Reviews

Moving away from her earlier depictions of a future society, Gentle ( Golden Witchbreed ) has created 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. (Apr.)

While the god-demons, incarnated in living stone, rule a nameless, gargantuan city through their Rat Lord agents, a few unusual humans struggle to free themselves from servitude and rediscover the lost arts of a long forbidden magic. Machiavellian politics, Rosicrucian and Masonic secrets, and Renaissance atmosphere combine in this lavish metaphysical fantasy by the author of Golden Witchbreed ( LJ 6/15/84). Gentle's feel for language and character provide both immediacy and a sense of timelessness to a complex and evocative tale. Highly recommended.