Chris' Fish Place

If I could, I would give this two and half stars.  And now I can, thank you Booklikes!

  The first half of Drood was excellent.  Simmons did a wonderful job of catching/drawing Collins and Dickens as well as the London of the time.  The book flows extremely well.  Sadly, the second half of the book drags a little bit.  Once Collins has his face to face encounter with Drood, the tone of the book changes as well as the pacing.  It almost drags.  Perhaps this is due to the change in Collins' character.  Perhaps this is due to the absence of Dickens, who seems to be more important to Simmons than Collins, who is telling the story. Maybe that's the problem I have the book as well.  The book is suppose to be told from the viewpoint of Collins and deals, in part, with his jealously over Dickens.  The drawback is that Simmons nevers seems to present (or consider)Collins in terms of Collins.  This could be explained by the jealously theme, but not for the whole book.  Dickens seems like he could walk off the pages, but Collins, at least in the later half of the book, doesn't.