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    The Dark Volume: A Novel
    The Dark Volume: A Novel
    The Dark Volume: A Novel
    Audiobook19 hours

    The Dark Volume: A Novel

    Written by Gordon Dahlquist

    Narrated by John Lee

    2.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The Dark Volume forges ahead with the impossible adventures of three unlikely allies washed ashore on the forbidding Iron Coast. Encountering a series of savage murders, Miss Celeste Temple, Cardinal Chang, and Dr. Abelard Svenson discover that their enemies are on the move and that the insidious glass books are far more bewitching-and lethal-than they'd ever imagined. Brimming with reckless desire, bold terror, and breathless suspense, this unique feat of the imagination will hold audiences in its dark thrall long after the novel has been devoured.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 7, 2009
    ISBN9781400180097
    The Dark Volume: A Novel
    Author

    Gordon Dahlquist

    Playwright Gordon Dahlquist was born in the Pacific Northwest and lives in New York City. This is his first novel.

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    Reviews for The Dark Volume

    2.5/5

    7 ratings7 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Just one chase scene to another - no real plot. A bit disappointing.
    • 4/5
      Dahlquist's 'The Dark Volume' really is a page-turner! I literally couldn't stop myself reading page by page by page until it was finished and I enjoyed all of it as much as the first in the series. As a Crime/Mystery Fiction novel, Dahlquist's novel really fits the bill, it's full of danger, corruption and dastardly plans to take over the world, one mind at a time. The characters are brutal and damaged but brilliantly portrayed with as much detail to their persona's as to make them real to life. The book is written eloquently and is full of suspense with each twist and turn, reeling you into the mystery and the character's criminal activities.
      Definitely a book to be read by all crime and mystery fans and I'm most certainly looking forward to the next, hoping once more that all evil plans can be conquered after all (but with Dahlquist's favour for suspense and cliff-hangers, I really doubt it!)
    • 1/5
      Not a patch on the Glass Books. Dahlquist sounds tired and by the end so was I.
    • 3/5
      Rather vexing ending, as I have no idea who is actually dead and who the author just wants us to think is dead.

      I actually think I prefer the first book in the series, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters. Still, I enjoyed reading this enormously, and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.
    • 4/5
      Gordon, how many times are you going to kill Cardinal Chan? My heart can't take it.
    • 2/5
      I was curious as to what the sequel to "Glass Books" would be - and I didn't have many expectations, as the original was befuddling and confounding enough - in a fairly good way; new and surprising, rather than senseless. I'm sorry to say I found "Dark Volume" a disappointment.

      This book seemed to take a lot of time getting nowhere fast. Much of it is taken up with train rides and runs and walks through various bits of the countryside, encounters with various functionaries and occasionally, main enemies - but nothing much seemed to happen until the last 20 pages. Perhaps I simply missed key plot information snuck in among the random folks the main character run into - I've perhaps failed to see the contours of the grand, overarching conspiracy. But I'd be a hard sell to believe that.

      The main characters are limited in their knowledge, and the narrator doesn't ever stretch beyond what the character currently being narrated knows - so the reader doesn't have a clear picture of what's going on. Each of Chang, Svenson, Temple and Dujong know bits and pieces of the plot since the previous book - they each make small discoveries. Yet, added together, these discoveries seemed to have no real import - nothing really new seemed to happen, except more political maneuverings that seemed destined to fail. A surprise ending that was clearly a setup for a third book didn't manage to save this one, for me.

      If you like political maneuverings, I'd go to Trollope instead; if you want mystery and paranormalcy, the first book works just fine. This one, I think you can leave on the shelf.

    • 1/5
      In finishing this book, Dorothy Parker came to mind... "This is not a novel to be tossed lightly aside. It should be thrown with great force."The greatest joy that I experienced with this book came when I was finally finished and could set it aside. I disliked The Dark Volume so intensely that my opinion of the first book (in what is now clearly intended to be a series), The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, was actually tainted by association. Gordon Dahlquist, what happened? Oh wait, I know. The large amounts of studied creativity, character development and lavish scenery gave way to the deep need to keep things going in a serial format, and thus yielded a book where very little was described in valuable detail and a great deal happened, but almost none of it was of any consequence. I may have only spent nine days reading this (or rather, trying to read this, as I couldn't ever say that I got into it enough to the point where I experienced any pains in setting it down, even in the middle of a sentence), but it felt like the longest nine days that I've experienced in a great while. As a result, not only was I frustrated, but anyone who happened to be around me while I read this was incensed against the book, too. My significant other implored me to stop reading it, as he could hardly take my growls of annoyance and exasperated exclamations of, "Just die already!" (which were directed at multiple characters throughout the course of the novel). And as far as trajectory, well, we seem to have ended up in the exact same damn place, only everyone is much dirtier. (Though admittedly, that clearly is the goal of the author, to expose the darker, corrosive side of what might seem an alluring power. Still, I was overjoyed when a character stopped to take a bath during this volume.) Confrontation between a large number of characters where the alliances are tenuous at best before everything shatters... I mean honestly, if it was going to lead to such a similar conclusion, what was even gained by the events of this book? At least the last time we saw this tableau, it was aboard a dirigible! (There may be a dirigible on the cover of this book, but there is not one in the book... unless you count references to the sunken one from the first book.) The Dark Volume failed to have anywhere near the same amount of creativity as its predecessor (not to mention that at least The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters took place in interesting locations, whereas we spend the whole of The Dark Volume in destroyed and crumbling buildings, inhaling smoke from explosions, and crawling through the woods while everyone bleeds and vomits). While I'm not necessarily an advocate for Dahlquist spending even more time describing things, perhaps the most crucial oversight was that he failed to explain exactly why we should even care about the events taking place! He relied entirely on our attachment to the characters on the basis of the first novel and made little attempt to endear any of them to us (except, perhaps, for Doctor Svenson who was tormented by his feelings for Mrs. Dujong, but it was hard to feel sympathy when I wanted to stab her repeatedly for being stupid and useless).And by the end? We still suspect that the majority of the baddies are dead (though again, the only person we know who is still fully functional and at large is the Contessa), and the only difference is that we are led to believe that the majority of the goodies are dead, too... (or course, as with the last book, only a fool really believes it).I won't bother to explain the plot, I will only suggest that if you have read and enjoyed The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, you should do yourself a favor and not bother to pick up its sequel. I rarely abandon a series, but I doubt that I could survive another installment of this... and besides, I made the arrangement with myself that all I needed to set these books aside with a clear conscience was for a kiss to take place between two particular characters. Having received that small satisfaction, I say farewell to Dahlquist and I curse the urge that drove me to purchase this terrible thing in hardcover.