Title: |
Zod Wallop |
 |
Author: |
William Spencer Browning |
|
Category: |
Fantasy / Science Fiction |
|
Rating: |
||
Date Reviewed: |
June 19, 2004 |
 |
his is a terrific book. It reminds me of Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll. The plot revolves around a children's book that was written by our hero, Harry Gainsborough, when he was in a psychiatritic institution. The book is called Zod Wallop. The fellow patients and staff at the institute serve as characters in the book (Harry is also an accomplished artist, and the characters in the book are easily identified. While at the institute, one of the mad doctors conducted an experiment on several of the patients, including Harry. The patients were all given Ecknazine, which has caused the warping of reality. The mad doctor is dead, and the formula is lost - but the evil drug companies want the Ecknazine. |
The plot for Zod Wallop is always surprising, sometimes funny, but often the situation is dark. The world of Zod Wallop sounds grimmer the more we learn of it. Harry wrote the book when mourning the death of his daughter, it was never meant to be published. It is certainly too dark a book for normal children.
Spencer can really write an entertaining book. When reading along, I often came upon an impressively written paragraph - more than great characters and a bizarre, entertaining plot, Zod Wallop also contains a quite a display of wordsmithing. It's like reading a Mark Helprin novel: the words are just as entertaining as the story.
The characters are also well defined portraits. Each of the lunatics from the asylum has a well defined personality. Not all the bizarre people from the asylum were the patiences there. The bad guys are deliciously evil. Characters, writing, plot - Zod Wallop has it all. This is an entertaining read.