I like to read fantasy, but I just could not suspend my sense of disbelief that the world as we know it is only part of a story told to cheese loving simple blue apes on another world. The story seemed too simplistic to me, the characters were very black and white, and the lessons were very much in-your-face.

It would have been nice to get to know the characters more but they jumped around so quickly from place to place, and emotion to emotion, that I felt like I was only seeing the surfaces of the characters and the events they were a part of. I would have loved to dwell more on the 7 Awakened Ones, whom we barely get to know at all, even though they are the ones with centuries of history behind them and help Theo advance on his quest. Theo is the main character that we follow but we don't learn very much about him either as he seems to just blindly accepts what he is told and goes where he is bid without much question.. ( )

I hate not to give this book a good review, because the author was very friendly, and the story was based on an appealing idea. I managed to read several chapters, and felt like maybe it was just that it wasn't my type of book. In a lot of ways it reminded me of Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, which I also never could finish, but which many people like.

My partner agreed, and didn't have much else to say about the book. So I guess this book would be recommended if you happened to like The Little Prince or books like that. ( )

Glaister's forthcoming novel begins with an ancient man on the planet of the Bloons telling an elaborate tale that is us. Earth. People. Humanity (called Hoomanity by the Storyteller) are just the imaginative creation of one man's mind.

It's a clever premise with lots of potential. After all, how many of us haven't pondered such an idea when in the right frame of mind? I clearly remember several discussions along similar topics in high school. The zaniness of the ideas and originality of the story are the factors that work best for this book, but also work against it on other levels.

The key to a successful fantasy, which this book mostly is, is enabling people to accept the unrealistic by suspending belief. To do so, you have to ground all of those unbelievable details in a believable framework. This novel succeeds at this only intermittently. We begin the story on Bloon, which is such a strange place that I had trouble accepting it. Soon, however, the Storyteller writes one of the Bloons, Bozo of the title, into The Story itself, and we are transported along with him to more familiar territory where I had an easier time relating to the novel. Theo, the young Earthling created by the Storyteller to help him, provided the skeptical human framework that I needed. When he laughs at Bozo's antics, I can laugh, as well. When he can't believe the philosophies of the Bloons, I can see my own disbelief mirrored back at me. Theo was a filter that finally helped to me to accept the strange alien creatures that we met initially, and if we had started with his perspective it would have made my entry into the world of the novel easier. As it was, I was initially put off by a world that I couldn't buy into.

(By the way, I loved Theo. He was a sweet and sincere young boy, how could you not? Occasionally he conversed in a fashion that was far too mature for his years, but in general he was very well realized. I also liked Buntee, the Indian clown, and Michelle and Simon. I agree with other reviewers that some of the characters were too black and white, but others were more fleshed out, and all were colorful.)

Other places in the novel jarred against me in a similar fashion. For instance, when Theo looks into the crystal ball he sees the history of humankind in all its lack of glory. Slavery, burning women for witches, dragon tears ... dragon tears? Now, how can I accept a crystal ball that really works, and not a dragon? Well, the woman is a fortune teller, a crystal ball fits. But to jump from a historically accurate overview of people to a lonely dragon in a cave, just feels like I'm stepping out of one story into another. No transition, no hints before to the possibility of dragons, just boom. Don't get me wrong, I love dragons. I like flying carpets, and magic, and fantasy, and I love genres like urban fantasy where the supernatural is blended with the mundane. So why didn't this work for me? I think it needed more grounding. Just like Theo grounded Bozo for me, I needed more transition details to help me accept these elements. Again, inventive ideas, and a lot of potential, but I felt that the potential was not always realized.

The reason I mentioned that this novel is "mostly" a fantasy is because the author is also pushing an agenda, almost like this is an elaborate allegory. No, not quite allegory, but that the whole story is secretly a vehicle for his message. Choose your own destiny, write your own story, you are your own maker, all with a distinct new age flair (fortune tellers, tarot cards, reincarnation, sages in mountains). Sometimes heavy handed, but always clearly present. Since I don't prescribe to that way of viewing the world, it distanced me. I only like agendas if I agree with them. :) Those who have a similar world outlook will enjoy this story more than myself, I'm sure.

The writing was easy to read (yes, many errors that will need to be cleaned up, but this is an advance copy and I assume those will be fixed), the story flowed and was peopled with interesting characters and even more intriguing plot twists. This is one of the more original ideas that I have read recently. Due to the fact that I couldn't always accept these ideas, though, or the message that went along with them, the novel as a whole was an average read for me.

