Review – Crimeculture
A rather spiffy review for THE LEVELS is up at Crimeculture:
The novel’s body horror works both on the level of individual scenes and as a larger metaphor for the breakdown of society. The rollercoaster plot is shot through with themes of insidious infection, incurable disease and poisoned hypodermic needles. These motifs are so pervasive that they’ve transmuted into parts of landscape, such as “the Needle”, a boarded up ex-church where Sorrow’s slaves congregate. Other victims have “burrowed into the broken concrete like termites”, becoming an infestation, a disease, at the same time that they are grotesquely entrapped. Cregan thrusts us down there with them. Down into the “subterranean night beneath the world” and his taut prose propels us through to the explosive ending of this gothic-punk thriller.
Modesty compels me to admit I wasn’t planning anything metaphorical – I just make this stuff up as I go along – and that I don’t know who wrote Akira; I can just yell “KANEDAAAAA!” or talk about being attacked by giant toys. Barbarian in Rome, and all that.
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Hello, whoever you are. I'm Sean Cregan, author of the gothic-punk contemporary urban thriller The Levels, and this is my "official" site. Here you can find out about the book and its sequel and poke around in the extras available for reading and downloading. If you want to reach me, leave a message on the Wall (for which you'll need to take two seconds to register - don't worry; I'll only spam you with the most discerning of adverts for Viagra and Cambodian mail-order brides - or if you've already done that, to log in) or you can seek out my personal tumblelog here, or my Twitter account, because I'm woefully bad at answering email.