Kam

Okay, I think that was a delightful read, but it’s also got some issues.

This wasn’t as challenging as some people are making it out to be, both pre- and post-release. The author does use academic language and conceits, but it’s honestly Academic Lite compared to some other novels I’ve read. I admit that my previous experience in academia serves me well here, but in truth the prose is not that difficult. Any previous experience in reading academic papers will suffice, as will previous experience reading classic literature (American or British will do; no need to go chasing the Russians or the French for this).

As for the references, they aren’t really that deep - certainly not to the same level as the references to Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and the Scottish ballad Tam Lin in Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin, or to Greek tragedy in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. The references in this book feel more like a passing nod to the texts they refer back to, but do not feel like they deeply inform the story. It’s more like they’re being used to show how clever and well-read the characters are, instead of being a fundamental part of the narrative. Which can be fun: intertextuality, after all, is a fine game for authors and readers to play with each other. But in order for that game to truly be enjoyable, the author has to try to anticipate and match their readership’s depth and breadth of experience - and sadly, in this case, it would appear the author is playing in the Minor Leagues, when I was expecting the Majors.

(I do want to point out that, of all my previous experiences with narrative across various media, the one reference point that I found most cogent while reading this book was Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist. Those familiar with that manga/anime will see what I mean, and those who are not- Well, I highly recommend it.)

Despite that, though, the story was pretty fun: Alice and Peter were lovely characters to read about - especially Alice, with all her complicated feelings about being an Asian woman in academia. Peter was a darling, though I do wish we’d been more strongly developed. The way the novel explores the highs and lows of academia - its light and its shadows, its glories and its abuses - through Alice and Peter’s narratives was deeply relatable and felt accurate on the emotional level and in the broader strokes of the narrative, but of course readers must remember that it’s not a completely accurate, one-is-to-one portrayal. People vary, courses vary, and universities and colleges vary; one person’s experience of academic life will be different from what is portrayed in this book.

Overall, this was a fun story to get lost in, but I do wish that there had been more meat on its bones. I can see what the author was trying to do, what the author was trying to build, and can’t help but think she could have done more with the material they were using. It could have been so much deeper, so much richer, if the literary references were more than just winked at, or if the characters had been given more development. This will serve well, I suppose, as an introduction to more complex work, but it is not, in and of itself, very complex at all.

Well, THAT was quite the ride, for sure. The novel’s not exactly what most people would think of as horror right off the bat. It IS a horror novel, don’t get me wrong, it just takes a while for that horror to present itself in a clear way. For most of the novel the horror exists as a kind of constantly present unease, usually shown in little details that the reader might gloss over unless one is paying attention. But if the reader is paying attention, all the little details coalesce into something that lingers just out of reach until the end of the novel, when it all comes together in a way that isn’t scary, per se, but chilling. Which is something I enjoyed, personally, as that feeling tends to linger after the story has ended.

None of the above would really work, though, if it weren’t for the quality of the writing. I know I’m reading in this in translation, since the original work is in Polish, so it is VERY much to Lloyd-Jones’s credit as translator that the prose reads as beautifully and compellingly as it does. It really shows why Tokarczuk was awarded the Nobel Prize: the way the writing flows in some places, and lingers in others, work to capture luminous moments of beauty - but also, to create moments that disturb the reader too, creating that sense of foreboding that really drives home that this is a horror novel. The beauty of the prose also helps to hold the narrative together, especially when it becomes seemingly fragmented and a bit hard to parse.

The beauty of the prose comes through not only in the descriptions, but especially in the characterization of Mieczysław Wojnicz. He reads as passive for the protagonist, maybe TOO passive for some readers, but his passivity feels interesting, almost relatable in some places. The relatability comes through most strongly as the reader comes to understand his past, which is told via flashbacks scattered throughout the narrative, showing the kind of upbringing he had and how that contributes to his reluctance to get into conflicts of any sort.

However, this desire to avoid conflict doesn’t mean that Wojnicz is spineless; quite the opposite in fact, as he has some deeply-held convictions that he might not put out as strongly as the other, more forceful characters do, but he holds onto them nonetheless and finds ways to live by them as much as he can, given his circumstances. His way of pushing back against the world in more subtle, less forceful ways was something I found enjoyable to read about.

