Book Review: Maledicte, Lane Robins
Oct. 25th, 2007 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: Maledicte
Author: Lane Robins
Published: New York: Ballantine Books, 2007
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 434
Total Page Count: 43,610
Text Number: 126
Read For: personal enjoyment, checked out from the library
Short review: In the Relics, the slums of the courtly city Antyre, a young boy is kidnapped and a young girl is left beaten and alone. Four years later, a new nobleman enters the court: Maledicte, a beautiful, sharp-tongued, and dangerous youth with a mysterious background. He attracts the attention of the court, but Maledicte has intentions of his own—beneath his coats and padded corsets, he is really Miranda, a Relics streetrat, who has come to reclaim Janus and to revenge those that kidnapped him years ago. But Maledicte has made a dangerous pact with Black-Winged Ani, goddess of love and revenge, and must deal with the machinations of the court, Ani's growing power, and Janus's own ambitions. Mixing aspects and styles that have appeared in other books—magic, political intrigue, gender issues, decadence, decay—more skillfully than any other in the genre, Maledicte is a delicately plotted book peopled with realistically faulted characters, and it is an exceptionally decadent read. I greatly enjoyed it, highly recommend it, and plan to purchase it and read it again.
Maledicte is in the line of other fantasy novels that combined political intrigue, gender/sexuality, and magic—such as Bishop's The Black Jewels Trilogy or Cary's Kushiel's books, for example. However, Maledicte excels where these other attempts falter, using these elements to serve the story, rather than allowing them to run rampant over it, and combining them with strong storytelling, plot, and characters. The world of the book is completely of the author's creation, but convoluted politics and exposition do not overwhelm the text. Instead, Robins constrains both politics and worldbuilding to roles that precisely suit the story: they create plot and setting, but overwhelm neither. Miranda-cum-Madelicte's gender and sexuality is handled with skill and great respect: gender defines Maledicte's identity, and it complicates his various relationships, but Robins treats it with matter-of-fact respect and distance. As she does with other aspects, Robins constrains the issue of gender to its purpose as a character builder, and leaves the rest of the theorizing and contemplating to the reader. Finally, the book's magical elements manage to be both realistically grounded and truly fantastical without digressing into magical rule-making—or worse, faulty magical rule-making. From the delicate art of poison to Ani's ability to possess or heal her followers, magic sets the book in a world entirely unlike our own, but one with sensical structure and consequences. As Ani gains power, her threat is immediate and great, but without exaggeration or plot holes. In other, fewer words: Maledicte combines promising and successful concepts that appear in other dark fantasy books, and does so in a way that succeeds brilliantly where these other books fail.
Running alongside these promising and brilliantly-handled aspects is a delicate plot and a cast of realistic characters that make Maledicte a true, decadent delight of a book. As expected in a book of political intrigue, there are any number of plot twists and unexpected revelations, but Robins measures and times them well. Without cheap cliffhangers, and with few predictable twists, the book is still many-layered and slowly revealed, creating a plot that is compulsively readable without being overdrawn. The climax is satisfying, both in action and in revelation, and the ending is bittersweet, complete (but not simple) and entirely realistic. Throughout the book, all of the characters are faulted but few of them are unlikable. Some are hasty, some are conniving, some are lusty, and all of them have a flexible moral sense; they clash, love, argue, and kill each other, and they are all realistic and almost all of them are sympathetic, despite and even in the midst of their faults and their sins. While not a simple or a happy book, the combination of detailed plot and realistic characters make it a dark text that is violent, politically and personally, and truly engrossing to read.
My (probably singular) complaint about this book is the rapid changes in point of view. Although the narrative remains a limited third person and more-or-less consistently follows Maledicte's storyline, the narrative focus changes between the various figures that Maledicte interacts with, from his servant to the King and sometimes (but rarely) Maledicte himself. The result is a slightly distanced narration (simplifying gender issues) that still constrains its interest to Maledicte's story, making him a realistic and sympathetic character. However, the constantly shifting narration can be a bit unsettling and sometimes hastens the pace of the story. On the whole, however, I found this an entirely enjoyable book with remarkably few faults. It contained many promising plot elements, done with more skill and greater success than I have seen in any other book, and both the plot and characters were dark, realistic, sympathetic, and a pure joy to read. For me, reading Maledicte was like eating dark chocolate—every piece was decadent, worth consuming slowly and savoring in detail. This book far exceeded my expectations and I very highly recommend it to all readers, particularly to fans of dark fantasy. You will not be disappointed.
