Book 3 of the Adversary Cycle and still we've not had a single unifying theme pop up. Even good vs evil as a generic theme doesn't apply here. There are no monsters or demons in this story, just a miraculous force which gives a doctor the power to heal by touch.
And that's pretty much the plot. GP Alan Bulmer meets an old homeless guy who passes on a gift (or mainly curse) of healing.
For one hour every day, he can heal all illnesses or injuries with a single touch. However, he loses part of himself with every person he heals.
Naturally, this leads to the utter destruction of his life.
For a book with such a slim plot, it holds the interest remarkably well. Wilson, Like Stephen King, gives us fully rounded characters to get behind before he rips their lives apart.
It's not a perfect book. There are some questions that are never answered that maybe should have been. Who were the intruders at Toad Hall and why were they there? The running joke following their fate is funny enough, but, other than showing what a hard-ass Ba is, it doesn't do much except make me wonder what they were doing there and was there going to be a follow up. Alan's wife's reaction to finding out about his ability didn't make much sense. It was quite predictable and I guessed the ending very early on.
However predictable the destination was, the trip there was a quick and easy read and never less than entertaining. When the shit hits the fan in the closing chapters, it does so in a satisfyingly gruesome and nasty fashion.
Considering that my copy of Reborn (allegedly Adversary Cycle 4) states on the cover that it is the first follow up to The Keep, I suspect that the later books retcon this and The Tomb into the series as they have all been very much standalone novels so far.
I wish I'd read these many years ago, at least partly because they would have been a lot easier to get hold of with these gorgeous covers.
I actually enjoyed this far more than the Salman Rushdie.
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