Jerusalem by Alan Moore

[Werthead]

No, I haven't got a review copy or read it Not sure I want to, it looks massive and daunting.

Here's a great video article by Simon Vance, the audiobook reader who got the job of reading the book. He was slightly daunted by the novel, so after speaking to Neil Gaiman decided he should meet Moore. Which was slightly problematic since he lived in San Francisco and Alan lives in Northampton, England and he had not much time before starting to record the book. So he did a 6,000-mile round trip in four days. So it was a bit of a mission.

Reviews so far seem positive:

Quote

In this staggeringly imaginative second novel, Moore (Watchmen) bundles all his ruminations about space, time, life, and death into an immense interconnected narrative that spans all human existence within the streets of his native Northampton, U.K. Reading this sprawling collection of words and ideas isn't an activity; it's an experience... It's all a challenge to get through, and deliberately so, but bold readers who answer the call will be rewarded with unmatched writing that soars, chills, wallows, and ultimately describes a new cosmology. Challenges and all, Jerusalem ensures Moore's place as one of the great masters of the English language. (Publisher's Weekly)

 

Quote

Magisterial: an epic that outdoes Danielewski, Vollmann, Stephenson, and other worldbuilders in vision and depth. (Kirkus Reviews)

The book is out on 13 September. It's over 1,200 pages long in hardcover, contains over 600,000 words (A Storm of Swords, for comparison, is a relatively breezy 420,000 words) and is made up of entire chapters which are streams of consciousness, several poems (including an eleven-page one) and one entire play. Because, if Alan Moore hadn't made it clear over his career to date, Alan Moore is nuts.

[Sci-2]

Having read the "prequel", Voice of the Fire, I'd tentatively recommend this - the size is daunting but at the same time I like the idea of someone trying to do something rather off the road in SFF.

I'd probably suggest reading Voice to get a taste of what to expect, though I guess that would depend on how long the free sample is on the Kindle version. 

Additionally as a preview of sorts here's an Aeon article on Alan Moore's view of time.

I think this [Eternalism view of time] is incredibly wrong-headed, as I'm more in Smolin's "Time is Real" camp, so I'm also wary I'll find the text irritating though that's admittedly more me than Moore's problem.