Darkside Dreamwalker [Paperback]

I love it! Darkside Dreamwalker is one of my favorite books by far. The story is very entertaining, the characters are short and sweet, and very real.
Gangs so savage, so feared, there's no visual descriptions needed. One gets it! A disotek so dangerous and violent, I wasn't even able to be there! I don't know if I even dare. I've read that part time and time again, and I just can't get myself to be in there. It all happens so fast, I can't help but conclude that it is for my own good! A mad scientist that needs to be stopped, and only the army can do it. No wait, it's a serial killer that has been terrorizing the neighborhood, and it is up to the mayor to stop him with his army. No, wait, there are no victims, but body parts are appearing in the street, and the scientist is not mad but a good guy, and the mayor needs to stop him at all costs. How can a man drown in the Ganges River without ever leaving New York? How can you stop a terribly powerful genie, who is at the edge of exploding, needs legal representation, is killing the people you are sworn to protect, when all he has to do is will you dead to kill you?
Ginger Rojjers is my favorite heroine. She is not a man? Is she a woman? And her tampon rules! She is sexy without willing it, she is fast, dangerous, and she must solve the most impossible, intriguing dilemmas or it's her neck!
There's something about EJ which I admire very much -- I have since I first started to read his books. It is the way he manipulates language and words. It was very clear to me from early on that he is not a slave to language like most of us are. He has had to invent his own clever words to communicate realities to us, and he has done so with this very fun science fiction story too. There's something I admire in this ability. I have found myself playing with it in my own writings. Whenever I am able to ride the wave, I am shot right up, down, and into a psychedelic experience of sorts, only very real, magical, multidimensional.
Wow! I've read Arabian Nights, A Stranger In A Strange Land, The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy, The Book of the New Sun series (Shadow of the Torturer, etc.), A Wizard of Earthsea (etc.), Don Quijote De La Mancha, Cien Años De Soledad, Vurt, There Are Doors, The Man In The High Tower, Harlot's Ghost, Last Call, and many more. There's something different about Darkside Dreamwalker. It is a magical item.
It didn't take me long to figure it out. If you read this book carefully, you can see that it is multidimensional. It is not just that the adventures in it are about macrodimensional travels and worlds, it is that the book itself has a characteristic, a devise that if triggered, it will reach and rip right through the macrodimensional spectrum, and you may just notice how it isn't just your presently perceived incarnation that has been touched by this apparatus. I'm not kidding, that's how I see it.
The trigger did not occur until the end of the book for me. It was so very bardoesque that I had to actually travel, you know, voyage, back to my room and to my body just so I could read it one more time to see if I could retrace the steps of my trip, but I was somewhat unsuccessful. It was also a time delayed recognition type of experience. It is not just in the words as they are written at the end, or at least I don't think it is. It might be the text as a whole, maybe. I don't know what it is, but it took me. I recognized, easily, perhaps from experience, the multileveled, extradimensional ability (or perhaps a possibility?) of this book.
I thought at some point of "The Never Ending Story," the movie, but it is not like that. EJ has taken it beyond a mental thing. Truly shamanic magic, is what it is. EJ has taken his magic words and concocted this weird, cool, exciting, fun artifact that allows for one to not only voyage through some of the bardo spaces (or at least unlock some of the memories stored deep within) but also to have a multilevel existence recognition. It is really amazing. Other incarnations, other realities, other worlds, all me reading this book and coming to see each other at the end of it. Rex O'Herlihan's experience in the flesh! Live it, don't just read it. I'm serious. I'm not just crazy, I'm also writing about it!
All weirdness aside, Darkside Dreamwalker is a very fun book to read, and it is deeper than I can see. Much can be learned from having a good laugh. I have already read parts of it to my kids as bedtime stories.