Bats of the Republic: An Illuminated Novel Hardcover – October 6, 2015

Bats of the RepublicThis is a novel of slippage. It’s a novel that touches upon torture (psychological and physical), massacre (human and animal), pederast horror, witchcraft, Orwellian dystopia, time warps, Machiavellian intrigue and a descent into the maelstrom of madness. Bats of the Republic leaps from nods to Neal Stephenson and Steampunk to whiffs of Zane Grey to H.P. Lovecraft. It’s a Texan two-step on steroids, one foot set in 1843, the other in 2143. It is also, with its sumptuous design and illustrations, a book that relegates the Kindle to the used-by status of the fax machine: One needs to HOLD this book; its magic would be lost on screen. You would be unable to undertake the physical experience of opening the mysterious envelope - which demands you DO NOT OPEN – to discover the final, mind-warping revelation inside. I read this close on the heels of Mark Z. Danielewski’s first volume of The Familiar, another interactive, ‘illuminated’ and equally captivating novel, which also belied the relevance of electronic readers (others have compared Bats to J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst’s S, an experiment which for me failed via distracting gimmickry.) To be sure, there are gimmicks aplenty in Dodson’s book as well, but they serve brilliantly to adrenalize the narrative. As a book designer Dodson borders on genius – see his work on Blake Butler’s dystopian Scorch Atlas for proof. This is Dodson’s first novel, and to some extent it shows, but one waits with baited breath to see what he tackles next.

I. Love. This. Book. From the intertwining stories to the illustrations to the mysterious envelope lurking in the back of the book, I was hooked. The writer evoked both worlds well and told engaging stories in both. If it was still mysterious and I had questions left at the end, well, doesn't a good book leave you wanting more? Read it and enjoy it. I did.

I have not read all of the book. It is more of a book to look at and enjoy visually, at least for me, and then read. It is packed with drawings of bats and related creatures and is more a combination travel tale, sketchbook and mystery with maps and documents to support the story. Mostly I got it for the art and the "artist book" aspect.

Along with S. this book makes a great study of meta-books: books *about* books, how we read them and the worlds we construct in our heads about them. I don't want to give anything away so I won't discuss the plot here. Whether or not you love the story itself you have to be impressed with the amount of work and art that went into putting this book together. I'm still thinking about it long after finishing it which, to me, means it was something special. I'll have to read it again after I've had a chance to think about it for a while and see what other connections and threads I can find throughout the story. If you love books you should definitely add this one to your list, if for nothing else than The Experience of reading it.

The idea of the book being in different styles, with different looks and feels to them, and cool maps and stuff is what attracted me to this book.But the maps are not cool, and the styles end up getting in the way of reading with their clunky reinvented punctuation. The future characters live in a world that fails to engage despite the dystopian vibe and alternate tech, and the past characters don't even have that. The narration drops hints of insidious connections constantly, but never actually says anything.Turns out that gimmicks might make a good book better, but do nothing to make a dull book good.

I love this book. The story is fascinating, and the illustrations are beautiful and intricate. I'm only lamenting that this author doesn't have many other books for me to binge-read, because I really like his style. I'd love to see a sequel for this book, the world it creates is one I would like more detail to immerse myself in. Upon finishing the book, I immediately went to Goodreads to look for clues to the story that I had missed, decided to read it again soon, and thought about storylines that other books in a series could explore.

I didn't want to put put this book down! The illustrations are wonderful, the way the story is told in stops & starts, moving over time & geography kept me turning the pages. Loved the parallels of the past & future story lines & characters. The story dragged at one point - I thought the time in lower New Mexico (avoiding spoilers) was a description of a hallucination which went on way past the expiration date. Otherwise, I highly recommend this book. I would love to find more illuminated books!

Expert handling, book arrived with a protective library cover that was easy to remove.