Recommended Reading: 'The Music of Razors' by Cameron Rogers

Filed by: Darren Turpin on June 15, 2007 at 7:26
Filed under: Books

'The Music of Razors' by Cameron Rogers - Click for ordering info from Amazon.co.ukThe Music of Razors [Amazon] is an incredibly assured, elegantly crafted debut novel from an Australian author who shows a very great deal of promise indeed.

It's also an automatic candidate for the much-maligned 'New Weird' sub-genre tag; taking as its premise the idea that before the Fall an angel with the power and responsibility to assign power and responsibility to other angels was un-made by the Godhead. Banished from Creation for the heinous crime of murdering one of its brethren it has been condemned to un-being; it has no name, no sigil of its own, not even a memory in the mind of the Godhead to mark its passing.

Now, in the modern day, the angel is seeking to re-establish itself; working through the machinations of its human agents - that were first set in motion in the nineteenth century - using 'instruments' forged from the very stuff of angels, instruments with the power to create and destroy, meld and change, at the user's will. A series of lives become enmeshed in the un-angel's quest for self and none of them remain unchanged or unscathed as a result of their involvement, however deliberate or unwitting it may be.

It's a powerful concept, and the story itself is powerfully told. Cameron Rogers' writing is wonderfully rich in metaphor, incredibly evocative in its description. If I'd make one criticism it's that the final third of the book is perhaps too rich in ideas for its own good. In places it felt as though the author was so caught up in the his vision that the stylistic element of the novel was rather allowed to take over from the plot. Not that the denouement was entirely deus ex machina, but the half-expected, half hoped-for cataclysmic confrontation never quite seemed to materialise and the conclusion was, to my mind at least, perhaps just a little too easy?

Putting that aside though, this is definitely a novel you should read if you enjoy well-written prose, novels of ideas, or any of the authors I mentioned in my earlier On Fantasy and a Preference for Fantastical Fiction post, if only to get in on the ground floor with an author whose star is going to rise and rise. I look forward to Cameron Rogers' next offering with eager anticipation.

Author info: www.cameron-rogers.com
Ordering info: Amazon
Publication info: May 2007, Del Rey Books, US.

Filed on: June 15, 2007
Filed under: Books
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Comments

4 Responses to 'Recommended Reading: 'The Music of Razors' by Cameron Rogers'

  1. The Stealth Geek on June 17th, 2007 5:20 am

    I just finished this and you're right - it's just a lovely book. Really eloquent.

  2. Ariel on June 17th, 2007 8:05 pm

    Yes - eloquent - exactly the right word...

  3. Brian on June 24th, 2007 8:18 pm

    I picked this up a while ago and am slowly picking my way through it. I am now at the point where the mechanical ballerina is being presented as a gift.

    Its is, so far, a wonderful and original book.

  4. Ariel on June 25th, 2007 5:52 am

    Hi Brian - Aye, I think slowly is a good way to read it. The prose and use of language should definitely be savoured...

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