- Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz; New edition edition (13 Sep 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0575072849
- ISBN-13: 978-0575072848
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 532,168 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Book Description
'A new literary species, a new rhetoric, a new climate of the imagination ... Irreplaceable' C.S. Lewis
Product Description
MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES was the first published novel in E.R. Eddison's celebrated Zimiamvian trilogy. Like Tolkien's Middle-Earth, Zimiamvia is a world which mirrors our own - but passions run stronger there, and life, love and treachery are epic in their intensity. And magic, of course, is a reality. Mezentius had ruled the Three Kingdoms with a firm hand, but his legitimate heir is a weakling, frightened of the power of his half-brother, Duke Barganax, and of that of the terrifying Horius Parry, Vicar of Rerek. As Parry and Barganax manoeuvre, intrigue and plot, it is clear that the new king isn't long for the world. The key to the control of the Three Kingdoms lies with Lessingham, Parry's cousin, the only man both sides can trust. But then Parry decides that Lessingham must die. As heroes and villains clash, an even darker game is being played - for the Lady Fiorinda is testing her own powers to decide the fates of men...MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES is as powerful, exciting and intriguing today as when it was first published.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If I was a woman i think I'd want Eddison to be the wooer. This is the ultimate in fantastical literature. But like all love affairs you must accept the rough with the smooth.
Mistress of Mistresses is a work of genius but for modern tastes it not an easy reader - take Webster, Shakespeare, Homer, Sappho and the Norse sagas - mix them with your own metaphysical philosophy, decorate it all with lush prose - you create a world of such enduring colour and intrigue that the initiated never want to leave. But to get into the garden you have to accept that the door is a little stiff and you are going to have to work at opening it.
Once read, never forgotten - but read The Worm Ouroborous first or you'll never forgive yourself.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've given it 4 stars only so that I can later give 5 to the sequel, A Fish Dinner In Memison. (The third book, The Mezentian Gate, though there is enough to be well worth reading, was tragically incomplete when ERE died. It's bits in the middle that are missing.)
ERE's first fantasy work was The Worm Ouroboros, utterly wonderful, but these Zimiamvia books soar to new heights, not only in things such as prose, intrigue, characterisation, but also and more importantly in their phenomenal ambition. ERE creates not just a world but, as is gradually revealed, an entire philosophy underpinning the universe. He's the closest thing in fantasy to the visionary Olaf Stapledon, able to steal your breath away with IDEAS alone!
The writing is intense, lyrical, dense, archaic and just UTTERLY fascinating. This is not straight entertainment a la David Eddings, it requires you to engage with it in both mind and soul; but for the serious reader it is uniquely rewarding. (Though John Crowley's even better!)
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Here you have what those of us who devoured Tolkien in the very early sixties fell on ravenously in our search for more of the fantasy fix, along with Mervyn Peake, David Lindsay, Charles Williams, Lord Dunsany et al - all only available then in battered volumes long consigned to the stacks of public libraries and dusty corners in second-hand shops.
You cannot read this volume in isolation - it's part of the Zimmiamvian trilogy and if you embark on it be warned that Eddison did not live to complete the third volume "The Mententian Gate" - parts of it only exist in outline, interspersed with those chapters he did complete. The language and style are overwrought and luschious and the psyche of the author Edwardian and nostalgic for a world as it should have been and never was.
It's my reading of the trilogy that the main protagonists are in fact the prototypes of the old classical gods who can take on the various personas, human and animal, that they create and wear them as garments as they play out their actions in this and other worlds for their own amusement. In fact they can inhabit several characters at the same time. The main character seems to inhabit personas both in this world and Zimmiamvia, both worlds being created for his amusement by his mistress Aphrodite, who is both Fiorinda and the Duchess. In her guise as Fiorinda she also creates our universe in a bubble during the meal in "A Fish Dinner in Memison" for the pleasure of the guests and that as the meal ends she bursts the bubble, remarking that this flawed world is not worth saving. In this I think she reflects Eddison's view of the modern world - in all his books one has the sensation that he is creating worlds he would rather have lived in - aristocratic and ruthless societies where men could be endlessly macho and conniving and women beautiful and manipulative and no-one ever had to cope with the mundane business of daily life.
Having republished this volume I can't understand why Gollancz hasn't reissued the other two volumes or even combined them into a single volume. Copyright issues perhaps? The others are still out there in second hand and charity shops and they are worth searching for - and if you enjoy this one you will have the added thrill of the chase in searching out the others.
You cannot read this volume in isolation - it's part of the Zimmiamvian trilogy and if you embark on it be warned that Eddison did not live to complete the third volume "The Mententian Gate" - parts of it only exist in outline, interspersed with those chapters he did complete. The language and style are overwrought and luschious and the psyche of the author Edwardian and nostalgic for a world as it should have been and never was.
It's my reading of the trilogy that the main protagonists are in fact the prototypes of the old classical gods who can take on the various personas, human and animal, that they create and wear them as garments as they play out their actions in this and other worlds for their own amusement. In fact they can inhabit several characters at the same time. The main character seems to inhabit personas both in this world and Zimmiamvia, both worlds being created for his amusement by his mistress Aphrodite, who is both Fiorinda and the Duchess. In her guise as Fiorinda she also creates our universe in a bubble during the meal in "A Fish Dinner in Memison" for the pleasure of the guests and that as the meal ends she bursts the bubble, remarking that this flawed world is not worth saving. In this I think she reflects Eddison's view of the modern world - in all his books one has the sensation that he is creating worlds he would rather have lived in - aristocratic and ruthless societies where men could be endlessly macho and conniving and women beautiful and manipulative and no-one ever had to cope with the mundane business of daily life.
Having republished this volume I can't understand why Gollancz hasn't reissued the other two volumes or even combined them into a single volume. Copyright issues perhaps? The others are still out there in second hand and charity shops and they are worth searching for - and if you enjoy this one you will have the added thrill of the chase in searching out the others.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Makes Tolkien look even better
It took an immense test of will to finish this book. The novel is over-written with ornate descriptions which just get in the way of what story there is. Read more
Published on 25 Mar 2009 by Good Book Fan
If Shakespeare was a novelist...
...he'd have written stuff like this.
With all the lowest common denominator, easy to swallow, fantasy fiction that comes out today, it is great to discover a book like... Read more
With all the lowest common denominator, easy to swallow, fantasy fiction that comes out today, it is great to discover a book like... Read more
Published on 15 Dec 2008 by M. Horne
Tedious and implausible
The characters appeared to have no internal motivation - they all felt like paper thin place holders. That wouldn't have been too bad if the plot had any depth, but it didn't. Read more
Published on 27 July 2004 by Jenny Barnes
Archaic, laborious and hard to follow
I'm sorry to say that this book is only for those linguists out there who have the time and are prepared to ponder and assimulate the meaning of every archaic paragraph. Read more
Published on 18 April 2003
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