If you're looking for an easy read that's a little bit weird and twisted then this is a good bet.

The story isn't brilliant but it holds its own. The premise is fun and the imagery is sometimes amusing, sometimes twisted and sometimes brutal. ( )

London has been infected, or infested, by...something. Buildings grow like living things, rivers and streets literally wander, the parks are congregating, and the #1 tourist attraction is not Big Ben or the palace but a massive spiral path that has opened up in the middle of the city. Even the people are changing. Welcome to Dream London.

The other governments of the world want to stop it before it spreads any further, and they are willing to go nuclear on London if they have to. They enlist former soldier Jim Widderburn to infiltrate what they believe to be the source of the anomalies. But there are other interests. A mysterious crime boss known as the Daddio likes the way things are going just fine, and he sends his minions (including a sadistic and hilariously foulmouthed little girl) to make sure Jim doesn't interfere. What to do, what to do?

This is a very strange book. I wondered at many points what kind of mind would come up with this kind of stuff, and kept turning pages to see what would be next. It's almost like a "bizarro" novel, but with a real story. A quick, fun read. ( )

2.5 stars
It gets some points for creativity, and loses some for the story.

I did like the counting to ten (a consequence of number rationalisation): "One, red, two, blue, a feeling of setting out on a journey, three, a feeling of fulfilment, yellow, four, five, orange, six, cyan, seven, eight, green, nine, purple, ten", and how that numbering system was used for the chapters. ( )

This has a promising premise, and got off to an interesting start... But then a bunch of stuff happened and none of it really made any sense or meant anything and then the book was over. I was hoping that there would be some point to it all, but if there was, I couldn't find it. You could remove any given scene from the book and it wouldn't make any difference to how the book turned out or how much/little sense the book made.

One of the biggest annoyances was the narrator's grappling with his own identity. This could and should have been the interesting crux of the book. The narrator, Captain Jim Wedderburn, is constantly talking about the kind of person Captain Jim Wedderburn is, and how to act like Captain Jim Wedderburn. But sometimes he just wants to be plain James Wedderburn. However, there is never any exposition of how he got to be Captain Jim Wedderburn - how did that persona come about? Why does he have this split personality? And then, towards the end of the book, he has to give up his identity as Captain Jim Wedderburn... except he totally doesn't. He then, in more than one scene, says, "I have to act like Captain Jim Wedderburn one more time." Shouldn't that annul the deal he made where he gave up his identity? And what does it mean to him to give up that identity? Something momentous, apparently, but it is never made clear.

So all in all, this book had some interesting concepts, but was very poorly executed. ( )

Average

A fantastic well imagined world where London has opened a door somehow into an alien, Fey realm and weirdness is commonplace. In Dream London the city changes a little every night and the people change a little every day. In a scene reminiscent of Burroughs the book opens with our “hero” being awoken by the sounds of psychedelic salamanders eating and is confronted with being poisoned by a rival pimp. Something is coming, the parks have hidden themselves away, no-one can escape, the trains bring new people in but don’t allow people to leave. Captain Jim Wedderburn is recruited by opposing forces, those that wish to expand the influence of the inimical forces and those that wish to free London. Captain Jim Wedderburn is out for himself though and is not a nice man, a pimp and criminal. All to the good but it is something that Ballantine squanders, in a place where it seems that anything can happen there appears to be no jeopardy, we don’t really care for the protagonist so putting him in danger, especially self-inflicted danger is not that interesting and Wedderburn is an oddly passive lead also. The denouement happens pretty much off screen after our protagonist is told “we’ll take it from here” and we don’t see the action of the climax having stayed with him. Yuk. And boy is it misogynist, Dream London forces women back into submissive roles, they’re not allowed real jobs (they can be sexy secretaries though it seems) and there appear to be a lot of prostitutes. A US agent come to investigate Dream London starts out sassy but is eventually willing to sell her body. Double yuk. All the women our hero meets, apart from said US Agent, Immediately fall head over heels in love with him, they are all, with one “crone” exception, incredibly beautiful and Ballantine spends many sentences extolling swelling bosoms, perfectly round bottoms, shapely legs etc. etc. you get the picture. There is a good story, and some nice imagery here but it is overshadowed by bad plotting, poor writing and disgusting misogyny. One to avoid I reckon. Oddly looking at the reviews on Amazon I seem to be in a minority, it gets universally good reviews. I am mystified why.

Overall – Some good stuff but very much outweighed by the bad. ( )