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Dominions of Irth #1
The Dark Shore
Here is an epic fantasy from the dawn of Creation, from the first worlds, the Bright Worlds. Among them is Irth. And upon Irth, in a realm of wizards, witch queens, and magic, destiny casts shadows into the Gulf and onto the Dark Shore, a universe of blacker magic and deeper mysteries — the greatest of which is Earth.
Irth is a world where magic rules — magic that radiates from the Abiding Star. The nobility, possessors of most of this mystic energy, dwell in floating cities that drift above their realms, plotting against each other for domination.
Those who fail in their attempts to hold or usurp power are cast off the Edge into the abyss beyond the reach of the Abiding Star. There they fall into the cold world of the Dark Shore — onto Earth — from whence no one has ever returned. Until now.
Hu’dre Vra, formerly an abject scavenger who found a magical sword but failed to use it wisely and was cast into the abyss, has returned from the Dark Shore with an awesome new power: black magic. At the head of an army of cacodemons impervious to Irth’s enchantments, Hu’dre Vra the Dark Lord wreaks a terrible vengeance upon the world that exiled him.
But there is resistance to the Dark Lord’s rule of terror. The mysterious, inventive thief Ripcat and his crafty partner Dogbrick form an uneasy and dangerous alliance with the brave young noblewoman Jyoti and her small band of comrades, among whom is her family’s ancient sorcerer, Caval. Together they all must pit their courage, their wits and their lives against the brutal minions of the Dark Shore.
A magically charged and enthralling tale of a once-charmed world and the supernatural evil that threatens to destroy it.
Irth is a world where magic rules — magic that radiates from the Abiding Star. The nobility, possessors of most of this mystic energy, dwell in floating cities that drift above their realms, plotting against each other for domination.
Those who fail in their attempts to hold or usurp power are cast off the Edge into the abyss beyond the reach of the Abiding Star. There they fall into the cold world of the Dark Shore — onto Earth — from whence no one has ever returned. Until now.
Hu’dre Vra, formerly an abject scavenger who found a magical sword but failed to use it wisely and was cast into the abyss, has returned from the Dark Shore with an awesome new power: black magic. At the head of an army of cacodemons impervious to Irth’s enchantments, Hu’dre Vra the Dark Lord wreaks a terrible vengeance upon the world that exiled him.
But there is resistance to the Dark Lord’s rule of terror. The mysterious, inventive thief Ripcat and his crafty partner Dogbrick form an uneasy and dangerous alliance with the brave young noblewoman Jyoti and her small band of comrades, among whom is her family’s ancient sorcerer, Caval. Together they all must pit their courage, their wits and their lives against the brutal minions of the Dark Shore.
A magically charged and enthralling tale of a once-charmed world and the supernatural evil that threatens to destroy it.
527 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 18, 1996
15 people are currently reading
266 people want to read
About the author
A.A. Attanasio
25 books360 followersI’m a novelist and student of the imagination living in Honolulu. Fantasies, visions, hallucinations or whatever we call those irrational powers that illuminate our inner life fascinate me. I’m particularly intrigued by the creative intelligence that scripts our dreams. And I love carrying this soulful energy outside my mind, into the one form that most precisely defines who we are: story.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 10, 2018
First off, I think its fair to note that "Adam Lee" is a pseudonym for apparently semi-popular SF writer AA Attansio, who I'd never heard of. He's been nominated for a Nebula Award several times but appears to have not published any novels in close to ten years. He does still update his website, however, and answers comments posted on his blog, which is neat. Also, in the interest of stating all my biases before I get going, it looks like he's also a fellow Jerseyan, having been born in Newark, although it appears he lives in Hawaii these days (and for perhaps the first time in any writer I've read possesses a quality that my wife can admire).
I'll also say I have no idea why I have this series. Published in the mid-nineties, it appears to have been well-reviewed at the time but I have no idea at what point I got it and buried the trilogy at the bottom of a pile, or what even caught my eye about it. Its the first book of a trilogy entitled "The Dominions of Irth" and while it does seem like we're one typo away from having Gene Wolfe's Severian show up, unlike Wolfe's tetralogy this series is straight fantasy. However, the back cover description doesn't even hint at how strange this book actually is and anyone expecting to walk into a world of knights and wizards fighting evil overlords are going to be . . . surprised. Whether that will be a pleasant surprise or otherwise probably depends on their tolerance for ornate descriptions and a more philosophical based approach to all the heroing.
