Rating: 
Summary: It's original
Review: "Gothic at her best" is an interesting description indeed. This book, made up of three (relatively) short novellas, is only for those who like sudden, unexplained and disorienting events that are chained together for no apparent reason. Like David Lynch? Like cross-dressing? Read this...!
Rating: 
Summary: Disorienting, haunting...be careful...!
Review: "Gothic at her best" is an interesting description indeed. This book, made up of three (relatively) short novellas, is only for those who like sudden, unexplained and disorienting events that are chained together for no apparent reason. Like David Lynch? Like cross-dressing? Read this...!
Rating: 
Summary: Bizarre, compelling, and original!
Review: First in the Paradys Tetralogy, "The Book of the Damned" is a three-part exploration into the dark, decadent, and thoroughly bizarre (but completely enjoyable) world of Paradys, something of an alternate-world Paris steeped in sorcery and darkness since its earliest days. The first story, "Stained With Crimson," is a less-than-conventional vampire tale. Andre St. Jean, a poet living in Paradys shortly after the Revolution, becomes the owner of a ruby ring in the shape of a scarab and is shortly thereafter introduced to the owner of the ring, the beautiful Antonina Scarabin. His obsession with Antonina leads to her death and his...and their dual gender-bending resurrection as Anthony and Anna. Pursued becomes pursuer, predator becomes prey, and it all grows surreal and cyclical. While not my personal favorite of the three, the story is excellent. The language, rich with color, is descriptive and disturbing; the reader views Andre/Anna's story through the poet's dream-darkened eyes. "Stained With Crimson" is expertly told, dark and ironic, and maintains its dreamlike quality up to and past the last line of the story. The second novella, "Malice in Saffron" is my personal favorite of the three and, to tell the truth, one of my all-time favorite short stories. Taking place in medieval times, it follows a young woman named Jehanine from her country farm, where she is raped by her brutal step-father, to the City Paradys, where her disbelieving brother Pierre--gifted with a topaz cross by the same doting father that so abused Pierre's sister--rejects her violently. She is then led by a mysterious dwarf into a bizarre double life: by day she lives as Jhane in the Nunnery of the Angel, a quiet female penitent; by night she is Jehan, a beautiful and cruel young man who leads a gang of thieves and cutthroats to greater and greater atrocities. When the Black Death comes to Paradys, Jehanine is forced to confront the conjunction of her two lives...add a holy vision, an enigmatic, and a bizarre redemption, and you have some idea of the complexity of Jehanine's story. Stark, painful, and ultimately beautiful, "Malice in Saffron" is a fascinating tale that deserves at least two re-readings: once for the story and once to understand it, or at try and unravel the stunning weave Tanith Lee has set before you. The last story, "Empires of Azure," is a ghost story set in 1930's Paradis, but hearkening back to a time when the city was known as Par Dis, a community of silver mines at the fringe of the Roman Empire. Told through the eyes of a journalist, a young woman who uses the male pseudonym St. Jean--a tribute to Andre St. Jean of the first story--"Empires of Azure" follows Louis de Jenier, a cross-dresser who moves into a house said to be haunted by the girl who was murdered there years ago. In time, the house with its blue-stained windows yields up two things to Louis: a spider-shaped earring made of sapphires, and visions of Timonie, the murdered young woman. Timonie herself possessed the earring, believing it to be a link to Tiy-Amonet, an Alexandrian sorceress and the mistress to the Roman commander of Par Dis...but neither Tiy-Amonet nor Louis de Jenier are what they appear, as Mademoiselle St. Jean soon discovers. Most of the story seems distanced from the reader, as all but the very beginning and ending are Louis' actions as told by the journalist St. Jean, but the language is no less flawless and the story, despite its odd structure, holds together masterfully. Elements from all three stories interweave among the others--the name St. Jean, the church known as Our Lady of Ashes--but the three stories are fully distinct from each other. Common elements such as gender reversals and jewelry form another set of links, as well as the triad of primary colors that provide the novellas' names. "The Book of the Damned" is a look at Paradys at three different times in its history, at the people who live in that dark and fascinating city--and a story well worth the reading. If you have a taste for darkness and flawlessly crafted prose, read "The Book of the Damned" and its three sequels. They may disturb, but they will not disappoint.
