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Sunday Review: The Domino Men by Jonathan Barnes (Gollancz)

Jan 12th, 2009
by gav.

The Domino MenTitle: The Domino Men
Author: Jonathan Barnes
Publisher: Gollancz
Release Date:  12 February 2009 in Paperback
Read ebook version.

Last February when I reviewed The Somnambulist, I said;

The story isn’t wholly logical and it isn’t meant to be. It’s phantasmagorical, teasing, and imaginative. The characters are extra-ordinary sometimes grotesque but quite believable in this setting. A combination of the personality of the narrator and skill of Barnes makes it strangely believable and quite compelling.

So after giving it such a favourable review I was eager to read what Jonathan Barnes could come up with next.

The Domino Men is a completely new tale unconnected from The Somnambulist apart from two characters that appear in both and play a quite vital role in each.  This time round we have Henry Lamb (our narrator most of the time) who finds out that his life working for the Civil Service Archive Unit storage and retrieval is a bit more complicated than it first appears. It seems that his comatose Grandfather is involved in a secret war with the Royal Family.

Barnes tells an unbelievable yarn in quite a believable way. Our narrator is co-opted into fighting against the Queen and Arthur, Prince of Wales – though the war is a bit subtler than an armed conflict. This war has been going on ever since an agreement was reached by the Queen and a third party about London. Luckily there aren’t that many people that know about it. Though I think that Number 10 might know a little more than is relieved here as they’re housing two characters in a magic circle in their basement.

Barnes is a skilled storyteller drawing in the threat to London slowly. Harry Lamb takes up the challenge that’s presented to him even if he’s a bit naïve about what’s really going on. But because we see things through Harry we’re engaged in a way we wouldn’t be if it was told any other way and the story revolves around Harry in fact his life is the story. 

The injection of the second story line and narrator allows us to see how both sides that are fighting. The other thread shows the transformation of Prince Arthur and the other darker side to The Domino Men.

I’m impressed how Barnes builds everything up and how he focuses a large scale and a world altering event through the key people that make it happen. He doesn’t waste anything. Everything has a point and a purpose as Harry finds out everything isn’t as it seems.

I’m rather jealous really as I’d love to go to work one day to find out that my entire life has been a lie and that the foundation I’ve build my life on isn’t what it seems and that I’m about to become a hero even if Harry doesn’t realise it at the start.

I’m excited to see what his yet untitled third novel is going to be.

Highly Recommended.

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  • edifanob
    THE SONAMBULIST is on my list.

    After reading your informative review THE DOMINO MAN will also enter my list.

    Concerning third novel I found following information at Amazon.de

    Title: FIDELITY
    Release date: 1rst of June 2010

    " Synopsis
    January 1st 1901 and, in the North Sea, something impossible is taking place. Thunder echoes from beneath the waves. Water boils and steam rises up. When the mist finally clears, an island stands revealed - four miles long, one mile wide and formed in its entirety of black volcanic rock. No-one knows it yet but the island has a name. It is called Fidelity and it will change the course of human history. The first expeditions sent by the governments of Britain and the Netherlands to explore the island do not return, the only survivors limping back hopelessly unhinged, gibbering. The island seems cursed. No country lays claim to it. Ships and sailors shun that quarter of the ocean. A perfect opportunity, then, for cross-dressing millionaire Mr Spinnaker, inspired by the barely-intelligible prophecies of his long-dead brother, to purchase the problem of the island lock, stock and barrel from the British government. Against all expectation, when Spinnaker sends his own team to the island with the apparently delusional intent of establishing a colony there, the place seems to welcome them with open arms.And yet, this is not how history worked out.Surely everyone knows that there is no such island in the North Sea, that nothing even remotely like this ever took place?

    Who, then, is the very old man, living in what seems like contemporary Britain, prepared to do anything to tell his story? Coddled and fussed over by his household staff, how is it that he knows so much about the island when the rest of the world dismisses him as a harmless eccentric? And why is it that the island is set to return to our world? "
  • edifanob
    THE SONAMBULIST is on my list.

    After reading your informative review THE DOMINO MAN will also enter my list.

    Concerning third novel I found following information at Amazon.de

    Title: FIDELITY
    Release date: 1rst of June 2010

    " Synopsis
    January 1st 1901 and, in the North Sea, something impossible is taking place. Thunder echoes from beneath the waves. Water boils and steam rises up. When the mist finally clears, an island stands revealed - four miles long, one mile wide and formed in its entirety of black volcanic rock. No-one knows it yet but the island has a name. It is called Fidelity and it will change the course of human history. The first expeditions sent by the governments of Britain and the Netherlands to explore the island do not return, the only survivors limping back hopelessly unhinged, gibbering. The island seems cursed. No country lays claim to it. Ships and sailors shun that quarter of the ocean. A perfect opportunity, then, for cross-dressing millionaire Mr Spinnaker, inspired by the barely-intelligible prophecies of his long-dead brother, to purchase the problem of the island lock, stock and barrel from the British government. Against all expectation, when Spinnaker sends his own team to the island with the apparently delusional intent of establishing a colony there, the place seems to welcome them with open arms.And yet, this is not how history worked out.Surely everyone knows that there is no such island in the North Sea, that nothing even remotely like this ever took place?

    Who, then, is the very old man, living in what seems like contemporary Britain, prepared to do anything to tell his story? Coddled and fussed over by his household staff, how is it that he knows so much about the island when the rest of the world dismisses him as a harmless eccentric? And why is it that the island is set to return to our world? "
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