Clockwork Angels: The Novel Discussion

[pfrushfan0122]

Call me a loser/no-lifer but I kept track of all of the Rush references I could find throughout the novel. It found it quite good, but I was expecting a little more from the last chapter with "The Garden," but honestly I don't know what I could have been expecting(if that makes any sense). Overall, it's very good, a bit redundant and the references can be seen from a mile a way sometimes, but it is a good compliment to the album.

I don't know if this counts as a spoiler, sorry if it does....

Anyway here is my list of what song/album references I found:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Bravado

Subdivisions

Big Money

Cold Fire

Dog Years

Time Stand Still

Stick It Out

Roll The Bones

Presto

Animate

Freewill

One Little Victory

Tom Sawyer

Spindrift

Far Cry

Dreamline

Natural Science

Xanadu

Limelight

Force Ten

Malignant Narcissism

Nobody's Hero

Vapor Trail

Cut To The Chase

Grace Under Pressure

All of the CA album, obviously.

If anyone else has kept track, feel free to compare and let me know!

[Partialgrace]

I noticed Freeze and The Enemy Within reference too.

 

I almost fell of from the chair reading the line 'suspicious looking stranger flashes to a dangerous grin" at the scene of Owen and The Anarchist.

 

I quite enjoyed the novel myself , but the constant Rush lyric reference is like a sudden pull from the reality which I find amusing but also rather disturbing.

 

 

 

[Rand]

I echo most of the other criticism. The constant RUSH lyric references were annoying.

 

In the notes at the end Neil says that Kevin writes incredibly fast. I'm guessing that's because he doesn't put much thought into it.

 

Some of the ideas in the book were very cool: The device that shows what's in your imagination for example.

 

A lot of the book didn't make any sense. Owen was supposed to be this pivotal character but at the end he checked out and nothing changed. Why were the Watchmaker and the Anarchist bothering with him in the first place?

 

 

[av450]

QUOTE (pfrushfan0122 @ Oct 20 2012, 06:38 PM)

Call me a loser/no-lifer but I kept track of all of the Rush references I could find throughout the novel. It found it quite good, but I was expecting a little more from the last chapter with "The Garden," but honestly I don't know what I could have been expecting(if that makes any sense). Overall, it's very good, a bit redundant and the references can be seen from a mile a way sometimes, but it is a good compliment to the album. I don't know if this counts as a spoiler, sorry if it does.... Anyway here is my list of what song/album references I found: . . . . . . . Bravado Subdivisions Big Money Cold Fire Dog Years Time Stand Still Stick It Out Roll The Bones Presto Animate Freewill One Little Victory Tom Sawyer Spindrift Far Cry Dreamline Natural Science Xanadu Limelight Force Ten Malignant Narcissism Nobody's Hero Vapor Trail Cut To The Chase Grace Under Pressure All of the CA album, obviously. If anyone else has kept track, feel free to compare and let me know!

He says prime mover at one point

[Cygnus 2112]

Let's take your list and include page numbers with every song, so that we can have this book 100% dissected. I know on page 210? there is one paragraph with four or five songs in it.

[Jaminbenb]

QUOTE (Rand @ Oct 22 2012, 03:32 PM)

I echo most of the other criticism.  The constant RUSH lyric references were annoying.  In the notes at the end Neil says that Kevin writes incredibly fast.  I'm guessing that's because he doesn't put much thought into it.  Some of the ideas in the book were very cool:  The device that shows what's in your imagination for example.  A lot of the book didn't make any sense.  Owen was supposed to be this pivotal character but at the end he checked out and nothing changed.  Why were the Watchmaker and the Anarchist bothering with him in the first place?

I wouldn't say that necessarily, sometimes things just flow onto the paper, you miss your idea flow if you over think what you are writing...you can always go back and adjust as things change, but most good ideas hit the paper with ease.

 

 

I just started the book...so far it's a little different than what I'm used to reading, but it's nothing horrible.

[HalfwayToGone]

Now that I've seen the live show, and have been enjoying the album for a while, I'm thinking it's time to bust open the shrinkwrap on my copy (I already unpacked/unwrapped the framed piece and hung it up, so no reason not to open the book too).

