Review: Glass Book of the Dream Eaters, Vol. 1

Dahlquist, Gordon. The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters. Volume One. New York: Bantam Books, 2009. Chunkster challenge.

This novel is just plain fun. Dahlquist, a playwright by trade, wrote this tautly plotted steampunk-style adventure about a trio of utterly disparate characters -- a young provincial heiress, a scarred professional killer and a German staff surgeon -- who stumble upon a vast conspiracy involving a Process that seems to liberate but really enslaves dozens of well-off people in a country much like England. Dahlquist's prose style is clear, and is dialog and characters are wholly engaging -- you root for them, even as they make the unlikeliest escapes from murder and mayhem. I'm looking forward to volume two; I believe the novel was published originally as one volume but was broken out into two for paperback convenience. This is a rip-roaring adventure with philosophical overtones about will -- it seems as if the Process turns the characters into Ayn Rand acolytes.