Bad to Worse

by Robert Edeson

Out in the Arizona desert, Walter Reckles emerges unscathed from an air crash in a classified zone. He’s under intense pressure to retract his story about hitting an illicit drone – a story that reignites a century-old feud between the families of Mortiss and Worse. Meanwhile, in a cave in the Ferendes, Edvard TØssentern has discovered a wall of indecipherable hieroglyphs and deep inside the cave something sinister is stirring. Brilliant intelligence analyst Richard Worse is called in to investigate. Can he live long enough to discover the truth that will save Reckles and destroy the Mortiss empire? Things will go from bad to worse before you find out.

312 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2017

About the author

Robert Edeson was born in Perth, Western Australia, and educated at Christ Church Grammar School, the University of Western Australia and the University of Cambridge. He has been a consultant anaesthetist and researcher, publishing in the neuroscience, biophysical and mathematical literatures. He lives in Perth. The Weaver Fish is his first work of fiction.

Reviews

[Jess G]

This review was originally published with Underground Writers at http://underground-writers.org/bad-to...

Winner of the T.A.G. Hungerford Award, Robert Edeson’s style of fiction is unlike anything I’ve ever read. His latest book, Bad to Worse, is the story of a vendetta that dates back to the old American West. When a pilot insists that the crash of his plane is the result of a collision with an illegal drone, a centuries-old feud between the Mortiss and Worse families is rekindled. Richard Worse, a Perth-based man of extraordinary talents, is reunited with his American cousins and drawn into the ongoing feud as he tries to uncover the truth about the illegal drone.
The plot is woven through a collection of letters, scripts, and third person narrative. In the beginning the reader feels like a detective, piecing together a story from all the evidence. The strangest quirk of Edeson’s style is his use of footnotes and appendices to reveal crucial layers of plot and intrigue. Much like reading a scientific paper, these snippets provide extra information to the main text, and it is here that the author’s voice and striking wit is most prominent.
As an example, one of my favourite asides comes from Appendix A, which concerns the scientific anomaly of partial regeneration, to which the author comments ‘The consequential phenomenon of part regeneration is one of the most intriguing in zoology, though it’s obvious benefits are lost to humans, whose evolutionary advancement instead gifted the ability to verbalise a circumstanced preference for it.’
The use of footnotes and appendices also adds a sense of realism to the narrative, an effect that I have never before encountered in a work of fiction. These notes reinforce the sense that, rather than reading a fictional tale, I was instead reading a true account of the events described. Repeatedly I found myself asking: which parts of the book are fact and which are fiction? The fiction is presented so convincingly it may as well be fact. More than once I was struck by the need to research a term or a scientific paper to see if it really existed.
At times the chapters seem to take the reader off course. On one hand, the crime thriller of Worse versus Mortiss is captivating and exhilarating, while the corresponding science fiction adventure of Nicholas and Paulo in the caves of Ferendes is absorbing and fascinating. Woven amongst the main plot is discussion around avian linguistics, biology, psychology, computer science, pictographs, mathematics, chemistry, poetry, literature, history and philosophy. With the plethora of educated and varied individuals gracing the pages, at times one can imagine that they are sitting at a table with a group of scientists, each at the tops of their fields, discussing their research. They offer a glimpse of the unknown in the world. Equally fascinating and confounding, the conversation is a cocktail of technical terms and speculation so wild that it proves scientists are much more creative that we give them credit for.
The array of scientific discussions and references are beautifully accompanied by a healthy dose of poetry and philosophy. As the characters pursue their various goals, questions of truth and humanity abound. My favourite moment comes when Richard Worse recites poetry in answer to his friend’s question about whether to continue pursuing his research even if it could have potentially negative social effects:
We are servants of the lighthouse
-all of us,
carrying wood to the fire,
making light.
Making shadows.
He goes on to say ‘we are all responsible for a truthful world… light falls guiltless even on the tyrant… Meaning, the evil in the shadows is not of light’s making.’
It may seem that this is a heavy text to read, but rest assured there is plenty of humour to light the way, sometimes sarcastic and sometimes dark, but always intelligent. For Perth-based readers, we cannot help but chuckle when Regan Mortiss exclaims ‘What about Perth? Who do we have there? Where is it anyway?… Do they speak English there?’ to which her attendant responds, ‘They’re impossible to understand but it’s a basic form of English, yes.’
Whilst the main character originates from Edeson’s debut novel The Weaver Fish, and some references are made to those adventures, this is a standalone text. Readers of his first book will be delighted to re-acquaint themselves with some familiar faces, however newcomers will still enjoy all that Bad to Worse has to offer.
A few tips to get the most out of the book: use two bookmarks – one for the main text and one for the appendices – and read the appendices and footnotes in full. At times the end notes are long and technical, but if you’re paying attention you’ll find that this is where the majority of the magic and humour happens.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bad to Worse is a novel by Robert Edeson. It has portions from different time periods; 1877 and the modern day time period. In the modern day, there’s a plane crash that the main character is investigating.