Rating:
Summary: I liked this book, but...
Review: I agree with everyone that says Malice in Saffron is what makes this book worth reading. The third story, the empires of Azure, is also interesting and well written. It takes you back to roaring twenties Paris, and although the time frame is more modern, it is just as well written. The first story was what tried my patience, it was a vampire story featuring Andre Saint Jean, meant to be the vampire Lestat, I think of this series, but who was also a whiny, self absorbed fool. This story drones on through page after page of prose, until it finally comes to it's meandering, sniveling end.
I understand, it wasn't Tanith Lee's fault though, it was Andre St. Jean's. He just had to have his say.
I still didn't like this series as much as I liked some of her other books, such as The Silver Metal Lover, and my favorite of all time (so far) Biting the Sun. I highly recommend them, not only as some of her best work, but as some of the best fantasy that I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: It's original
Review: I like a lot of the ideas Tanith Lee shows here, her stories are very original, with gender changing and cross dressing, but I can't really relate to her characters. She brings you almost to the brink of seeing what they are like, then seems to remove you from them before you feel like you really know them. Her writing style is like that, it seems very impersonal, and sometimes I get lost in her descriptions and I can't figure out exactly what she means by this or that. What I like about these stories though, is that they are exotic, original and not afraid to be dark. Not a bad read. I thought they would be better though, when I first heard about them.
Rating:
Summary: "Malice in Saffron" excellent
Review: The Book of the Damned is perhaps the best of Tanith Lee's Books of Paradyse series, if only for the presence of the second novella, "Malice in Saffron". The first novella, "Stained with Crimson" begins with an interesting encounter, but becomes so mired in atmosphere and more atmosphere that the plot becomes indecipherable. Still, it evokes such a sense of hopelessness (in me at least!) that it's worth a read just to feel one's emotions tugged so. The third novella, "Empires of Azure", is less compelling. The characters feel caricatured despite Lee's typically stylish prose. It should be for "Malice in Saffron" that you buy this book. Jehanine, a peasant girl who's raped by her (step?)father, undergoes a personality split when she flees to Paradyse. Her nighttime persona of a carousing, murderous young man is a gripping portrayal of repressed rage finally unleashed. Late in the story, Lee introduces a plague to the city, and her subsequent descriptions rank with Camus, in my opinion, for depicting mass reaction to that particular fear of death (obviously, I like Lee very much). Finally, the twist of the "miracle" meal caps the story in a very satisfying manner. I think readers of various genres, fantasy, horror, even history, will get a kick out of this story.
Rating:
Summary: "Malice in Saffron" excellent
Review: The Book of the Damned is perhaps the best of Tanith Lee's Books of Paradyse series, if only for the presence of the second novella, "Malice in Saffron". The first novella, "Stained with Crimson" begins with an interesting encounter, but becomes so mired in atmosphere and more atmosphere that the plot becomes indecipherable. Still, it evokes such a sense of hopelessness (in me at least!) that it's worth a read just to feel one's emotions tugged so. The third novella, "Empires of Azure", is less compelling. The characters feel caricatured despite Lee's typically stylish prose. It should be for "Malice in Saffron" that you buy this book. Jehanine, a peasant girl who's raped by her (step?)father, undergoes a personality split when she flees to Paradyse. Her nighttime persona of a carousing, murderous young man is a gripping portrayal of repressed rage finally unleashed. Late in the story, Lee introduces a plague to the city, and her subsequent descriptions rank with Camus, in my opinion, for depicting mass reaction to that particular fear of death (obviously, I like Lee very much). Finally, the twist of the "miracle" meal caps the story in a very satisfying manner. I think readers of various genres, fantasy, horror, even history, will get a kick out of this story.