(The author did send me a personal thank-you letter, though, which was very sweet and genuine. Major brownie points. I hope his book sales do well, and hit all the right markets.) ( )

Bozo and the Storyteller is a book whose good concept is marred by poor execution. It's clear from the acknowledgements that Glaister had a lot of enthusiastic supporters while he wrote this book; it's too bad he didn't have at least one equally honest editor.

First, there's the question of tone. Glaister isn't sure if he wants to write a fairytale for children or spiritual novel for adults. He attempts to do both, with predictably unfortunate results. Children enticed by its fantastic elements (a clownish race of blue-skinned, long-tailed beings called "Bloons" live on a planet made of cheese and wine and listen as the godlike "Storyteller" tells them the tale of Earth) will be put off by its slow pace, overabundance of tedious description, and heavy-handed Life of Pi-esque meditations on the meanings of morality and existence. Adults coming to it for the latter, however, are likely to be put off not only by the fantastic elements, but by the two-dimensional characters and overly simplistic narration, as well.

Stylistically, Glaister is extremely repetitive. Entire chunks of the story are frequently recapped, not at, say, the end of a relevant chapter, but at the end of the very passage or even paragraph in which they've just occurred. It's annoying to have the story spoonfed to one in this way. It's as if Glaister distrusts that his readers are capable of remembering what they've just read, or that he's capable of remembering what he's just written. There are frequent grammatical and typographical errors as well.

And then there is the issue of Glaister's authorial blind spots. Glaister's protagonists lie, steal, and destroy property during the course of their quest, but the narrative treats these actions as comical and--more alarmingly for a book that purports to be about morality and big issues--clever. Glaister seems utterly unaware of this dissonance. Furthermore, Glaister's writes capital-letter Good Guys and Bad Guys, not protagonists and antagonists; and this, if not exactly hypocritical, is rather short-sighted in a big issues book, because one of life's biggest lessons is that good and evil coexist in the same person or situation more often than not. Glaister makes this point in a very ham-fisted way with the Storyteller, but seems oblivious to the chance to reinforce it with the rest of his characters.

Final verdict: I was very surprised to learn that Bozo and the Storyteller was not published by a vanity press, because it certainly reads like it was. As it stands, while it undoubtably would have made for a good first draft, it doesn't hold up as a finished novel.

I got this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.

What if life, as we know it, was just the story of some old storyteller on a planet far far away? What if it was created to be the enjoyment of a species of creatures called Bloons? And what if that story was killing the Storyteller?

Well, that’s what’s happening in Bozo and the Storyteller.

One Bloon, Bozo, asks the Storyteller to send him into the story to help find the cure. He helps Theo, a nine year old boy who wakes up in the hospital with no memory of his past, travel the world in search of a cure for the Storyteller. Along their journey, they must meet with Awakened Ones who will help them understand the story, why it is making the Storyteller sick, and what must be done to cure him.

Well…. I don’t know where to start. This book had potential. A lot of potential. But… There were so many printing errors in this book. And it’s not a matter of a mistyped word here or there. There were numerous instances where sentences didn’t make sense due to words being added in or taken out. If I didn’t know better, I would assume that this was an ARC. I looked into the publisher, and it doesn’t look like it was self-published either. So really, I’m going to be wary of reading anything else by this publisher, if this is the quality of books they put out.

And it really saddens me, because it totally took away my enjoyment from the book. The story itself was a lot of fun. It took you to places all over the world, and there were all sorts of shenanigans, and you got to meet all kinds of colourful and fun characters!

I especially loved reading about Theo’s time with the circus people – that was a lot of fun. An elephant who can communicate with the Bloon, a clown, a magician and a dancer all on board a boat that is transporting them to India? How could that not be fun?

And the craziness that Bozo gets into. One thing you have to understand about Bloons is that only animals, young children, and crazy people can see them. So, that in itself is begging for silly antics. And the story delivered in that respect.

My main quibble with the actual story itself was that Theo didn’t speak like a nine-year-old boy. He sounded a lot more grown up than that.

The Bottom Line: This book had potential. The errors drew away from that potential and enjoyment, and in the end I don’t think I would’ve been happy had I actually purchased this book. Tom Glaister writes wonderful stories, but I really hope his next ones are either checked more thoroughly for errors, or published by another publisher. ( )