It is no longer possible to escape men.
Farewell to the monsters,
Farewell to the saints.
Farewell to pride.
All that is left is men.
--Jean-Paul Sartre
We are hunters all. We are, all of us, monstrumologists.
Will Henry, The Isle of Blood
I had been hoping that if I waited long enough, I would find the next in Rick Yancey's Monstrumologist series of novels in the Indonesian language at one of the Gramedia bookstores here in Bali. However, this does not appear to be about to happen anytime soon (the website shows that neither book 3 or book 4 is yet available in Indonesian), so I gave up and ordered the thing in English through Amazon for the iPad.
Books 1 and 2, The Monstrumologist and The Curse of the Windigo, tell the strange, macabre story, set in late 1800's New England, of eccentric Dr. Warthrop and his young assistant, an orphan named Will Henry, as they track down the inhuman monsters that stalk the world, as well as those more personal, intimate monsters that lurk in the human psyche. Book 3, which is now on my iPad, is called The Isle of Blood and book 4, also available in English, is entitled The Final Descent. The series is the recipient of multiple prizes for fiction.
Upon picking up The Monstrumologist, a couple years ago now, I was immediately captivated by the inventiveness of the story and by Yancey's spellbinding telling of the same. Yancey is also the author of another series called The Fifth Wave, which takes the theme of alien invasion and turns it into something altogether fresh and new in the genre.
Like Stephen King, Yancey begins with genre and uses it as a vehicle for exploration of everyday people and everyday life, the forces by which we are compelled, and sometimes twisted and destroyed. On the surface, these books detail the struggles of Warthrop and Will Henry against the supernatural, and often quite gruesome threats to humankind posed by these unworldly creatures. Below the surface, the story is of the struggles encountered in relationship, in moral vision, in the navigation of love and loss, and of the will to endure and prevail.
Interestingly, as Mr. Yancey was composing the fourth book in this series, he received a note from his publisher, Simon and Schuster, to the effect that they felt the series was not selling quite well enough and would therefore withdraw their request for further installments after book 3. Yancey was understandably dumbfounded, as he was already deep into the text of book 4, and the story, as it left off in book 3, was quite clearly unfinished! As one who has previously dabbled in the painful blood-letting task of writing fiction, I can well understand how Yancey felt.
Thankfully, such an uproar arose from Yancey's fan base that the publisher found itself obliged to reconsider its bottom line and to renew its promise to publish book 4. Power to the people! I'm glad.
Farewell to the monsters,
Farewell to the saints.
Farewell to pride.
All that is left is men.
--Jean-Paul Sartre
We are hunters all. We are, all of us, monstrumologists.
Will Henry, The Isle of Blood
I had been hoping that if I waited long enough, I would find the next in Rick Yancey's Monstrumologist series of novels in the Indonesian language at one of the Gramedia bookstores here in Bali. However, this does not appear to be about to happen anytime soon (the website shows that neither book 3 or book 4 is yet available in Indonesian), so I gave up and ordered the thing in English through Amazon for the iPad.
Books 1 and 2, The Monstrumologist and The Curse of the Windigo, tell the strange, macabre story, set in late 1800's New England, of eccentric Dr. Warthrop and his young assistant, an orphan named Will Henry, as they track down the inhuman monsters that stalk the world, as well as those more personal, intimate monsters that lurk in the human psyche. Book 3, which is now on my iPad, is called The Isle of Blood and book 4, also available in English, is entitled The Final Descent. The series is the recipient of multiple prizes for fiction.
Upon picking up The Monstrumologist, a couple years ago now, I was immediately captivated by the inventiveness of the story and by Yancey's spellbinding telling of the same. Yancey is also the author of another series called The Fifth Wave, which takes the theme of alien invasion and turns it into something altogether fresh and new in the genre.
Like Stephen King, Yancey begins with genre and uses it as a vehicle for exploration of everyday people and everyday life, the forces by which we are compelled, and sometimes twisted and destroyed. On the surface, these books detail the struggles of Warthrop and Will Henry against the supernatural, and often quite gruesome threats to humankind posed by these unworldly creatures. Below the surface, the story is of the struggles encountered in relationship, in moral vision, in the navigation of love and loss, and of the will to endure and prevail.
Interestingly, as Mr. Yancey was composing the fourth book in this series, he received a note from his publisher, Simon and Schuster, to the effect that they felt the series was not selling quite well enough and would therefore withdraw their request for further installments after book 3. Yancey was understandably dumbfounded, as he was already deep into the text of book 4, and the story, as it left off in book 3, was quite clearly unfinished! As one who has previously dabbled in the painful blood-letting task of writing fiction, I can well understand how Yancey felt.
Thankfully, such an uproar arose from Yancey's fan base that the publisher found itself obliged to reconsider its bottom line and to renew its promise to publish book 4. Power to the people! I'm glad.
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