I wasn’t particularly interested in this book, admittedly. I haven’t read many Wild West books, so I thought I ought to give the genre a bit of a try. But I didn’t particularly enjoy this book. My main issue is that it felt difficult to get into. The book opened and it feels, I don’t know, unclear; due to the way the information is being presented. It begins with a scene in 1877. Then cuts to modern day with a radio transcript, then a couple of letters. It just felt like there was very little proper narration in the beginning, and very little character development as to who these people are.

I was hoping that style of developing the plot would stop. However, it continued throughout a lot of the book. The story keeps cutting back and forth between characters. It feels like there’s no suspense being developed, and I feel like no characters are getting the right amount of attention. There’s very little development to them, their histories, etc. Unfortunately, I think the book also lacks a lot of context towards the stuff going on.

I think many portions of the book lacked scene descriptions. At a lot of points, it felt like I didn’t know much about where they were, what they were doing, etc. At some points, it was also difficult to try and figure out who was saying which bit in a conversation.

Overall… I didn’t like it. I didn’t enjoy the way the story was being told; mainly because there wasn’t enough context in many of the scenes. I also felt it very difficult to enjoy any of the characters. None of them seemed likeable to me; mostly due to the way the book would skip around and it wouldn’t give enough backstory or development to any of them. I think the book just needed more focus on certain characters and things going on, rather than shifting all over the place. Just my opinion, though. While I didn’t enjoy it, you might enjoy it, if you choose to read it. I don’t know… Maybe it’s just not the book I was expecting it to be…

[Martin Chambers · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have not read Robert Edeson's previous book, The Weaver Fish, this book might leave you a little confused. Not because any knowledge about Weaver Fish (or even giant crabs) is required, but because of the semi academic footnotes that explains the dubious science. For example (and here, maybe read my review on Goodreads of Weaver Fish) gaps in speech that carry meaning, and in the case of Swints, a fictitious bird that flies always in threes, the gaps convey all the meaning and the 'words' merely serve to separate the gaps, hence, via deductive logic you will need to read for yourself, dinosaurs lived in a time of merriment and were fond of telling jokes. Or, Swints fly in threes only because it is the closest approximation to Pi, and hence, the holy trinity, father son and holy ghost, leaves an amount, the fourth member, 0.1412etc, obviously female. Well, it makes sense at the time. As does the instructions for escaping hell. The story that purports to need all these footnotes occurs in a town called Dante and the hero is a man called Worse. Good fun, but I preferred the Weaver Fish, perhaps only because it began the Genre.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim and it paid off. Little did I know how detailed and fast-paced the storyline would be.

If I had to compare it to something, it is like a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Neil Gaiman. Don’t ask me to explain that correlation.

Suffice it to say I enjoyed this book immensely and will be reading its predecessor (I was halfway through this one before I realized there was one).

[Sally Swan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cracking good read. Stretched my brain!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the Weaver Fish, I remember enjoying it for the made-up science and fantastical ideas, but if I'm being honest I didn't really understand what the hell was going on at the time. I found Bad to Worse to have a better constructed story even though Edeson tried his best to confuse me with the footnotes and appendices in ever decreasing font size (confession, I didn't read them all). Having read the Weaver Fish first certainly helped and I would recommend you start there to get the best out of this new novel. Bad to Worse is a rollicking good tale, full of incredible ideas and theories presented in convincing text, a good baddie, a hint of romance, a little crime and a smattering of violence, sort of like James Bond meets Stephen Hawking. Why not 5 stars? the character of Regan Mortiss could have done with more development.