Voice of the Fire - Alan MooreThe first novel by magician, comics legend + pop-culture icon Alan Moore builds on some of the same foundations as Moore's excellent script for From Hell - which are, in turn, based at least in part on Iain Sinclair's concepts of psychogeography, by which the storyteller can imbue the location of the tale with its own personality + history.
The tale spans roughly 6000 years, but the setting remains the same: Northampton, England. As Moore himself has related, his use of psychogeography often reveals an underlying pattern that bolsters the direction of his work. There's a pulse inherent in this book, one that returns again + again to violence and subterfuge... resulting in a slowly-unfolding vision of Time's gyric nature. And Moore's clever research brings this pulse to the forefront.
Told in 12 chapters, the novel is narrated from a different first-person perspective in each chapter, presenting the peculiar authorial challenge of crafting a dozen individual internal voices, each with its own vocabulary, mindset, tics, etc... For the most part, Moore succeeds incredibly at this, especially in the first two chapters which present prehistoric parables about trust + truth, and the final chapter, narrated in first-person by Moore as himself.
This is a good, solid read + an excellent first novel. Highly recommended.
Used + new copies available here...
Here's a bonus list of recommended comics-work written by the always-entertaining Alan Moore:
- Miracleman (out-of-print, but there are collected editions)
- Swamp Thing (available in collected editions)
- Watchmen (available in a single collected volume - read it before you see the film, OK?)
- From Hell (available in a single collected volume)
- Promethea (available in collected editions)
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (available in collected editions)
- Lost Girls (available in a three-book slipcased edition)
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