As for the other characters, most of them were used as vehicles for depicting the absolutely HORRENDOUS sociopolitical views that permeated the cultural milieu of 19th to early 20th century European thought - traces of which, sadly, are on the rise in the current period, especially misogyny. There were MANY moments when I wanted to strangle several characters for their beliefs, which they go over repeatedly throughout the novel using some very high-flown language that, in the time period in which this novel is set, would have made those views sound reasonable and logical, even though they (hopefully) ring utterly false to the reader.

Which leads me to the novel’s themes. There are plenty that the reader might be able to tease out of this novel, but the big one definitely has to do with the nature of misogyny, and how deeply it distorts the worldview of those who subscribe to it. While this idea might not be anything new, the way it is iterated and framed in this novel is very interesting, especially when tying it into the historical period in which the novel is set, as well as when it addresses just how DEEPLY misogyny runs in Western culture. This is most clearly shown in the other characters around Wojnicz: not only in the things they talk about, but in the lies and hypocrisies that they try to hide, but which are eventually revealed. Because if misogyny is anything, it is a philosophy built on hypocrisy and lies, and not on anything resembling truth.

Sadly, it is also a worldview that runs deep in not just European, but in all of Western culture. In the Author’s Notes the author lists down the sources of all the misogynistic ideas put forth by the characters in the novel, and the list reads like a collection of the Western world’s most influential thinkers and writers. Unless this reality is acknowledged and addressed, it will continue to remain a feature in Western culture, much to its detriment.

Does this mean, then, that the novel offers feminism as a solution to the aforementioned problem of misogyny’s hold on Western culture? Not necessarily: the novel doesn’t present feminism as an antidote, which I think is a good thing given how it is too easy to slip into a dangerous radical feminism that is no different from misogyny in the first place. Instead, the novel advocates an embrace of the feminine, as opposed to rejecting it. This is illustrated primarily in Wojnicz’s story arc; I won’t go into it here due to spoilers, but suffice to say that Wojnicz embracing the feminine alters the trajectory of his life for the better - and the rejection of the feminine leads some other characters to suffer some rather dark fates.

Another idea the novel puts forth is the value of nuance. In a conversation between Wojnicz and another character, the author basically uses said character as a mouthpiece for the idea that trying to comprehend the world through a more nuanced lens, and then accepting that complexity, is the key to all the good things that a person might want out of life and the world at large. While it does feel a lot less subtle than everything else the author was trying to accomplish with this novel, it DOES show just how important this idea is that the author basically had to spell it out for the reader. While I, personally, don’t think this was necessary, since trying to approach anything with a nuanced view SHOULD be the default, I can’t really say the author’s wrong about spelling this out. With the rise of a certain type of reader (and by this I mean: anyone who engages with a story, no matter the medium in which that story is presented) who cannot seem to draw the line between fiction and the real world, basically dictating to them that nuance is important might actually be the way to get it into their skulls, especially given the kind of content this novel has.

Overall, this was a pretty amazing read. It is very much a horror novel, but one that goes by slowly, focusing more on atmosphere to create a sense of building dread for the reader and building up on it until the novel’s climax. This is accomplished through the novel’s exquisite prose, which not only breathes life into the characters and the setting, but also sets the stage for a pointed indictment of misogyny, and how that most miserable of philosophies destroys everything it touches, from individuals to entire nations. Some readers might be put off by the pace and by the truly odious rantings of some of the characters, but those who push through will be rewarded with some interesting food for thought about how they view the world and how to approach it.

GOSH but I really enjoyed this book! It’s been a while since I read a book with prose like this, and not gonna lie, I thought it was great. It’s very lush and rich, heavy on the descriptions and artistic flourishes, in a way that reminds me of art nouveau, almost. Not everyone’s going to like it, but readers who enjoy that sort of thing will DEFINITELY love the writing style here.

