingly very different things to bring about the end result – all their
missions are connected but in a world that is so outside of normal rules that
the connections are almost impossible to see until the end.
I’m torn on this. On the one side it’s amazing, it looks
amazing, it’s fun, it’s wildly imaginative and incredibly vivid. At the same
time it feels almost like a cheat – but having a world with no parameters, no
logical connections, where literally anything mankind can imagine all exists then
you also don’t particularly have any onus to create a coherent world. In fact,
a coherent world is quite the opposite of what is – because we have all these
remnants of imagine smooshed together, all these disparate sources of Essence
striving to communicate and fight against the repression of all their infinite potential.
This is what makes the book so much fun and so different – because it’s so
vivid and bright and random. But it also means that you have infinite supplies
of Deus Ex Machinae. There comes a point when you don’t even try to follow the
logic of the plot any more, just watch, enjoy and run with it because no-one
ever said it had to make sense