[TheAccountant]

Up to page 216 and my reaction has been that the book could have, perhaps, been much better than it is. As is the best I can say is that its a quick read. The song references are, at times, cringeworthy and at other times funny.

 

I am certain I will not be rereading it. Also, if this is what most of the authors work is like I will not be picking up any more of his work.

 

At least it moves along quickly.

[TheAccountant]

sorry about the double post.

[housek]

QUOTE (thizzellewashington @ Sep 6 2012, 07:10 PM)

Haven't really seen a lot of discussion of the actual book yet. I'm about halfway done with it and I can't say I'm all that impressed. It basically reads like fan fiction, and a lot of the references to Rush lyrics come across as really obvious and forced in.

[i read the book on a rainy Saturday about a month ago. I would give it a 5

on a scale of 1-10. There are a lot of Rush lryics littered along the chapters which made me chuckle at times. At the end of the novel, Kevin is discussing the use of Rush lryics and says it would be neet to have a lryic(s) finding contest; I'm thinking, oh hell, not something else us Rush fans need to WASTE our time! Good thing i only checked out the book from my local library. Anyways, not a terrible book all-in-all.

 

[pfrushfan0122]

Did anyone else notice, or is it just my copy, that in the lyric section of the book, BU2B has one word missing from one of the lines. It says "And the Devil take the rest," while it should be "And the Devil will take the rest...." right? Edited October 29, 2012 by pfrushfan0122

[maxeystcharles]

Apperently from the sound of things they could have used more of a Neil Stephenson type author to deal with the plot of the story.

[The Owl]

Just finished reading, and I have to say I really enjoyed the book, and I too was strongly reminded of the feel and pacing of the film "big fish" while reading

 

 

Is it without flaws? No. But they don't ruin the book.

 

My biggest issue is with the pace of the novel, it felt rushed. It seemed we were being shuttled along from one event to another without any time for it to sink in. And no surprise that the novel is only 290 pages long. I think if the novel was 100 pages longer the story would have flowed a lot better, and helped with further character development which was also slightly lacking.

 

And I agree that the writing level was not at all difficult, I say I finished the book in an 8 hour time frame if not less, does that make it bad, no. Not at all. It was a fun read, and I was not expecting Tolkien or Gaiman

[Running Rebel]

Just finished reading, and I have to say I really enjoyed the book, and I too was strongly reminded of the feel and pacing of the film "big fish" while reading

 

 

Is it without flaws? No. But they don't ruin the book.

 

My biggest issue is with the pace of the novel, it felt rushed. It seemed we were being shuttled along from one event to another without any time for it to sink in. And no surprise that the novel is only 290 pages long. I think if the novel was 100 pages longer the story would have flowed a lot better, and helped with further character development which was also slightly lacking.

 

And I agree that the writing level was not at all difficult, I say I finished the book in an 8 hour time frame if not less, does that make it bad, no. Not at all. It was a fun read, and I was not expecting Tolkien or Gaiman

 

I agree about the "rushed" part. I think they could have explored the concepts a little further. But I agree and liked it as well. This is not my wife's kind of reading but she recently finished it and thoroughly enjoyed it. She thought Owen Hardy had a littel "Odd Thomas" to him which I have to agree as well, at least on the naivate front. She really liked the concepts behind it. She remarked that she couldn't remember reading a novel where the hero just walked off, not seeking revenge or attempting to "change the world" so to speak. When it finally sunk in that he wasn't going to go back and "win" in that fashion it took her by surprise, in a good way. She now is listening to the album frequently and really enjoying it and claims to finally "get it", and is seeing what all of us goofy obsessive fans have been saying for decades. The band is something special.

[HalfwayToGone]

One thing about getting slammed by a hurricane and having a blackout for 4 days....plenty of time to read. CA is no literary masterpiece, but I liked it, and it definitely gave me a much deeper appreciation of the album. It also is full of material that speaks to what Neil has written lyrics about going way back to 2112. And yeah some of the lyrical references were groaners, but only some.

[cygnify]

I finished it - but honestly, I have a fairly negative review...

