Read it in college, and to date it's one of my favorite fantasy books (if you can even call it fantasy—that's as close as I could come to putting it in a genre). I kept my copy from that class. In fact, I just might make it my next read when I'm done with Neal Stephenson's "Seveneves."
Interesting fact*: There are two editions of this book, one 'male' and a 'female', which differ in maybe a couple of words but they are vital words, in the sense of deaths of semi-key characters**.
- Possibly only interesting to me, but I'll toss it out there.
- I was way more interested in the demons and stuff when I read it. So name key characters as you will.
I'm reading this fantastically weird book again. I think it's high time it had a TV Tropes page. Only problem is, I kind of don't feel like doing it. I can never get the indexing right. Anyone else want to volunteer?
It's been twenty years since I read that book, so I'm not sure I've retained enough to make a substantial entry out of it. But I might pick it up again once I'm done with my current reading, and make a go of it then.
One of the interesting/amusing elements of the book: in each section (Christian/Muslim/Jewish), the respective narrators mention in passing that it was their faith the Khazars were successfully persuaded to adopt. Maybe we're dealing in alternate realities. Maybe the sections were written at different times. Or, just maybe, the fictionalized Khazars were extremely slippery customers.
"She was the kind of dame they write similes about." —Pterodactyl Jones
I read this book about two months ago, and it is unlike anything I've read before.
The book is really difficult to describe, but I'll do my best - it's a combination of a pseudohistorical novel, fantasy, magical realism and metafiction. It's written in the form of a glossary, listing the details of the religious conversion of Khazars, an obscure nation from the Dark Ages, and the biographies of the people involved in the conversion itself and documenting the Khazar history in three time periods (the Dark Ages, the late 17th century and 1982), all written from three viewpoints - Christian, Muslim and Jewish.
As you choose the order of reading the entires yourself, you begin to weave a story involving meta-theology, demons, a discourse on the nature of dreams, life and death, soultraveling, a cult with the ability to travel through peoples' dreams, perfecting the technique to the point of achieving the immortality of the soul and blurring the border between life and death, a murder mystery, a love story and a collection of absolutely bizarre scenes that will give you nightmares for several nights. What is notable is that the book has no true plot - while reading the entries, the reader connects the various metaphors and weaves the story inside his own head.
A wholehearted recommendation. Although, it's probably going to appeal only to the abstract-mminded.
The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.