The Arcanum

Rating:
Summary: A solid horror novel- well paced and entertaining
Review: Perhaps it is not fair for a mystery reviewer to review a horror book. Mysteries should be rooted in reality. Horror novels can resort to ghosts, demons or monsters all of which would be considered fair game. From a mystery reader's standpoint, horror novels would be considered way over the top as is the example of this current work.
In London, 1919, an old man is killed after being hit by a carriage. The man, Konstantin Duvall, is well known in the upper echelons of British society. In fact, it is Winston Churchill who tells Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of his death. It seems Duvall was also involved in a highly secret occult group known as The Arcanum. Other members of this group include Doyle, Harry Houdini, Marie Laveau, the voodoo princess and H.P. Lovecraft, the horror writer. The four eventually get together to fight evil forces in New York City as multiple dead bodies are turning up with their spinal cords torn out. In essence they must save the universe from the agents of hell.
Many scenes of this overwrought work takes place in dark corridors and subterranean passages filled with red eyed, knife slashing deadly demons. There is, therefore, an overwhelming sense of unreality and, as such, there is a distinct lack a true sense of place and depth of characterization with the quartet appearing more as comic book heroes than living breathing individuals. Pacing is the major strength of this work as the main purpose is to entertain and thrill the reader. As a horror novel and thriller it works quite well. But, as a mystery- no way!

Rating:
Summary: At least I'm done reading it...
Review: This book had such promise! And it really did hold to that promise for about the first 100 pages... but then we are treated to about 200 pages of a chase scene that we, the reader, have no real idea about why we are chasing these creatures, what they are, etc. Way too many holes left open with unanswered questions at the end. Just plain ridiculous! I'm so glad I'm done reading this so I can get the bad taste out of my brain right away!

Rating:
Summary: At least I'm done reading it...
Review: This book had such promise! And it really did hold to that promise for about the first 100 pages... but then we are treated to about 200 pages of a chase scene that we, the reader, have no real idea about why we are chasing these creatures, what they are, etc. Way too many holes left open with unanswered questions at the end. Just plain ridiculous! I'm so glad I'm done reading this so I can get the bad taste out of my brain right away!

Rating:
Summary: A failed script becomes a failed book
Review: This was originally a script meant to hit the silver screen. It was optioned (by Miramax I think) but never picked up. Probably because it was so hollowly written. The remedy? Turn it into an equally hollow novel. Save your money.

Rating:
Summary: Very Poor Attempt At Alternate History
Review: Thomas Wheeler's new novel _The Arcanum_ left me very disappointed. Usually, this is the sort of book that's right up my alley, but this was ultimately rather silly.

Basically, "The Arcanum" of the title is a group of occult watchdogs who get together to battle mystical conspiracies. The group consists of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. P. Lovecraft, Harry Houdini, and Marie Laveau, "the voodoo queen of New Orleans."

I think one of the big reasons this book just didn't work for me was because there was no real sense of these people as historic personages--they were just characters in a book. Wheeler never brings them to convincing life. They could have been anyone.

Essentially, the book follows the course of events when The Book of Enoch, a third testament of the Bible which contains "God's mistakes," is stolen from the British Museum. In the course of the theft, the founder of the Arcanum, Konstantin DuVall, counselor to presidents and czars, is murdered. Doyle gets involved in investigating DuVall's death and based on his dying words, "he's in my mind," begins to suspect that the apparent accidental death was more than that. He gets in touch with his old friend, Houdini, who has put the Arcanum behind him and is reluctant to get involved. Laveau is conveniently visiting New York City and has her henchmen abduct Doyle. And Lovecraft, who no one really trusts and is presented as little more than an adolescent nerd/pervert, is also called in. Street people are being violently murdered and the deaths seem to tie in with the "lost tribe of Enoch," who just may be exiled angels in human guise.

There are a lot of action set-pieces, which would seem to suggest the story might have originated as a failed screenplay, and indeed, the author notes indicate Wheeler has worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Ultimately, though, the whole thing just never really worked for me and it was a real chore to keep reading all the way to the end. I usually like books like this, such as Mark Frost's _The List of 7_, or William Hjortsberg's _Nevermore_, or most of Tim Powers' output, but Wheeler just wasn't very adept at breathing life into his historical characters. Count this as a major disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Very Poor Attempt At Alternate History
Review: Thomas Wheeler's new novel _The Arcanum_ left me very disappointed. Usually, this is the sort of book that's right up my alley, but this was ultimately rather silly.

Basically, "The Arcanum" of the title is a group of occult watchdogs who get together to battle mystical conspiracies. The group consists of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. P. Lovecraft, Harry Houdini, and Marie Laveau, "the voodoo queen of New Orleans."

I think one of the big reasons this book just didn't work for me was because there was no real sense of these people as historic personages--they were just characters in a book. Wheeler never brings them to convincing life. They could have been anyone.

