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littlefoot10's review
3.0
..Very different, kind of interesting but not really my kind of book. characters were interesting though
jonmhansen's review
4.0
The best thing about Tim's books is that you can reliably expect a satisfying level of weirdness. This one is no exception. A good read.
joelevard's review
2.0
I keep taking a chance on all these low-profile, high concept genre books and I keep coming away disappointed. Shelve this one next to [b:14|15062217|14|Peter Clines|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1338999953s/15062217.jpg|20716929] and [b:The World House|7405143|The World House (The World House #1)|Guy Adams|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348287494s/7405143.jpg|7513441] in the trilogy of books about weird parallel dimensions intersecting with our world, populated by character's whose blandness is matched only by their unlikeability. Populating the books I mean. Not the parallel dimensions. Which are populated nothing as interesting as the jacket copy might lead you to believe.
kaileyjane's review
2.0
The concept was promising but the execution left something to be desired. Ultimately it was quite a boring read.
books17's review
3.0
An interesting read. I had literally no idea what the book was about when I picked it up (for some reason I had this preconception that it was post-apocalyptic? I have no idea), but it turned out to be a sort of neat modern fantasy about parallel worlds/universes/thematrix.
Some good characterisation and some neat concepts, not bad for a quick read.
Some good characterisation and some neat concepts, not bad for a quick read.
mentat_stem's review
5.0
longer review on mentatjack.com, but this is the meat:
The titular briar patch offers us views of very unlikely worlds. Time and presumably other aspects of physics behave differently. Mermaids and Giants and vampires and more that would become central to a more run of the mill novel become part of the scenery. This meta world next door to ours is introduced as a convenient, if dangerous and somewhat eccentric, method for avoiding rush hour traffic. It’s more than that and the scenery makes a point of not staying flatly in the background.
The characters include a ghost, a magic car and its driver, a depressed and jaded immortal, a sociopath, a doppelganger and an explorer. Fitting each of the characters into the above mentioned pigeon holes, is a fun exercise for the reader. There’s also the central character of Darrin and his college buddy Nicholas. All the characters are actively seeking something. They manipulate and are manipulated. They find shortcuts in the briarpatch. Relationships solidify and crumble. Darrin is seeking to understand why his girlfriend left him and then, a few months later, committed suicide by jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge. This central mystery introduces him to the larger cast of characters. Once everyone’s role is understood, the briar patch gives everything a good shake and we get to see exactly who gets what they’re seeking.
Suicide and Cult are both mentioned on the back cover of Briarpatch. Death is a big issue wrestled with in the novel and more than one character are stuck like a broken record in the denial stage of grieving. Their lives are defined by those that they’ve lost. The implications of immortality are explored and fit nicely into the structure of the narrative. What does someone who can’t die fear? Just as the briarpatch lies outside of our consensus reality, each character, whether obsessed with life or obsessed with death, offers us something to think about what lies beyond our current existence. These are weighty issues, offering much for contemplation, but there’s plenty of action and exploration (and sex and food and photography) along the way.
The first 1/2 of the novel involves most of the characters confused and disconnected and the narrative structure mirrors this confusion. The story is presented non-linearly and almost every character gets a point of view scene. Later as everyone has a bit more clue about what’s going on, the story settles into smaller group of point of view characters and proceeds in a more straight forward march toward the final conflicts. There’s a portion of the second half that provides a relatively short montage of months of travel in the briarpatch. It works infinitely better than just saying “X months later,” but I suspect an entire series of novels could fill that space like the real numbers between 2 integers. This is my favorite Pratt so far and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes their fantasy mixed with contemporary reality, but is searching for something more (and weirder) than the typical urban fantasy.
The titular briar patch offers us views of very unlikely worlds. Time and presumably other aspects of physics behave differently. Mermaids and Giants and vampires and more that would become central to a more run of the mill novel become part of the scenery. This meta world next door to ours is introduced as a convenient, if dangerous and somewhat eccentric, method for avoiding rush hour traffic. It’s more than that and the scenery makes a point of not staying flatly in the background.
The characters include a ghost, a magic car and its driver, a depressed and jaded immortal, a sociopath, a doppelganger and an explorer. Fitting each of the characters into the above mentioned pigeon holes, is a fun exercise for the reader. There’s also the central character of Darrin and his college buddy Nicholas. All the characters are actively seeking something. They manipulate and are manipulated. They find shortcuts in the briarpatch. Relationships solidify and crumble. Darrin is seeking to understand why his girlfriend left him and then, a few months later, committed suicide by jumping off of the Golden Gate Bridge. This central mystery introduces him to the larger cast of characters. Once everyone’s role is understood, the briar patch gives everything a good shake and we get to see exactly who gets what they’re seeking.
Suicide and Cult are both mentioned on the back cover of Briarpatch. Death is a big issue wrestled with in the novel and more than one character are stuck like a broken record in the denial stage of grieving. Their lives are defined by those that they’ve lost. The implications of immortality are explored and fit nicely into the structure of the narrative. What does someone who can’t die fear? Just as the briarpatch lies outside of our consensus reality, each character, whether obsessed with life or obsessed with death, offers us something to think about what lies beyond our current existence. These are weighty issues, offering much for contemplation, but there’s plenty of action and exploration (and sex and food and photography) along the way.
The first 1/2 of the novel involves most of the characters confused and disconnected and the narrative structure mirrors this confusion. The story is presented non-linearly and almost every character gets a point of view scene. Later as everyone has a bit more clue about what’s going on, the story settles into smaller group of point of view characters and proceeds in a more straight forward march toward the final conflicts. There’s a portion of the second half that provides a relatively short montage of months of travel in the briarpatch. It works infinitely better than just saying “X months later,” but I suspect an entire series of novels could fill that space like the real numbers between 2 integers. This is my favorite Pratt so far and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes their fantasy mixed with contemporary reality, but is searching for something more (and weirder) than the typical urban fantasy.
jayshay's review
3.0
I like the twisty world and the nicely thorny characters. It did feel like half a book though. By the end it seemed to be just getting going. (Though this might be because Pratt is interested in different things than your standard fantasy.)
archergal's review
3.0
I thought this book had a really interesting concept (the briarpatch) in service to a fairly ordinary plot. Maybe it's the intro to a series?
Perhaps we'll see more of Darrin and the others in another volume. Not sure I'll make another trip with them, tho.
Perhaps we'll see more of Darrin and the others in another volume. Not sure I'll make another trip with them, tho.
areaxbiologist's review
5.0
Bay Area! Fantasy! Mythology! Immortal bad guys! How much more awesome can this get? It starts with cultish-suicides off the Golden Gate and morphs into a Philip K. Dick-esque romp in parallel worlds. I think the Wendigo is my favorite.
strangethyme's review
3.0
I really wish this book was written as well as the last 1/4 of it, because it might have been a 5. It's nice, fun, not too dense or anything, but I just didn't really care about the story until the end, so it was kind of hard to stick with. But over all, i did enjoy it. It has some really fantastic elements to it, and I like the characters.