The Music of Razors by Cameron Rogers

The Music of Razors by Cameron Rogers. New York: Del Ray (Ballantine Books), 2001, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-345-49319-4

Now this is one of the stranger novels I've read in recent years. About the only thing that surpasses it for strangeness that I can recall reading recently is Hal Duncan's Vellum. Let's see if I can define the premise. It's not easy to do.

One of the angels that fell into darkness has somehow destroyed one of his fellows, and from his very bones, fashioned a set of instruments, not musical, but more like surgical, or psychological. What exactly happened to the angel who did this is not entirely clear, but the instruments themselves seem to have been set loose on earth, and they seem to provide certain magical powers to whoever has control over them.

Much of the story revolves around a couple of the men who have had possession of some or most of these arcane instruments, and some children who get caught up in the transition between owners. It's not entirely clear if the “owners” of these instruments hand them on to someone else, or if they are wrested from them by a successor. Not too much of what happens in this story is entirely clear.

The tale does have its interesting points, and it is not without a certain amount of entertainment value. Certainly the premise is one of the more offbeat concepts I've encountered in fantastical fiction recently. Nevertheless, it's all just a bit too abstruse for my taste. I don't have to have everything handed to me on a platter, but I do appreciate some sense of what's going on, and why.

Marginally recommended for those with a taste for the bizarre and slightly unfathomable.