 

As a longtime Rush fan, and one who really loves the CA disc and most of Neil's writing, I had pretty high expectations. Unfortunately, this book fell well short - and really had some cringe worthy moments. I was hoping that the book would have provided more background or some depth to the characters and scenes in the songs. However, I felt that the interpretation of the lyrics in the book was just way too literal. For example, the anarchist. The pools of poison, the scarlet mist. Almost every line was just spelled out in the book like it is in the song lyric. It seemed that very little effort was expended to expand upon those lyrics and provide some interesting background. At some point in the book after the Wreckers, the pacing really seemed to get lost and conclusions came much too simply. For example, after escaping the watchmaker and the wreckers, Owen just fell right back in with the Carnies and everyone lived happily ever after. Way too easy an ending, way too quickly tied up. No transformative event that led from BU2B2 to Wish Them Well - no real epiphany - everything just fell together like a hollywood ending. Boo! The lyrics of The Garden were simply re-stated over a couple paragraphs - I felt like there was more development of those great lyrical ideas on this message board than in the book... disappointing.

 

One other question that nags at me - why was all this called "Clockwork Angels"? Yes, it is a cool name, but in the book they are just a symbol of pagentry for the watchmaker. People just loved watching them while catching a contact buzz. But how central were they to the story? How did they represent any of Owen's struggles? How do they represent anything Owen learned in the end? That did not come across to me in the book. If the book was really about the duality of order / chaos and not having to uniquely choose one approach, why name it after something that was a symbol for order? I had actually hoped that this would be tied together in the conclusion of the book, but unless I missed that page, it was not there. Seems like it was named oddly.

 

Grade: D

[SlyJeff]

A few chapters in. Actually enjoying more than I thought, but the lyric quotes are really disracting. They pull me out of the story every time.

[CygnusGal]

Just a note on media. I recently bought a Nook HD+, so I got an e-copy of what I purchased back in September in hardcopy. I like the e-reader font but the graphics are rather small. The hardcopy has nicer artwork than the e-book and I'm glad I made the hardcopy purchase and got the e-book as a free add-on.

[SlyJeff]

I actually thought it was pretty good. Enhances the music. Wish I could have read it without all of the lyrical references. They definitely took me out of the story and were especially annoying when the meaning had changed.

[GeddyRulz]

I suspect I'll be getting it for Christmas or my birthday (early Feb), and will read it then.

 

I've never read Anderson, but I believe the reports that his previous books are all story and no character development, and that "Clockwork Angels" is no different. Knowing this going in, I won't have any high expectations. If it entertains me a little and maybe expands a bit on the album's story, that'll have to be good enough.

[eelyddeg]

I just started reading this and I am moving through it pretty quickly. I am finding it quite entertaining.

[gjptest]

Haven't really seen a lot of discussion of the actual book yet. I'm about halfway done with it and I can't say I'm all that impressed. It basically reads like fan fiction, and a lot of the references to Rush lyrics come across as really obvious and forced in.

 

I agree with everything you said. I'm about 60 pages in and I'm not sure I can read any more.

Oh well, just return it to the library...

[CygnusGal]

For those who might be interested, I got an e-mail today from ECW Press - publisher of CA. It was described as "A missive from the Clockwork Angels desk at ECW Press" and I found it quite entertaining.

 

http://us4.campaign-...18&e=4052f6a866

 

Kevin Anderson talks about RushCon and there is also a book about "first guitars". Alex has a chapter.

 

http://www.ecwpress.com/firstguitar

[GeddyRulz]

Got it for Christmas and began reading it. I'm up to the part where he first goes to the carnival and sees the trapeze artist of "Halo Effect."

 

It's not the greatest writing, but it's okay. If Rush had nothing to do with this, I wouldn't read it. But they DO have something to do with this, and I can at least appreciate how it fleshes-out the story of the album a bit.

[rushgoober]

It's not the greatest writing, but it's okay. If Rush had nothing to do with this, I wouldn't read it. But they DO have something to do with this, and I can at least appreciate how it fleshes-out the story of the album a bit.

 

This is why I have no interest in reading it. IF it was the kind of thing I would read without the involvement of Rush, that's one thing, but it's not the kind of thing I would read normally.

 

I don't know, I'm glad Rush have a concept album, and it's a truly excellent album, but making it into a full blown novel seems a bit over the top. Reading the lyrics and liner notes to a concept album seems more than enough for me. I've probably only read the 2112 liner notes maybe twice in my life.