I also really enjoyed the way the author twined the two different narratives together, in such a way that the timeline wasn’t entirely clear. In other novels this would be a failing, but in this novel it’s one of the highlights: the reader’s never really sure what events take place when, unless they’re able to pick up on the clues that are scattered throughout the text to indicate which events take place when. I thought it played a big role in slowly revealing to the reader who certain characters would turn out to be, which helped in understanding the history not just of the characters and their connections to each other, but of the city of Tiliard as a whole.

Speaking of Tiliard, I really liked how the city was a character in its own right, in a way that reminded me of Jeff VanderMeer’s City of Saints and Madmen. It was fascinating reading how the city was more than just a backdrop against which the rest of the story happened; instead, it was both a focal point for the plot, and a powerful force in shaping the characters. It has its own identity, a sense of itself, and seems to actively accept or resist the ways in which the characters try to shape it.

While there are plenty of themes that one can draw from this novel - the relationship between class, power, and art; the nature of monstrosity; and the concept of revolution as disease, among many others - but the one that still sticks with me now and which I don’t think is mentioned in other reviews is the cyclical nature of history, and how easy it is to manipulate the historical narrative. Throughout the story the powerful attempt to control the historical narrative for their own ends, often doing so to ensure that they remain in power. This is best reflected in the way they use the arts like painting and theatre: there is a line in the novel, about how nothing is worth remembering unless it is sung about, and throughout the book it is shown how the powerful attempt to control that history by controlling artists through a patronage system, as well as through state censorship. If the reader sees any parallels to real world attempts to control the arts and what the arts express, well… There is a good reason for that.

As for the cyclical nature of history, this is portrayed most clearly by the city itself, as well as the motifs around growth, rot, and regrowth that dominate the worldbuilding, and in the offhand remarks characters make about previous events. This also ties into the theatre motif: the actors might change, but the scripts and roles remain more or less the same. Any true break from the cycle requires extremely radical change, but even then, it doesn’t guarantee that the change will really stick. Like the stump on which Tiliard stands, and the river that flows beneath it, some forces are just too powerful to change in a single moment, and believing so is a futile hope.

If this book might be said to have a weakness, I personally think it’s the characters. Some are standouts, but there are moments when they fall a bit flat. Fortunately, those moments are fairly infrequent, or fairly easy to ignore in favor of the other elements of the story.

Overall, this was an excellent read. The prose is luscious, the worldbuilding is fantastic, and while the characters come across a bit flat at times, the rest of the novel does enough heavy lifting that some lapses in characterization are forgivable - especially when the city of Tiliard itself looms large as a character in its own right. That being said, the writing style might not sit well with some readers, so if one prefers a more spare, less ornate type of prose, then this is not a book one will enjoy.

So this story definitely sucked me in, but MAN is it creepy, in the best way possible.

The first thing that happened while I was reading it was that I started comparing the situation in the novel with actual history. The novel isn’t set anywhere in the real world, but it reminded me of some pretty infamous sieges in history. In particular, I was reminded of the Siege of Montsegur and the Siege of Carcassonne, both of which occurred during the Albigensian Crusade. Actually, I was strongly reminded of the Albigensian Crusade as a whole, even though this is set in a fantasy world. I think part of why I was stuck on that is because the novel uses the place name “Carcabonne,” which really isn’t that far off from “Carcassonne”. SImilarly, religion playing a crucial role in this story not only emphasizes the medieval feel of the setting, but drives home the parallels between this story and the Albigensian Crusade. The intense faith of the people in Aymar reminds me of the Cathars who were the reason for the sieges on Montsegur and Carcassonne in the first place.

Into this awful pressure cooker emerges the novel’s protagonists: Phosyne, the “madwoman” who can produce miracles; Ser Voyne, the king’s right-hand knight and hero of the Siege of Carcabonne; and Treila, a servant with a VERY interesting secret. Initially Phosyne and Voyne are of greater importance to the way the story progresses, given their proximity to people like the King and the Lord of Aymar, Ser Leodegardis, but as the story progresses Treila comes into her own, offering the readers a view of what life in the besieged castle is like for the ordinary folk.