Review posted here at Amazon.com.
Author: Lane Robins
Published: New York: Ballantine Books, 2007
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 434
Total Page Count: 43,610
Text Number: 126
Read For: personal enjoyment, checked out from the library
Short review: In the Relics, the slums of the courtly city Antyre, a young boy is kidnapped and a young girl is left beaten and alone. Four years later, a new nobleman enters the court: Maledicte, a beautiful, sharp-tongued, and dangerous youth with a mysterious background. He attracts the attention of the court, but Maledicte has intentions of his own—beneath his coats and padded corsets, he is really Miranda, a Relics streetrat, who has come to reclaim Janus and to revenge those that kidnapped him years ago. But Maledicte has made a dangerous pact with Black-Winged Ani, goddess of love and revenge, and must deal with the machinations of the court, Ani's growing power, and Janus's own ambitions. Mixing aspects and styles that have appeared in other books—magic, political intrigue, gender issues, decadence, decay—more skillfully than any other in the genre, Maledicte is a delicately plotted book peopled with realistically faulted characters, and it is an exceptionally decadent read. I greatly enjoyed it, highly recommend it, and plan to purchase it and read it again.
Maledicte is in the line of other fantasy novels that combined political intrigue, gender/sexuality, and magic—such as Bishop's The Black Jewels Trilogy or Cary's Kushiel's books, for example. However, Maledicte excels where these other attempts falter, using these elements to serve the story, rather than allowing them to run rampant over it, and combining them with strong storytelling, plot, and characters. The world of the book is completely of the author's creation, but convoluted politics and exposition do not overwhelm the text. Instead, Robins constrains both politics and worldbuilding to roles that precisely suit the story: they create plot and setting, but overwhelm neither. Miranda-cum-Madelicte's gender and sexuality is handled with skill and great respect: gender defines Maledicte's identity, and it complicates his various relationships, but Robins treats it with matter-of-fact respect and distance. As she does with other aspects, Robins constrains the issue of gender to its purpose as a character builder, and leaves the rest of the theorizing and contemplating to the reader. Finally, the book's magical elements manage to be both realistically grounded and truly fantastical without digressing into magical rule-making—or worse, faulty magical rule-making. From the delicate art of poison to Ani's ability to possess or heal her followers, magic sets the book in a world entirely unlike our own, but one with sensical structure and consequences. As Ani gains power, her threat is immediate and great, but without exaggeration or plot holes. In other, fewer words: Maledicte combines promising and successful concepts that appear in other dark fantasy books, and does so in a way that succeeds brilliantly where these other books fail.
Running alongside these promising and brilliantly-handled aspects is a delicate plot and a cast of realistic characters that make Maledicte a true, decadent delight of a book. As expected in a book of political intrigue, there are any number of plot twists and unexpected revelations, but Robins measures and times them well. Without cheap cliffhangers, and with few predictable twists, the book is still many-layered and slowly revealed, creating a plot that is compulsively readable without being overdrawn. The climax is satisfying, both in action and in revelation, and the ending is bittersweet, complete (but not simple) and entirely realistic. Throughout the book, all of the characters are faulted but few of them are unlikable. Some are hasty, some are conniving, some are lusty, and all of them have a flexible moral sense; they clash, love, argue, and kill each other, and they are all realistic and almost all of them are sympathetic, despite and even in the midst of their faults and their sins. While not a simple or a happy book, the combination of detailed plot and realistic characters make it a dark text that is violent, politically and personally, and truly engrossing to read.
My (probably singular) complaint about this book is the rapid changes in point of view. Although the narrative remains a limited third person and more-or-less consistently follows Maledicte's storyline, the narrative focus changes between the various figures that Maledicte interacts with, from his servant to the King and sometimes (but rarely) Maledicte himself. The result is a slightly distanced narration (simplifying gender issues) that still constrains its interest to Maledicte's story, making him a realistic and sympathetic character. However, the constantly shifting narration can be a bit unsettling and sometimes hastens the pace of the story. On the whole, however, I found this an entirely enjoyable book with remarkably few faults. It contained many promising plot elements, done with more skill and greater success than I have seen in any other book, and both the plot and characters were dark, realistic, sympathetic, and a pure joy to read. For me, reading Maledicte was like eating dark chocolate—every piece was decadent, worth consuming slowly and savoring in detail. This book far exceeded my expectations and I very highly recommend it to all readers, particularly to fans of dark fantasy. You will not be disappointed.
Review posted here at Amazon.com.
