The City Imperishable

[bluegargantua]

Hi,

So i just finished up reading Trial of Flowers by Jay Lake.

The book has only one fault -- I got turned onto this book by reading Mr. Lake's short story The Soul Bottles, which was part of a fiction anthology series called Leviathan. It is a shame that this short story was not included as a prologue to Trial of Flowers. The book doesn't suffer from its omission, but while reading Trial, I kept hoping they'd pull out more references to the events in Soul Bottles, because there's some very neat stuff there and it helps set up some relationships that continue to evolve in Trial of Flowers.

However, now that I've pointed you at the story, you can read it and get a taste for what Trial of Flowers is like.

The basic set up: there's the City Imperishable. It used to be the seat of a great empire, but the last emperor marched off to war 600 years ago and hasn't come back. The empire faded away and now the City barely controls the farmlands beyond it's walls. Steam, gas, and electric technologies are just starting to make an appearance, but this world's Industrial Revolution has yet to fully kick off. The city remains an important center of commerce, but otherwise muddles around and rests on it's much withered laurels. But now the City is threatened by invading armies from without and nightmarish magical attacks from within.

The book follows three main characters -- Imago of Lockwood, a shyster barrister who is running for Lord Mayor of the City to escape some gambling debts, Jason the Factor, a warehouse clerk who moonlights as an agent of a powerful wizard gone missing, and Baijaz leader of the City's Dwarven population -- and by Dwarfs, we mean a class of people shut up in boxes when they were young so their bodies were twisted, but their minds made sharp for business work. Together they fight crime--er, save the city.

It's seems like a pretty straight-up urban fantasy novel like Perdito Street Station or The Etched City, but as it pushes forward, the characters are drawn deeper and deeper into the City as Myth and the story takes on a whole new tenor.

I liked this book quite a bit and if the short story above tickles your fancy, you'll probably find Trial of Flowers a worthwhile purchase.

later
Tom

Comments

[kadath.livejournal.com]

I still haven't had a chance to read my copy. *sigh*

Madness of Flowers, the sequel, is written and due out in 2008.