Phosyne, for her part, is fascinating because of her desire for knowledge, quite apart from her ability to produce “miracles”. She may also be neurodivergent, though the specific nature of her neurodivergency isn’t entirely clear. Regardless, the pressure on her to produce a miracle to save Aymar, in contrast to her hunger for knowledge, make for a very interesting internal dynamic.

And then there is Ser Voyne. At first she comes across as the dutiful knight, but it soon becomes clear that her relationship to duty isn’t as straightforward as it appears. Instead, it is a complicated, almost bitter thing, even as Voyne relies on duty to give structure to her life and help her make sense of an increasingly incomprehensible world.

Through these three characters the novel’s themes are revealed and explicated. The most obvious one is related to hunger and consumption. As starvation threatens the residents of Aymar Castle, the sudden miraculous appearance of the Saints and the Constant Lady, who are supposedly intent on saving them, leads to a much darker path that isn’t really salvation at all, but damnation. Because the Lady and her Saints do not just sate physical hunger: they sate other kinds of hunger, other kinds of desires, too. As the Lady and the Saints interact with the protagonists, for example, they reveal what those characters really want: Phosyne’s hunger for knowledge; Voyne’s hunger for purpose; and Treila’s hunger for vengeance. The Lady promises to sate those hungers, but they all come at a cost.

That’s another thing this novel tackles: the power of obligation. “If you ask for something, you must give me something in return” is a theme frequently seen not just in this novel, but notably, in folk stories about the Fae - and in stories about making deals with the Devil. Being obliged to someone is a kind of power, and this novel looks at that power closely. Obligation also comes with a kind of hierarchy: the more favors one is owed, the more powerful one is. The novel explores this hierarchy to a degree - but also explores the flipside of it. After all, if one is owed, one also owes. Favors are not one way; they are reciprocal. Why should one be obliged to someone who uses their power over oneself in selfish ways, or to harm others? Why should one allow oneself to be used in ways that run contrary to one’s beliefs, only for the sake of obligation? This question is relevant not only to the characters in the novel, but also in the contemporary world, and it is a question that needs to be asked a lot more often, and a lot more loudly.

And then there is the question of survival. Boundaries are vital, as are morals, but when survival is at stake, how far should one go? Because at its core, this novel is about survival, and the lengths one is willing to go to in order to make it out alive. What gets sacrificed first on the altar of survival? The body? Morals? When does one compromise become many? When does many become too much? In the novel these lines are blurred, and the reader is forced to consider: if backed into a corner, what is one willing to sacrifice in order to get out? Is one willing to become something other, a monster, if it means being able to live (however one might define that)? Or would death be better? The novel does not offer any sure answers, except that one will never know for certain which choice one will take, until one comes to the crisis point.

Overall, this novel is a fascinating and disturbing read about the lengths people will go to in order to survive, or to get what they most desire. It makes clear that in moments of true crisis, one will be forced to make sacrifices, and in so doing may become the thing they never wanted to be. But the question is: is it worth it, so long as one survives, or gets what one wants? Is survival, or the achievement of one’s desire, truly worth the sacrifices one makes for it? It is a dark thought, but this novel asks it in such a beautifully gruesome manner, that the reader cannot help but think, for a moment at least, that maybe becoming a monster is, indeed, a good price to pay.

A lot of people tend to believe that there is a very large distinction between fantasy and science fiction: fantasy is all about magic and elves and dwarves; science fiction is about space ships and lasers and aliens. Lately, however, this has not held true, with the two genres overlapping in ways that can make some novels difficult to classify neatly into either genre. Some fantasy contains sci-fi elements, while some novels that appear to be sci-fi on the surface read a lot more like fantasy. This falls completely in line with Clarke's (as in Arthur C. Clarke, renowned sci-fi writer) Third Law: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The fine line between magic and technology is something that many contemporary writers of both genres have played with, each in their own way, producing works that do not slot neatly into one genre or the other.

This meeting of genres is, of course, not a problem in the least, since the potential of any story has always fallen, not on the conventions of the genre, but upon the writer doing the writing, and their skill in creating a world and characters and telling a story. And Martha Wells, author of The Cloud Roads, the first book in the Books of the Raksura series, certainly knows what she's doing.

