Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An intriguing debut, 7 Sep 2005
In the industrial sector of a city named Zoelon, in a sort of paleocapitalistic epoch, lives a small, frightened creature, Alix. He works for an insignificant sum in a factory, sleeps in the factory dormitories, suffer from cold and industrial pollution, an his life is worse than Oliver Twists'. We are not in Dickensian London, though, we are in a strange alternate reality where "Westerners" have conquered the lands that were once of races like the Alari, blonde attenuated humans like Alix, and the Enteri, mysterious androgynous creatures. But Alix is not what he seems, a frightened little thing: we soon learn he has a past, thah haunts him with nightmares, and that he's hidden dangerous powers, that those who wants to overthrow the bigoted, obsessively zealous ruling class of Zoelon. And an Enteri is pursuing Alix, stalkng him, bringing him to the point in which he has to make choices. And while poison falls from the skies on the city, brought by evil flying creatures, and a holy war against the southern Draels is preparing, Alix will make his choice.
I quite like this novel,its bizarre mixing of proto-industrial oppression and maedieval witch-hunting appears forboddingly dreary, but there's something else at stake, the clash of religious and socialsystems, the strange, tragic people of the Enteri, represented well in the characters of Twilight and Midnight. There's a flavor of "The Prince of Nothing" or R.S. Bakker in the construction of the world, with its schools of magic and cruel Gods. I think Fiona McGavin is making a significant contribute to Dark Fantasy literature, whit this trilogy of which "A Dream and a Lie" is the first volume. We'll await eagerly for the next!
|
|
|
|
by Sarah Monette
by Carol Berg
