Book Review III: Amberville

Of all the books I read in the last few weeks, this one was definitely the most "out there." 

Amberville

Tun Davys

First of all, it was about stuffed animals. No really. All the characters were stuffed animals. Of course some of them I had an easier time imagining than others. A stuffed teddy bear, sure. But a crow? Or a gazelle?

This is a stuffed animal gazelle so
I guess they are a thing

I don't know, seems, improbable, but that's okay.

This collection of stuffed animals lived in a place that was broken into a variety of territories, some of the nicer than others, like any city. The author, Tim Davys, has invented an entire world inhabited by stuffing-plumped characters that run across a literally colorful cityscape. He has written other books that tale place in other places in this city.

This story was about a named Eric who is attempting to find the "death list" i.e. the list of all the animals who are going to get taken away in the red pickup truck. Or was it the green pickup truck? Anyway, the animals get taken away and delivered (as full-sized by baby animals) by a pickup truck and then live in this world that is more a less a parallel universe of our own. There are good animals and bad.

Actually, that's the entire crux of the story outside of the question of finding the Death List. What does it mean to be good? Or bad?

I enjoyed the philosophical debates of the book. To be sure there were times when questions of "What defines evil?" got to be too much for my brain and I needed to take breaks but I liked some of the debates for instance there was one good about evil (didn't mean to do that) and (and I'm paraphrasing) but basically:

Evil is only defined by the victim. There may be extenuating circumstances that excuse the perpetrator, for instance, he was beaten as a child or he is poor and needs to rob. To the victim, these circumstances don't matter. All that is important is how they experience the act, and that is to say, they are experiencing evil and there for the act is evil. 

This author also "cheats" and constantly switches POV which I allowed in this instance only because to tell the story otherwise would have been impossible. I think it could have used more extremism in the voices in order to allow for greater differentiation, not just ALL 3rd person, but hey, no one's perfect.

I don't know. I guess I would say I was entertained but I'm not rushing out to read his other books. Also I totally had a dream about a purple teddy bear that was actually a vicious killer. So, yeah...