Vivia

Rating:
Summary: Not A Favorite
Review: This was not a Tanith Lee favorite book, although it's very good light reading (try it on the treadmill), and Lee's sex scenes are always good. It's almost like an historical romance set in a fantasy world. The ending kind of petered out. Sometimes After Sunset was a much better sample of this genre.

Rating:
Summary: A Dissapointment
Review: Vivia is among the most unsettling of Tanith Lee's novels, which is saying quite a lot if you've read her. It's a richly textured vampire novel set within a gruesome medieval realm that includes alternate versions of Vlad the Impaler (who gets impaled himself) and the Christian religion. Although Vivia herself is aloof and perhaps not even likeable, she was highly sympathetic because the problems she deals with (fear of death, alienation from others) are universal. I know several people like her, who seem to inexplicably submit at times to what life offers them. In tone, Vivia is highly reminiscent of Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Also, Tanith Lee's prose is in particularly high style, almost elliptical, sometimes, admittedly, even hard to understand, but refreshing from all other fantasy novels. I think Lee was hinting at her own style in the descriptive painting scenes towards the end of the novel. I highly recommend it; I loved reading it. And the ending, for me, was very satisfying- true to Vivia's character.

Rating:
Summary: evocative, dark fantasy
Review: Vivia is among the most unsettling of Tanith Lee's novels, which is saying quite a lot if you've read her. It's a richly textured vampire novel set within a gruesome medieval realm that includes alternate versions of Vlad the Impaler (who gets impaled himself) and the Christian religion. Although Vivia herself is aloof and perhaps not even likeable, she was highly sympathetic because the problems she deals with (fear of death, alienation from others) are universal. I know several people like her, who seem to inexplicably submit at times to what life offers them. In tone, Vivia is highly reminiscent of Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Also, Tanith Lee's prose is in particularly high style, almost elliptical, sometimes, admittedly, even hard to understand, but refreshing from all other fantasy novels. I think Lee was hinting at her own style in the descriptive painting scenes towards the end of the novel. I highly recommend it; I loved reading it. And the ending, for me, was very satisfying- true to Vivia's character.