Rating: 
Summary: The End of All Things Is Nigh, Right?
Review: The Nameless Day is the first novel in The Crucible series. In an alternate timeline very much like our own, forty-five years after Clement V moved the Papacy to Avignon, Brother Wynkyn de Worde left his friary, Saint Angelo's in Rome, and traveled to Nuremberg as he had done twice a year for fifty-three years. As the Select, it was his duty to open the Cleft in the woods and to throw the semiannual crop of abominations into the Fires of Hell. Unfortunately, he has caught the Black Plague and it has sapped away his strength, so he fell into convulsions as he summoned the children to him. They arrived just in time to see him die.In this novel, seventy years after the Papacy moved to Avignon, Gregory IX returns to Rome, at least for a while. The city goes wild and people dance in the streets. That evening Brother Thomas Neville also enters Rome. After being shown his cell in Saint Angelo's and paying his respects to the prior, Thomas leaves for Saint Peter's Basilica to pray before the altar there. He is totally engrossed in his prayers when the Archangel Michael appears and informs him that he has been chosen as the Beloved of both the Lord God and the angels. The Archangel Michael does not speak again to Brother Thomas for over a year. Of course, Thomas has much to do to prepare himself for his role as the Beloved. He spends much of his time at prayer, more than his fellows, as well as study. On the afternoon of the Saturday following the Annunciation, Thomas is studying friary records in the library when the novice Daniel approachs him for advice concerning some information he has overheard. Daniel had taken messages to the Secretary of the Curia when a Benedictine monk burst in and blurted out the news that the Pope was dead. Thomas sends Daniel to the lower marketplace to spread the word that Gregory is dead. Thomas himself spreads the word in the main market square. Just as the Curia is sitting down to vote on a new pope, the Roman mob bursts into the Hall of Conclave and threatens the Cardinals for their attempted betrayal of the people of Rome. The Curia readily agrees to delay the selection of the new pope until after the official funeral. While everybody is awaiting the Papal election, Thomas is tracing down an inconsistency in the friary registers. One friar, Brother Wynkyn de Worde, left the friary twice a year, each time for eight weeks and had done so since 1295. Thomas asks Prior Bertrand about the man and is chastised for his arrogance and is then assigned the daily penance of praying from Prime to Nones and of washing the feet of prostitutes in the streets around the marketplace after dinner until just before Vespers. Brother Thomas has struck a nerve. After the funeral, the fearful Cardinals elect Bartolomo Prignano, Archbishop of Bari, as the new Holy Father, Urban VI. They give the mob an Italian, as was demanded. Urban VI pledges never to take the Papacy from Rome again. After several weeks, the Curia, still loyal to the French King, decides that he means it and a majority slip out of Rome to flee to Avignon, where they elect another pope. The time of the two popes has begun. Finally, Archangel Michael reappears to Thomas and informs him that he is the successor to Brother Wynkyn. Thomas confronts Prior Bertrand once more and refuses to defer to superior authority, saying that he himself speaks with the voice of the Lord God and Archangel Michael. He forces Bertrand to tell him everything about Brother Wynkyn. After an abortive attempt at an interview with Pope Urban, Thomas follows Wynkyn's path to Nuremberg. This story is exceedingly confusing, for plans are being implemented behind the scenes that only come into public view on a few occasions. The abominables who escaped Brother Wynkyn are one of the parties manipulating Thomas and the angels are another. Thomas has been betrayed by his own order, for the Prior General of England, Richard Thorseby, believes him to be unstable. Thomas IS obsessed by the death of a woman whom he had seduced, but denied when she was accused of adultery and subsequently put to death. In fact, he is obsessed with all women, fearing that he will betray any that he loves. He has been cursed by a prostitute to lose his heart to another such and greatly fears that this will actually happen. The covert plotting is only hinted in this volume. Supposedly the abominables are as beautiful as angels, but are not human. The Church considers them imps of Satan, but there are signs that they might be the byblows of the angels themselves. Brother Thomas is supposed to lead the hosts of God, but Jeanne D'Arc ends up commanding the armies, not Thomas. This volume is engrossing, yet obscure and rambling. Hopefully the second book will provide a few explanations. Right! Highly recommended for Douglass fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of characters out of history who live and think in a thoroughly authentic manner. -Arthur W. Jordin
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointment turns to anger
Review: This is a very long book. I enjoyed most of it, even though it was a confusing and meandering story. I enjoyed the various stories I found witin the book. I especially liked the contrast (demonstrating racism?) between the vivid description of the poor french victims of war on their soil and the surrealistic life of the Londeners when the troup arrived there.
The great weakness in the book is the crazy thinking of the main character. After he becomes a monk to atone for his involvement with a woman who commits suicide and murder, he appears to have no qualms about bedding another woman just to show the powers of evil that he won't be consumed by lust even though he has sex with the lady who is carrying his child. That made no sense
I was still willing to maintain interest until the book ended after a couple of dozen red herrings about what might happen next were thrown around in the last couple of dozen pages.
Will Meg be a good wife. Now that the monk is again a member of court, will Saint Michael (was it really Saint Michael who got that angry when he was interupted?) still consider him as "special".
Ever since the Dallas TV series let us hang all summer on the resolution to a hanging ending, I don't like stories that only want me to buy the next book - so I won't buy this one.
Rating:
Summary: will appeal to lfanss of horror, fantasy romance and history
Review: Thomas Neville was born into one of the most powerful families in England during the reign of King Edward III. He spends his time fighting, drinking and wenching until his actions kill his mistress, her children and their unborn child. Remorseful and penitent, he turns his back on the secular world and joins the Dominican order of the Catholic Church. He goes to Rome to study, a pious and obsessed priest who is visited by the archangel Michael. He is chosen to be the Select, the only priest who can throw the demons that walk the Earth into the Cleft, the entranceway to Hell. When he journeys to Nuremburg where the entranceway is located, demonic magic plants his seed in a woman name Megie and gets her pregnant. When he learns that a book of incarnations that will send the demons back into the pit is in England, he joins the Black Prince and other English nobles he once called friend. With them is the woman who is carrying his child, a person he refuses to acknowledge for fear she carries a demon taint. The demons show themselves to England's nobles so that when Thomas tells them his story, they believe him. Thomas doesn't know who to trust because the demons can shapeshift into the image of anyone. The final confrontation is coming with Thomas's soul as the battleground. THE NAMELESS DAY is a fantastic historical fantasy that takes place on an Earth almost similar to our own in the middle ages. The protagonist is a man possessed by the need to atone for his sin, a man torn between the religious and the secular world. Sara Douglass makes the reader believe that the events in this book took place, and the audience will wait breathlessly for the next book in The Crucible series as Thomas continues to search for the book of spells. This haunting and memorable work is a definite keeper; a novel that will appeal to lovers of horror, fantasy romance and history. Harriet Klausner
| 