The basic setup is definitely straightforward . . . unused indie band name Wrat and His Cacodemons have broken through from beyond the Dark Shore to terrorize the eight dominions and by "terrorize" that means "killing everyone in sight". The head ruler of all the dominions, Drev, once punished Wrat and his crew of merry marauders called the Bold Ones for assassinating his sister the previous ruler by throwing them off the edge of the world and banishing them forever. However, forever wasn't as long as anyone would have liked as Wrat appears to have made a deal with forces beyond the shore in order to get the ability to control the numberless cacodemons, who can't be hurt by conventional magic and are pretty good at tearing people to pieces and destroying everything. In the wake of all this destruction Drev resigns his rulership and heads out to find a solution while Wrat takes great pleasure in doing things that evil warlords love doing . . . destroying cities, forcing people to do his bidding, killing at the slightest pretense, crossing streets against the light, and so on.
Got all that? Because everything prior to "Wrat killing everyone" is the backstory and if you thought that George Martin's body-count happy fantasy series had an extensive history only told through expositions and conversations you haven't seen anything yet . . . not only doe Irth have its own detailed history but its own set of physics and magic as well, all of which gets crammed into the same space as the plot, making for a somewhat dense read at times. And while the physical nature of the place is extremely odd at times (people rarely sleep and when they do they float, like they're all starring in their own mini-arthouse films whose meaning is tangible yet elusive) what will probably strike even regular fantasy readers the oddest is his depiction of magic. Based around a concept called "Charm", it appears to power everything and come from the light of the Abiding Star (and not quantum physics, I think?) . . . it can be stored in amulets and necklaces and how much of it you have (or can store) can determine what kind of feats you're capable of. But its not like some video game magic meter in execution, adhering to a definite logic that the author seems to have figured out in great detail but probably takes a few reads to really figure out the particulars. A lot of it seems to be based around philosophical concepts of energy and lifeforces so while it isn't dippy its a far cry from the standard "magic works for magical reasons!" that we normally get (although given we have place names like the Calendar of Eyes, the Ladder of the Air, the Cloths of Heaven and so on you start to feel like you're in a shopping mall run solely by New Age proprietors).
The very strangeness of the setting makes it fascinating in itself, especially in the early chapters when cities are falling from the sky, cacodemons are everywhere and the entire cast is in various stages of running for their lives. The prose is extremely baroque, filled with detailed descriptions of pretty much everything, with at least one word per page forcing you to search your memory of all the vocabulary units you did in high school English class. I didn't have to run for a dictionary that often but people who aren't on speaking terms with words like "quotidian" and "sclera" might find it rougher going . . . the density of the prose strangely doesn't bog the book down but the pace even during fight scenes never seems to rise about "languid" as if even at its fiercest and most violent its some opium laced dream that is only arriving in gentle waves. It adds a distance to everything except for the most visceral scenes that some people might not appreciate.
It also doesn't help that most of the cast is geographically spread out and barely sees each other for most of the book. You have Drev forging his best path, but you also have sibling lone survivors from a fallen city Jyoti and Poncho attempting to stay alive while glorified street urchin Tywi gets to hang out with Ripcat and Dogbrick in their own version of the "let's stay alive" contest (also, to add another wrinkle, Tywi is apparently Drev's soulmate despite never having actually met). Interspersing this with Wrat being evil here and there you wind up with a book where the thrust of the plot consists mostly of everyone running for their lives. Thanks to the author's ability to conjure an atmosphere of general strange doom he keeps it interesting despite the emotional distance at times between the reader and the action, especially when it starts to get so abstact that you start to lose the impact of revelations that the book clearly thinks should blow you away. But it also means you don't always live or die with these people, its just a story you're being told.
Even so, he manages quite a bit of imagery that lingers in the mind. While Drev isn't as amazing a hero as we'd like, Jyoti winds up being the breakout character of the set, a young girl thrust into rulership by battlefield promotion essentially, doing her best to scramble her away across a landscape filled with stuff that wants to kill her while doing her best to keep her extraordinarily whiny brother alive. Her scenes sparkle with a triumph that the other heroes can't quite approximate. He does do darkness well, though, with Wrat being uniformly creepy and sickening in equal measure, a weasel who gets elevated through luck and viciousness and barely has the weight to carry off his own petty yet lofty aims. We have bizarre witches and strange creatures, a ruler who is literally an evil sack of skin. The cacodemons kind of stop being frightening after a while but they do lead to some funny moments, like a group of heroes realizing that while magic won't work on them, beating them to death works amazingly well (the book leans toward the idea of everyone relying so much on Charm they forget how to swing swords but I feel like he abandoned wherever he was going with that).
If the book succeeds its due to that strangeness, with the geography resolutely amorphous even with a map, the locations strung together with odd names that suggest at culture and history and myth without having the usual fantasy of "we have in the nomad land now" or "this is the city of thieves". Having just watched Tarkovsky's "Stalker" for the first time maybe I'm just developing a tolerance/appreciation for people wandering through eerie landscapes for the sake of metaphor but it seems like the kind of world where the less you try to pin it down the more interesting it becomes.
