RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewPicture a 200-foot-long death machine built to crush everything in its path — powered by pulped earthworms, defended by demi-mages and captained by the gently stoned 19th-century French novelist Jules Verne — and you will have glimpsed just the tiniest portion of the madcap magical mash-up that is Jeff VanderMeer’s first full-throated sally into epic young adult fiction ... It is, in sum, a heck of a lot of fun ... If VanderMeer skillfully marshals the plethora of moving parts in his novel, the occasional side plot and circumstantial weirdness can clank a bit, and one wonders if the whole might not have been compressed. Still, what would you cut: The demonic horse puppet that clamps itself to its owner’s arm and threatens to eat his face? The paperback-devouring push-up addict named Mack for the line of trucks he resembles? ... ew readers young and old will find VanderMeer’s foray into fresh territory a welcome port of entry to a wildly imaginative universe. Echoes there are aplenty, but there is no denying how exuberantly alive the whole feels.