Essentially, the book follows the course of events when The Book of Enoch, a third testament of the Bible which contains "God's mistakes," is stolen from the British Museum. In the course of the theft, the founder of the Arcanum, Konstantin DuVall, counselor to presidents and czars, is murdered. Doyle gets involved in investigating DuVall's death and based on his dying words, "he's in my mind," begins to suspect that the apparent accidental death was more than that. He gets in touch with his old friend, Houdini, who has put the Arcanum behind him and is reluctant to get involved. Laveau is conveniently visiting New York City and has her henchmen abduct Doyle. And Lovecraft, who no one really trusts and is presented as little more than an adolescent nerd/pervert, is also called in. Street people are being violently murdered and the deaths seem to tie in with the "lost tribe of Enoch," who just may be exiled angels in human guise.

There are a lot of action set-pieces, which would seem to suggest the story might have originated as a failed screenplay, and indeed, the author notes indicate Wheeler has worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Ultimately, though, the whole thing just never really worked for me and it was a real chore to keep reading all the way to the end. I usually like books like this, such as Mark Frost's _The List of 7_, or William Hjortsberg's _Nevermore_, or most of Tim Powers' output, but Wheeler just wasn't very adept at breathing life into his historical characters. Count this as a major disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: The Arcanum
Review: Thomas Wheeler's The Arcanum is an ambitious novel by a competent novelist. Regrettably, a story this ambitious requires more than mere competence. It requires vision, talent, skill and imagination, features that are in short supply here.

The first indication that this was going to be a substandard read was right on the cover - the back of the dustjacket was lined with praise from primarily mediocre writers like Christopher Golden and Robert Doherty. The second clue is the cast of characters, a group of historical figures so overused as to have become a crutch for authors of little imagination. How many times have Doyle and Houdini been paired as erstwhile detectives? How many times has Doyle been cast as a hero of Holmesian intellect? How many times has Lovecraft come face to face with the Old Ones of his Cthulu mythos, having thought they were merely figments of his imagination? The only fresh character here is Marie Laveau, but even she had to be shoehorned into place from across space and time, seeing as she never left New Orleans and died years before 1919, when this book takes place.

Wheeler comes up with half a dozen clever ideas that he tosses casually into a paragraph, magical explanations for such events as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the murder of the Romanoff family, but the cleverness of these tossed-off concepts pales beneath the ineptitude of the rest of the novel. It appears Wheeler did very little research into the time period about which he wrote, or the characters with which he elected to populate The Arcanum. Lovecraft is portrayed as a sniveling madman and Marie Laveau is characterized only with dropped g's at the end of gerunds and a few "cheres" thrown in to remind us all that she is from the south. Never mind that she was an intelligent Creole woman, not a Cajun.

The story itself is a ridiculous mash. The chief badman is intent on destroying the world, a pretty ridiculous proposition for anyone. Think about it - where would he live, and with whom? There are angels, demons, lost tribes and ancient artifacts. Aleister Crowley appears as a menacing mage, instead of the fusty old milquetoast fraud he truly was. Other historical figures wander wanly through the narrative without convincing us of their veracity.

This is a moderately entertaining book for those who prefer their historical fantasy fiction without all that messy "history", but if you are a stickler for research, plot and characterization, move on to anything by the sublime Tim Powers and pass on The Arcanum.


Rating:
Summary: Did Harold Roth really read the Arcanum?
Review: Well to my surprise the first customer reviewer for the arcanum obviously isn't an avid reader, and he doesn't know what he is talking about. On to the book now. This book was phenominal, played out like a movie in your head. It gave me a glimpse of old New York, and into the lives of some famous people like Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and did a good job at that. I'm sure a screen play will follow from this great new author.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting idea but a bad story
Review: Wheeler's attempt to cross from screen-writing to novel writing is a disappointment. He has not grasped the intricaces and nuances of the medium, instead treating it like a television project or movie. The vocabulary is limited, the intelligence of the reader is underestimated, and the characters fail to ring true. By using almost exclusivly famous names of the begining of the last century, it almost feels like an article in People magazine about "celebrities". The reader cannot really relate to these people and therefore is always left feeling on the outside. I fear this is the sad result when stale, uninspired storytelling of the visual media invades the written world. Anyone who has decried the banality of TV shows will see this in The Arcanum. Now, having said that, the story of the Book of Enoch and the Lost Tribe is an interesting concept. Given more practice, perhaps Wheeler could actually produce a decent book about it. But not this time.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting idea but a bad story
Review: Wheeler's attempt to cross from screen-writing to novel writing is a disappointment. He has not grasped the intricaces and nuances of the medium, instead treating it like a television project or movie. The vocabulary is limited, the intelligence of the reader is underestimated, and the characters fail to ring true. By using almost exclusivly famous names of the begining of the last century, it almost feels like an article in People magazine about "celebrities". The reader cannot really relate to these people and therefore is always left feeling on the outside. I fear this is the sad result when stale, uninspired storytelling of the visual media invades the written world. Anyone who has decried the banality of TV shows will see this in The Arcanum. Now, having said that, the story of the Book of Enoch and the Lost Tribe is an interesting concept. Given more practice, perhaps Wheeler could actually produce a decent book about it. But not this time.