I got a bunch of things wrong because it was a first novel, but… looking back, I got some good stuff right, too. And I evidently saw these bozos coming a mile away.
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Got my copy of the Knopf printing (the one with the flocked pink cover) as soon as it was available. A book-reviewer friend of mine had an advance copy and phoned me from another continent. "Beast, this will slay you", and she wasn't wrong.
It's one of the finer debut novels I've ever read.
Wasp Factory remains a book I feel profoundly equivocal about. It's brilliant but also the fullest expression of the really nightmarish side of Banks's writing, which makes at least a single-scene appearance in all of his novels but rarely gets to frolic.
Yeah, I recommend it to people who I think will be able to encompass the nigh-eldritch horripilation the utterly unreliable narrator brings and appreciate just how subtle the nightmare actually is.
And to some I know who won't be able to, because I'm awful sometimes.
I read it just a few months ago after having read lots of your other works, and tbh it completely holds up. maybe it was just the timing for me, but in the context of everything else going on, it's become one of my favourites!
I got a copy of this for Christmas Nick (I may have dropped a hint or two), looking forward to reading it whenever it gets ejected from the maelstrom that is my ginormous TBR.
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It's one of the finer debut novels I've ever read.
The others? Wasp Factory, which fell out of my hands to the floor (you know when).
And a third book that I physically tore in half and tossed in a fire.
And to some I know who won't be able to, because I'm awful sometimes.