Stefán Máni

Der Stier und das Mädchen ist brutal und unnachgiebig, eine harte Geschichte die gnadenlos auf den Magen des Lesers zielt und zuschlägt. Das gute Tempo und der spannende Plot der Geschichte werden durch schablonenhafte Charaktere abgeschwächt.

Nach dem ersten Zeitsprung – und vor vielen Weiteren – finden wir uns bei Rikki und Hanna wieder. Sie sind die eigentlichen Protagonisten; Das drogensüchtige, geliebte Spielzeug eines Gangsterbosses und einer seiner Dealer. Hanna und Rikki wirkten auf mich nicht nur unsympathisch, sondern schlichtweg flach. Der Rest der Besetzung hat dieses Gefühl noch verschärft. Vergleicht man Mánis Welt mit einem kunstvoll gearbeiteten, mit Liebe erschaffenem Spielbrett, dann sehe ich seine Figuren als billiges Plastik direkt vom Laufband. Teilweise ist bestimmt die Kürze des Romans daran schuld, der mit den verschiedenen Perspektiven und den Zeitsprüngen nicht viel Platz für die Figurenentwicklung lässt. So spielt man halt gezwungenermassen mit Plastikfiguren.

Mánis Umgang mit Worten hingegen ist beneidenswert. Er zaubert imposante Bilder und erzählt eine wunderschön grausam-widerliche Geschichte. Plot und Tempo bekommen die Note «sehr gut» von mir, das ungewohnte isländische Setting war zudem auf seine ganz eigene Weise faszinierend.

Viele meiner Erwartungen wurden erfüllt, teilweise auch übertroffen, aber die Charaktere konnten einfach nicht zu mir durchdringen. Dafür schrammt Der Stier und das Mädchen an einer Vier-Sterne-Wertung vorbei und landet im gemütlichen Mittelmass. Auch wenn es nur drei Sterne dafür gibt, werde ich den Autor Stefán Máni im Auge behalten.… (mer)

This book feels as though it's been rather misrepresented, or at least mischaracterised. If you see it simply as a suspense drama, it's passable, if a little slow and clunky. Presented as a horror book with the tagline "a journey into terror and madness" it fails completely. Stefan Mani is apparently known as "The Icelandic Stephen King" but I can only conclude this reputation was gained from earlier books, because he certainly doesn't deserve it from this one.

Beyond that, the story takes too long to get going (one could argue that it never got going at all,) the characters are two-dimensional and prone to do weird things (for example, the Captain declares "I'm going for a nap" and walks off, in the middle of an emergency,) there are a bunch of weird coincidences that aren't really explained or explored, and ultimately the story peters out without having made me give a damn about any of it.… (mer)

I keep reading horror novels, and they keep disappointing me. The Ship wastes an interesting premise on wooden characters, flabby prose, and cascade of coincidences that drove me off before I finished the book.

A freighter is on its last run to Suriname before its owners fire the crew. A wanted criminal is stowing away, the alcoholic first mate is losing his marbles, and there's a satan-worshipper in the engine room. Oh and lots of other stuff too. Will any of the tormented crew make it back home?

The answer is I don't know, and by time I stopped reading, I certainly didn't care. This is a long book and Mani wastes too much time (over a hundred pages) before his cast even get on the boat. These pages are spent detailing dirty secrets crew members are hiding, derailing into side narratives that simply don't need the scrutiny, and giving pages over to clunky characterisation in the form of wooden interior monologues.

The derails disappear once we are onboard the ship, but the monologues don't, and they are compounded because Mani is expending all this effort explaining motivations that basically don't make sense.

There's a gem of an idea hiding out in here - the ship as a kind of locked-room drama, where the conflict is powered by human foibles more than the elements, but the execution is far too clumsy, and the hand of the author apparent at every turn.

The characters rarely make any sense - except in the context of a narrative that requires them to do certain things at certain times - and pages are devoting to persuading the reader otherwise.

This is compounded by a series of frankly ludicrous coincidences that pile up. One would have been fine; unexpected, interesting, a catalyst for action, but they keep coming. Mani gets around this by alluding to an otherworldly force manipulating events. But it's a dodge, and it feel like one.

I petered out at the halfway mark. So I guess in one sense someone didn't get off the ship alive, it's true.… (mer)