Alan Moore's Voice of the Fire Novel (Heavy Spoilers)

[paulvonscott]

Loads of stupid spoilers for the first chapter.

Couldn't sleep last night so rumaged around in the mountain of books in the spare room for something to send me to sleep.  Voice of the Fire, that'll do, I couldn't get past the first chapter last time, and I've had it for about ten years.

Anyway...

Well, firstly, Alan must get someone to edit his comic strips becuase he writes like some sort of caveman or summit.  Even my grammar is better than this, just about.  Someone should have told him, that he can't write proper.  Maybe he banged his head after Watchmen.

Anyway, finished the chapter at some god awful time in the morning with a headache and it all turns out to be a prehistoric version of The Crying Game, no warnings on the cover or anything.  Argh!

Now I'm past that I hope I can finish the rest of the book.  I'm just glad he didn't write a chapter as a mammoth (Grunt, snort, snuffle, munch-grass, many monkey men stab, Aiieee!) or a fish before that (Glub, Glub, swim swim, nibble, swim, ouch - I'm being eaten by a turtle).

Actually Hob's Hog, the first chapter, written in the style of a nomadic prehistoric man, who gets mixed up with those 'settling kine', is a fairly horrible horror story.  When you realise what is probably going to happen, it's pretty sickening.

Quite frankly, the whole things a bit weird and pervy.  Glad to have got past the first chapter, it was certainly effective, what did people make of the rest of the book?

[Byron Virgo]

I really enjoyed Voice of the Fire when I read it some years ago. There's some great chapters in there, and it's worth reading again just so you get the little threads and references to previous chapters that run throughout the book.

[Won't tell you my favourite, though, since I don't want to spoil it for you.]

[Richmond Clements]

Yeah, that first chapter is hard flippin' going, but it's work the effort.
As he gets closer to the present, the language becomes a lot easier to digest.

Like Ed, can't say anything without spoiling it for you, so I'll until you're finished. However many years that may be.

[Bico]

Some of it spoilers easy, some of it you see coming a mile off, but each chapter is a self-contained story - some not very original, admittedly - that have recurring themes of secrets being revealed in terrible circumstances, nebulous identity, nebulous history, and early paganism surviving through various means in modern-day Northampton.
Agree with you about the first chapter, though.  Fifty bloody pages written in the style of a mentally-challenged caveman.  Bloody writers.  And in retrospect, it seems like you could probably skip the first chapter if someone just gave you a synopsis of what happens.
Great book, though.

[Mikey]

Read this again recently-top stuff and the 1st chapter wasn't any easier second time around...

I really like the book,only one chapter I'm not so keen on, because I really didn't see the point of it,but I like the theme of the book-place,memory,energy,folklore even-something I'm intrigued by.

Of course it's all a load of tree huggin hippy crap,isn't it?

M.

[Tordelbach]

I'm still mystified by the 'first chapter is impossible' fuss.  The first two pages are indeed very odd at first reading, but once you grasp the bit about the clouds, the not-pigs and the kid's hunger the rest of the chapter flows entirely naturally - that in itself is quite an achievement really.  I thought 'Voice of the Fire' was a great read, weakening just a bit towards the end but saved by its last chapter.  The 'bird-man of the marshes' sequence will remain with me for years.