Rating:
Summary: Adjectives: eerie, decadent, intriguing, puzzling
Review: The Book of the Damned was my first encounter with the writing of Tanith Lee (I've since read four other novels by her, including the other three Secret Books of Paradys, which are all very good), and a strange first encounter it was. The first story is one of vampires, but it is not quite a vampire story, or certainly not a typical one. It flows with a dreamlike quality and is the best of the three novellas included in the Book of the Damned. The second is that of a young lady traumatized by the unthinkable horror which ends with the breakdown of her relations with all members of her family. This young lady's sanity is henceforth questionable and she takes up all manner of un-sane practices, including but not limited to murder. The third story, which has a vague and cheesy connection to the first, focuses on the history of an item essential to the stories of life and death surrounding two characters. This last is not an action-based story, but it is compelling and not terribly difficult reading--quite satisfactory in the end. As a student, I'm in the habit of analyzing literature, looking for little tricks, references to other literature, especially religious in nature, etc. It was very difficult for me to do this to my satisfaction with most of Tanith Lee's work. Either she is the oracle for some higher power which writes very well about strange but fascinating things, and sometimes her writings turn out oddly, or she is way too smart for me. The first novella is at times dreamlike and strange connections are sometimes made. Important plot points are hidden and later revealed. The second novella is somewhat confused by a frequent return to a nunnery as the setting, and certain twisted references to Christianity and Satanism, including mentions of the dark angels Azazel (familiar to readers of Milton or the Book of Exodus) and Esrafel (whom I've never heard of before or since). The religious point of the story, or the significance of religion within the story are both rather lost on! me. The third novella is more straightforward but hardly immune to Lee's stylistic tricks and habits. The only real common ground for the stories is gender-bending. One may not be who s/he at first seems in each of the stories, and Lee's treatment of gender is both puzzling and fascinating, compelling at times and merely bizarre at others. It is best done in the first and third stories, and is not completely gratuitous, adding atmosphere as well as advancing the plot. If this sounds intriguing, it probably will be, and if you've a taste for the decadent, especially in the middle ground between horror and philosophy, you probably out to read this book. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Too much of a good(?) thing
Review: The first novella ("Stained with Crimson") rambled along deliriously until it had long overstayed its welcome. The second ("Malice in Saffron") was relentlessly, unapologetically violent. After slogging through those two, I dragged my feet at reading the third ("Empires of Azure"), but it was best, evoking the spine-tingling suspense of a Gothic horror tale. Throughout, there was too much emphasis on gender-bending in all its permutations. It would have been a nice touch, if it hadn't been so liberally applied. You had your men with women, men with men, women with women, men with women dressed as men, men with men dressed as women, men turning into women, women turning into men, people of the either/or variety turning into... well I guess they were pretty contented as-is. As for myself, I was more than ready to simply call everyone "a person" and never mind who they slept with, but that would have eliminated two thirds of the book. There you have it. It was fantasy, it was horror, and it was a blatant call for publicly-funded sex change surgery.
Rating:
Summary: Too much of a good(?) thing
Review: The first novella ("Stained with Crimson") rambled along deliriously until it had long overstayed its welcome. The second ("Malice in Saffron") was relentlessly, unapologetically violent. After slogging through those two, I dragged my feet at reading the third ("Empires of Azure"), but it was best, evoking the spine-tingling suspense of a Gothic horror tale. Throughout, there was too much emphasis on gender-bending in all its permutations. It would have been a nice touch, if it hadn't been so liberally applied. You had your men with women, men with men, women with women, men with women dressed as men, men with men dressed as women, men turning into women, women turning into men, people of the either/or variety turning into... well I guess they were pretty contented as-is. As for myself, I was more than ready to simply call everyone "a person" and never mind who they slept with, but that would have eliminated two thirds of the book. There you have it. It was fantasy, it was horror, and it was a blatant call for publicly-funded sex change surgery.
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