Perfume (Patrick Süskind)

This is not fantasy. Fantasy is characters called Halfadan and Guthros, hailing from lands with names seventeen syllables long. Fantasy is six men, two donkeys and a midget holding out against two hundred thousand nasties.

What this is a tale of a wee ginger guy with an acute sense of smell. This tale is skillfully told. Suskind creates a world through smell. This at times becomes slightly repetative but this depth gives the ending plausability. The only other gripe I can muster is that I would have liked to see the battle of wits between the protective father and Grenouille drawn out.

A four star book but no a fantasy/sci-fi one.

Not sure it was strictly sci fi but it had some good ideas

In answer to Baz's comments, I don't think the "just" ending was put in for any moralistic reasons. Grenouille doesn't alow himself to be torn appart because he is remoursefull for the murders he has committed but rather because of his loathing for the world and everyone in it. We get the feeling that here is the end of one of the most prodigious talents the world has ever seen, a superman who, if he had had a stronger sense of belonging and any kind of ties to his fellow humans he could have been one of the greatest men of all time. The tragedy at the end is Grenouille's and (certainly in my case) the reader feels sympathy for him rather than any kind of cheer that justice has been done.

Also, on the subject of the murders not being fleshed out, I think it is very deliberate that they aren't. To Grenouille, the murders themselves are not of any importance. He has no moral sense of right and wrong about committing them and suffers no anguish at any point over what he has done. Hence we see the murders as he does, of no importance and only the process of extracting the scent from the girls is described in detail.

Hmmm. Well, while I enjoyed this overall (good style), I felt it sagged horrendously in the middle but captivated at the beginning and end. The scent imagery was nice; I suppose this is really the first time anyone has truly tried to get a handle on describing scent through language in such detail - and Suskind pulls it off admirably. Grenouille is an interesting character, but I found him a little lacking in dimension, almost as if he's been shaped by his circumstances and surroundings so much that he's like a blank canvas, nothing more or less. Much more could have been made of the series of murders he commits; they are robbed of their potency by being glossed over. And I'm afraid I found the "happy" ending swerving at the last second into the "just" ending a little trite.

A favourite of mine from a long time back. This is a book that I recomend to all, not strictly SF, (It's filed in fiction after all) I think it just goes to show how SF a lot of more mainstream fiction is, as the main protagonist is clearly some kind of mutant!.
It is one of the most original books I have read as most of the descriptions are "seen" through the sense of smell, as the reader follows the protagonist's point of view through the landscape.

I really enjoyed this bizzare mix of gothic fairytale and a perfume manufacturing workshop. The main character is a grotesque of the highest standards and despite his loathing for human kind and his dispicable acts, he is portrayed in a sympathetic enough light for the reader to be able to connect with him. There's enough quirkiness to make the endless descriptions of how to extract scent from just about anything interesting and the ending is shocking and satisfying.