The Fifty Year Sword

I found this to be very well written in many places, but ultimately confusing with the style of shifting between narrators mid-sentence, and the relevance of the narration-style to the story was mostly lost on me. I feel that I may want to revisit this book at a later date and really spend some time with it, perhaps using the color-coding to determine the speaker. The word-of-mouth, gossip, shared country wisdom element was well presented theoretically, but I feel that the words didn't fall together in a way that conveyed Danielewski's intention very clearly.

I've read both the hardcover and the iBooks version of The Fifty Year Sword. The iBooks version contains animation, music and sound effects (the kindle version, apparently, does not). Generally, I would consider this a gimmick, but in the case of this particular book, it worked. The music and sound added to the atmosphere immensely, and the animations were interesting.

This is a short read (took me less than an hour), but well worth my time. I won't reveal anything in this review. There's a storyteller and five orphans, and the tale the storyteller spins is frightening and wonderful. Books rarely affect me so deeply on so many levels.

If you can get the iBooks version, I highly recommend it. If not, then the hardcover (with the stitched pages) is the next best thing.

in my mind this is perfect for a little movie, it plays out like a shadow theatre, the story is incredible and thrilling and scary...<3<3<3

Still processing how I feel about it. Didn't hate it, but maybe didn't get it. Too experimental? Time to read his latest.

As an OG who read HOL years ago and still have not received my t shirt that says “I survived House of Leaves”, I picked up the Fifty Year Sword with zero intention of reading it. I was drawn to the holes in the cover. Flipping through, I saw how short it was and thought: how bad could it be?
Other reviewers have done a great job of listing what is different about this story, so I wont get into it. Personally, I thought the book jacket copy was way cooler than the story itself. A sword that kills ideas! Awesome! Too bad it's not really in the book.
And how did it go from being Moze's Halloween party to whatsherface's birthday party? Nevermind, I don't care.
I can kiss a half an hour of my life away and I like the idea behind this book. Can I recommend it? No. But my hat is off to Danielewski for trying to do something different.
I do see a correlation between one star reviews from people who bought it, and two star reviews from people (like me) who borrowed it.
If you want to give it a try, I highly recommend borrowing it.