Analysing Vellum (and eventually Ink)

Hal Duncan's duology The Book of All Hours (Vellum, 2005, and Ink, 2007) is very complex, both in terms of its formal structure (it uses a structural hierarchy with seven levels, and three body text typefaces plus italic variants and a sans-serif) and its content (it interweaves multiple lines of continuity, not always in temporal order; the same characters recur across continuities but with differences both cosmetic and significant). It's a lot of fun to chart these features, and the complexity and richness of these books means the extra study required to do so is rather rewarding.

Some folk I met on the internet are working on an Annotated Book of All Hours. These bits and pieces are my contribution towards that effort.

This is very much a work in progress, and I'm working on the tools at the same time as the material. Suggestions for improvement will be gratefully received. (This is an extremely part-time hobby, jammed into the cracks between full-time work and helping raise a family: don't expect polish, and movement will be slow.)

I've made a “skeleton” of Vellum by copying the html structure from an ebook and removing most of the text, leaving only headers intact and a small amount of text from each paragraph to aid in orientation. I'm working on a tool to let you fold this skeleton together with the text, if you possess it: I've got an annotated version of the full text myself and it's a rather fun object in its own right, but of course I can't give it to you without doing Hal out of his rightful earnings (and presumably calling the wrath of Macmillan's legal department down upon myself). In the meantime, the skeleton is not spectacularly useful but might be interesting. The colours indicate the typefaces, and I hope to add more complex visualisations (continuity threads! character correspondences!) as I find time.

Disclaimer: I believe the extensive excerpts posted here do not infringe on the author's copyright, as they are for purposes of criticism and as they reproduce the structure but very little of the content of the books. If you have a legal claim to copyright on the works I discuss here and you disagree with this interpretation, I will be glad to do what I can to address your concern. Please get in touch.