Combining Lovecraftian horror and non sequitur humor, John Dies at the End is an over-the-top absurdist romp that somehow manages to blend action, science fiction, horror, and comedy into a hyper-fast paced adventure that's fun, engaging, and laugh-out-loud hilarious at times. David Wong (aka Jason Pargin of Cracked.com) knows how to tell one hell of an entertaining story. It's like listening to your best friend from college recount a personal version of At the Mountains of Madness after a few too many beers and a couple magic mushrooms. In fact, it's hard to describe the plot, since it's so bizarre and multifaceted. Needless to say, had John Dies at the End been written by an author without Wong's sense of humor or deft narration it would be unreadable. That being said, this novel flies by at the speed of light. And above all else, it's FUN! Do yourself a favor and read this now. You certainly won't regret it!
I read the Reality Dysfunction (and all of the Night's Dawn Trilogy) in high school and it's safe to say this was my first taste of the literary cocaine that is space opera. Hamilton was my gateway drug, which is surprising since this is a dense, complex, and heady story that's not really written for the first-time SF reader (let alone a 15 year-old). While most start with Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Bradbury, or Card, I went straight for the 1,000 page doorstop that is the first volume of the epic Night's Dawn Trilogy (broken into six books in the US). Rereading this now, nine years later, brings out a great feeling of nostalgia. Here's where I learned to love science fiction for all it could be. Hamilton's gift is his ability to captivate the reader with his ideas.
The first volume of the trilogy is mainly world building and character development, which does try the reader's patience at times because there are A LOT of characters, so many in fact that there's a two page Dramatis Personae at the beginning of subsequent volumes, and it is a HUGE world. But what a world it is! The most fascinating thing about this novel is the universe its characters inhabit. Hamilton has created a believable 27th century future populated by Edenists, genetically engineered telepaths who live inside organic habitats and pilot sentient starships called voidhawks, nanotech enhanced mercenaries, gritty and believable space merchants, struggling colonists on a hellish jungle planet, and a plethora of alien life forms that are...well...truly alien.
Though the plot doesn't become apparent until a couple hundred pages in (that's right, it is VERY slow starting), I was so fascinated by the universe Hamilton has created that I was content to just put it in neutral and coast. At times Hamilton is a bit heavy-handed with infodumps and extraneous exposition, but on the whole this is a rich, well-written, and engaging tome. This was the novel that converted me to SF, and Hamilton is the author who planted the seed in my mind that I could one day create something as wonderfully complex and exciting as the Night's Dawn Trilogy.
On the writing side, I've finished the first draft of "The Maze," I'm about to revise a short story called "Ghost War," I have an idea germinating for a new short story set on a Japanese ethnic planet about a feud between a criminal organization and a quasi-religious order of mercenary-assassins, and I've also got an outline for a dark fantasy short called "The Fall of Night." Oh, yeah, and I'm making slow but steady progress on the novel revision.
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