Althea M. (althea) reviewed Rats and Gargoyles (White Crow Sequence, Bk 1) on + 774 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
I'd read the "companion" book to this one, 'The Architecture of Desire' quite some time ago, and wasn't aware that this story was linked!
It's a darkly inventive, complex but rewarding book... Gentle's prose is of the sort that you have to pay close attention to keep track of what's going on... it's dense, the plot is convoluted, and many things are merely hinted at or implied - Gentle took the old adage, "show, don't tell" seriously in writing class!
Lucas, a foreign prince, has arrived in the city at the heart of the world anonymously, to study at the College of Crime (a highly respected institution). He meets a fellow student, the strong-willed Katayan girl Zaribeth, who is in training as a King's Memory, an official recorder of events. By chance, they uncover a plot which may set the order of the city - and the world - on its head. That order currently is that thirty-six god-daemons rule the world, enforcing their wishes through their terrifying gargoyle/dragon acolytes. On a mortal level, the rat-lords and their grotesque king have precedence over mere humans, who chafe at their place at the bottom of the hierarchy...
The major players at this juncture of events may turn out to be the corpulent Lord-Architect Casaubon and the mysterious scholar-soldier/mage White Crow....
The city is very Renaissance, and Gentle borrows heavily from 16th/17th century magical philosophy, but is also informed by a steampunk aesthetic, with gear-and-cog-run computers, engines - mentions of underground trains, photography, etc..
I'd HIGHLY recommend this book to any fans of China Mieville... or anyone who appreciates literary fantasy.
___
A dark, vivid and complex alternative medieval world, a fantasy where highly intelligent rats rule subservient men under the direction of gods incarnate, the Thirty-Six, monumental Decans whose gargoyle acolytes terrorize the populace and maintain the holy rule. Into the menacing city, with its teeming masses and its Thirty-Six temples of the Fane, comes Lucas, prince of Candover, to study at the the University of Crime. He and a classmate, the tailed Katayan Zar-bettu-zekigal, training to be a King's Memory, stumble into a plot to destroy this world and its balance of power. While men stir up revolt against the Rat-Kings, Plessiez, a Rat priest, schemes to sow true death through plague and necromancy to unsettle the Decans and decimate the serfs. Other forces--other gods and an Invisible College--enter the fray. Gentle paints her mystical and occult world in the nightmare images of Hieronymus Bosch, drawing deeply on Rosicrucian and Hermetic lore, while at the same time creating idiosyncratic and believable characters.
It's a darkly inventive, complex but rewarding book... Gentle's prose is of the sort that you have to pay close attention to keep track of what's going on... it's dense, the plot is convoluted, and many things are merely hinted at or implied - Gentle took the old adage, "show, don't tell" seriously in writing class!
Lucas, a foreign prince, has arrived in the city at the heart of the world anonymously, to study at the College of Crime (a highly respected institution). He meets a fellow student, the strong-willed Katayan girl Zaribeth, who is in training as a King's Memory, an official recorder of events. By chance, they uncover a plot which may set the order of the city - and the world - on its head. That order currently is that thirty-six god-daemons rule the world, enforcing their wishes through their terrifying gargoyle/dragon acolytes. On a mortal level, the rat-lords and their grotesque king have precedence over mere humans, who chafe at their place at the bottom of the hierarchy...
The major players at this juncture of events may turn out to be the corpulent Lord-Architect Casaubon and the mysterious scholar-soldier/mage White Crow....
The city is very Renaissance, and Gentle borrows heavily from 16th/17th century magical philosophy, but is also informed by a steampunk aesthetic, with gear-and-cog-run computers, engines - mentions of underground trains, photography, etc..
I'd HIGHLY recommend this book to any fans of China Mieville... or anyone who appreciates literary fantasy.
___
A dark, vivid and complex alternative medieval world, a fantasy where highly intelligent rats rule subservient men under the direction of gods incarnate, the Thirty-Six, monumental Decans whose gargoyle acolytes terrorize the populace and maintain the holy rule. Into the menacing city, with its teeming masses and its Thirty-Six temples of the Fane, comes Lucas, prince of Candover, to study at the the University of Crime. He and a classmate, the tailed Katayan Zar-bettu-zekigal, training to be a King's Memory, stumble into a plot to destroy this world and its balance of power. While men stir up revolt against the Rat-Kings, Plessiez, a Rat priest, schemes to sow true death through plague and necromancy to unsettle the Decans and decimate the serfs. Other forces--other gods and an Invisible College--enter the fray. Gentle paints her mystical and occult world in the nightmare images of Hieronymus Bosch, drawing deeply on Rosicrucian and Hermetic lore, while at the same time creating idiosyncratic and believable characters.
