Before I get into Spirits in the Wires, I just have to say: one thing I generally love about De Lint books are the lady characters. I hate the phrase ~manic pixie dream girl~ in light of the derogatory way it's generally employed, but it still comes to mind — more in the sense that De Lint has a gift for creating manic pixie dream worlds, and then populating them with quirky boys and girls who are mutually drawn to weirdness and inbetweens; who in finding their own stories, find one another.I guess that feeling came to mind because Spirits in the Wires is filled with so many Newford characters, old and new, and a lot of them are women, and all of them are awesome. As a general rule of thumb, the local heroes and heroines are creative, compassionate, and cool. They are people who prefer to exist at the edges of things — some who've made careers out of what they love, some who've been dealt a bad turn but still have it in them to be brave and kind. They believe in uncanny happenings, and the ones who don't are willing to listen and reconsider. And when some sort of voodoo cyberspace spirit is infected with a virus and hundreds of people disappear into the sentient Wordwood website, they are the ones with the opportunity to step forward and do something about it.Starting out, I felt like this book would be a pretty typical ATTACK OF THE SENTIENT TECHNOLOGY plot, something kinda done to death in comics and sci-fi, but given the author I figured it would definitely have some different aspects and that I would probably like it. And I did! It was really more about the characters — and kindness, and understanding, and accepting the parts of yourself you'd rather cast away — than the actual spirits in the actual wires. (Although those were pretty cool too! I mean, a living website that's also a forest made of words and layers of code, can't go wrong with that.)I do get the feeling that I would have enjoyed this book more if I made an effort to go through Newford in its chronological entirety. There were a lot of throwbacks to characters and their backstories, and if I'd encountered them before, I probably would have been excited about seeing them again rather than being bewildered by all the introductory exposition — which sometimes felt bulky, and at other times vague. I recognized Christy, Meran, Jilly and a few others, but most of the returning characters were new to me, or else I read about them so long ago that I forgot them. (I apologize to those particular Eader!)I was also dragged down by a lot of my own skepticism throughout the book. Funnily enough, this wasn't about any of the magical things, but about the humans. In general, most De Lint characters are so optimistic and willing to reach out to eachother, something that constantly had me going "Is this realistic? Are these people???" Isn't that so weird — that I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for faeries and spirits and people being swallowed up by their computers, but unconditional human kindness is the part that's hard to believe in? It's just that, for all the gritty grimness of Newford, there always seems to be good underneath absolutely everything. Whether the problem is with the book's overly optimistic tones or my own rampant negativity, the fact remains that it was hard for me to connect to some of those sentiments.That said, I'm definitely on board with the sentiment that everyone has a story, and all our stories connect in myriad ways. That's a big De Lint thing, and I always enjoy seeing that theme explored in a new way, or with a new cast!As I was wondering how to end this review, I got an error message. "Firefox can't find the server at goodreads.com"? Uh oh, I've seen this shit happen before. I swear, if I see a black dot start to grow out of my screen, I will take a cue from the hobgoblin and smash my monitor to bits. You're not getting me this time, technology.
"Urban fantasy" set partly in cyberspace. Sounds interesting, but there are problems. A contemporary net-driven narrative will perforce age quickly. This is not necessarily a bad thing; it could in fact be charming if the author nails the details. Unfortunately, de Lint seems to neither understand nor care about the architecture and structure of the web. The aesthetics of technology are exploited at the most superficial level possible. Otherworldly realms are decorated with circuit boards and crackling electricity. It's all very cinematic but not particularly compelling.The deficiencies of this novel highlight the distinct differences between fantasy and science fiction. A science fictional approach would have taken the technology and its implications somewhat more seriously. Don't let the presence of modems and HTML mislead you. These are technological trappings in a purely fantastical narrative.“Wait a minute,” Suzi says to us. “Are you trying to tell me that you actually believe that people have disappeared into the Internet?” “I know what I saw,” I tell her.“And if pixies can come out of the Internet,” Holly adds, “I'm not surprised that people can get trapped in it.”It's all quite cheerfully insensible. The otherworldly realms are imagined as places "where everything's magical, where anything can happen." There is, probably, some logic at work here, but it is the logic of de Lint's peculiar milieu, built up over time in his other works. The book does not hold up well on its own, fairly drowning in allusions that are not developed within these covers. One gets the sense that author truly cares for his characters, which is refreshing. There sure are a lot of them. This may be great fun for fans, but it's not a good place to start for the uninitiated.
What do You think about Spirits In The Wires (2004)?
This book started our promisingly, but it seemed to get dragged down under its own weight, and I had to force myself to finish it. There were too many point of view characters, some in first person present, some in third person past. I don't necessarily object to this kind of structure if it's pulled off, but in this case it made it difficult to follow the narrative line in places. Also, Mr. De Lint kept reiterating in dialogue scenes we'd just read and drifting off into philosophy in what should have been taut action scenes. There was at least one apparently miraculous change of character because it happened without much impetus or motivation. After the climactic ending the book went on for about thirty pages or so more catching up on all those POV characters, so it petered out more than it concluded. I had the same problem with this book as I had with Widdershins: it read like a less-than-polished draft. The language is nicely done, great imaginative images and setting, but the structure, plot, and—in one case, anyway—characterizations, in my humble opinion, could have used at least one more good scrubbing.
—Peejay Who Once Was Minsma
The concept of gods of technology seems at once a bit dated and a bit over-done... and while peopling de Lint's fictional Newford with the god's and spaces of technology is a bit... passé, this book came out before Gaiman's American Gods and social media was not yet an invasive species. Regardless, Newford is a wonderful place, peopled with fantastic characters and written with a poetic, subtle prose and I always love to visit. Reminiscent of Peter Beagle, Patricia Wrede and other authors I love, de Lint's voice is both familiar and unique.
—Lea
Though it was carried well with DeLint's engaging writing style, I have to say that the conclusion of this story was a bit hasty and rough. Perhaps he didn't have as much time to come up with a finish as he needed or perhaps he didn't have much clue as to how to end it, I'm not sure. But I wish he had devoted a bit more time to thinking up a better ending and perhaps a more reasonable 'problem'.My particular issues with the book (and here's where the SPOILERS come)1. What is going on with Saskia
—Kirstin