The Cloud Roads, and the rest of the books in the series, tend to be classified as science fiction, but this first novel reads like fantasy, and I suspect that the other books will, too. This is, of course, not a problem, as The Cloud Roads has turned out to be quite an enjoyable read - albeit without the same depth I rather hoped it would have, or the same level of memorability.

The story takes place in a world known as the Three Worlds, inhabited by a diverse set of intelligent races and creatures, but none of which the reader would recognize as human. For instance, the main character, Moon, has scales instead of skin, and the people he's living with, the Cordans, have multicolored scales as well, instead of skin. But Moon is different: he's not quite Cordan, not really, because he can shape-shift into a creature with black scales, a tail, and wings. Unfortunately, this makes him look a lot like another group of creatures called the Fell, which are the enemies of many other races because the Fell prey upon everything else. When he's betrayed by one of the Cordans, he is rescued from certain death by another creature like him, who calls himself Stone. Stone says he is from a race called the Raksura, and that Moon is like him. This sets Moon on a journey of self-discovery - one that involves saving not just himself, but others, as well.

One of the most notable things about this novel is the world-building. Wells does not get into in a very in-depth manner, but allows the reader to learn about the Three Worlds as we see it through Moon's eyes. This is something I can appreciate, as I am one of those readers who enjoys having to work a little to learn about a world, and while learning about the Three Worlds in The Cloud Roads was not as challenging as learning about the world of Umayma in Kameron Hurley's Bel Dame Apocrypha books, I still appreciate the fact that I did have to work a little to comprehend the world.

And it is an intriguing world, indeed: wild and beautiful, with pockets of civilization in the form of tribes and racial groups that move across the Three Worlds in their own way: groundlings (races that can't fly) on foot, and other races that can fly on wings. There are hints of a super-advanced civilization whose existence once spread across the entirety of the Three Worlds, but nothing is left of this civilization other than scattered ruins and the occasional relic. This ancient civilization, however, only lingers in the backdrop, and while it did pique my interest, Wells does not get into it in this novel - something I hope changes in the other two novels that come after this one.

As for Moon, I pretty much liked him almost from the get-go. He's wary of everything, and very careful - a result of a major, traumatizing event in his past that continues to haunt and hound him into the present of the novel. While the circumstances that created his personality are far from pretty, and I certainly would not wish them on anyone, I tend the kind of cautious, wary character that Moon is, since they tend to notice if things are wrong - or over-think things, too, which can be funny and frustrating in the best of ways. Both of these things happen with Moon, which really makes him such a delight to read.

However, the same cannot be quite said about the other characters. I suppose it's because of the sheer volume of them, but while I enjoyed reading about them while I was reading the book, now that I've put it down, I find that I don't quite seem to care about them as much. I came to care about the clutch that Moon rescued at the end of the novel, but beyond them, Stone, Flower, Jade, Chime, Pearl, Niran and Selis, everyone else seemed a little lackluster and faded into the background. I suppose this is because all the other characters are technically minor and meant to be forgotten after a while, but I wonder why it was necessary to name all of them when they were, in the end, meant to fade in the background. I suppose they will make a comeback at another point in the series, but I am not so sure of that.

As for the plot, it was pretty standard fare, and was fun while I was reading it, but on hindsight, feels rather simplistic. There was a sense of true, genuine threat to Moon's life towards the end of the novel, and there was some excitement to be had learning about the truth of the Fell's plans, but apart from that, it was not as exciting or as deep as I hoped it would be, considering all the praise this story has gotten from others. I was hoping for something truly absorbing, something I could turn over in my head a while, but I did not quite get that in this novel.

Overall, The Cloud Roads is a great introduction to the characters and world of the Books of the Raksura - and that might be all it is: an introduction. While the main characters are intriguing enough and memorable enough to stick with the reader, a great many others are forgettable, and as for the plot, it's not quite as deep or as absorbing as I was hoping it would be, which is unfortunate due to the richness of the world Wells has created for her series. I suppose everything will fall into place in the later books, with a deeper, richer, more expansive plot and better character development, but that remains to be seen.