Another plus is that despite it being part of a trilogy, the story started here also finishes, although not with a climax that comes anywhere near to rousing. Its realistic but after nearly five hundred pages I thought we'd get a somewhat more epic confrontation. But the journey to get there is probably like no other fantasy book I've ever read in terms of overall atmosphere and setting and what larger hints he does drop about the structure of the world (and the possible link to our world) give you an idea of the bigger picture he appeared to have explored in the remaining books of the trilogy. Fans of standard high fantasy, whether of the Tolkien variety or the "Game of Thrones" style may find it either too weird or too cold but for readers looking to venture off the beaten path this might do nicely.
I'll also say I have no idea why I have this series. Published in the mid-nineties, it appears to have been well-reviewed at the time but I have no idea at what point I got it and buried the trilogy at the bottom of a pile, or what even caught my eye about it. Its the first book of a trilogy entitled "The Dominions of Irth" and while it does seem like we're one typo away from having Gene Wolfe's Severian show up, unlike Wolfe's tetralogy this series is straight fantasy. However, the back cover description doesn't even hint at how strange this book actually is and anyone expecting to walk into a world of knights and wizards fighting evil overlords are going to be . . . surprised. Whether that will be a pleasant surprise or otherwise probably depends on their tolerance for ornate descriptions and a more philosophical based approach to all the heroing.
The basic setup is definitely straightforward . . . unused indie band name Wrat and His Cacodemons have broken through from beyond the Dark Shore to terrorize the eight dominions and by "terrorize" that means "killing everyone in sight". The head ruler of all the dominions, Drev, once punished Wrat and his crew of merry marauders called the Bold Ones for assassinating his sister the previous ruler by throwing them off the edge of the world and banishing them forever. However, forever wasn't as long as anyone would have liked as Wrat appears to have made a deal with forces beyond the shore in order to get the ability to control the numberless cacodemons, who can't be hurt by conventional magic and are pretty good at tearing people to pieces and destroying everything. In the wake of all this destruction Drev resigns his rulership and heads out to find a solution while Wrat takes great pleasure in doing things that evil warlords love doing . . . destroying cities, forcing people to do his bidding, killing at the slightest pretense, crossing streets against the light, and so on.
Got all that? Because everything prior to "Wrat killing everyone" is the backstory and if you thought that George Martin's body-count happy fantasy series had an extensive history only told through expositions and conversations you haven't seen anything yet . . . not only doe Irth have its own detailed history but its own set of physics and magic as well, all of which gets crammed into the same space as the plot, making for a somewhat dense read at times. And while the physical nature of the place is extremely odd at times (people rarely sleep and when they do they float, like they're all starring in their own mini-arthouse films whose meaning is tangible yet elusive) what will probably strike even regular fantasy readers the oddest is his depiction of magic. Based around a concept called "Charm", it appears to power everything and come from the light of the Abiding Star (and not quantum physics, I think?) . . . it can be stored in amulets and necklaces and how much of it you have (or can store) can determine what kind of feats you're capable of. But its not like some video game magic meter in execution, adhering to a definite logic that the author seems to have figured out in great detail but probably takes a few reads to really figure out the particulars. A lot of it seems to be based around philosophical concepts of energy and lifeforces so while it isn't dippy its a far cry from the standard "magic works for magical reasons!" that we normally get (although given we have place names like the Calendar of Eyes, the Ladder of the Air, the Cloths of Heaven and so on you start to feel like you're in a shopping mall run solely by New Age proprietors).
The very strangeness of the setting makes it fascinating in itself, especially in the early chapters when cities are falling from the sky, cacodemons are everywhere and the entire cast is in various stages of running for their lives. The prose is extremely baroque, filled with detailed descriptions of pretty much everything, with at least one word per page forcing you to search your memory of all the vocabulary units you did in high school English class. I didn't have to run for a dictionary that often but people who aren't on speaking terms with words like "quotidian" and "sclera" might find it rougher going . . . the density of the prose strangely doesn't bog the book down but the pace even during fight scenes never seems to rise about "languid" as if even at its fiercest and most violent its some opium laced dream that is only arriving in gentle waves. It adds a distance to everything except for the most visceral scenes that some people might not appreciate.
It also doesn't help that most of the cast is geographically spread out and barely sees each other for most of the book. You have Drev forging his best path, but you also have sibling lone survivors from a fallen city Jyoti and Poncho attempting to stay alive while glorified street urchin Tywi gets to hang out with Ripcat and Dogbrick in their own version of the "let's stay alive" contest (also, to add another wrinkle, Tywi is apparently Drev's soulmate despite never having actually met). Interspersing this with Wrat being evil here and there you wind up with a book where the thrust of the plot consists mostly of everyone running for their lives. Thanks to the author's ability to conjure an atmosphere of general strange doom he keeps it interesting despite the emotional distance at times between the reader and the action, especially when it starts to get so abstact that you start to lose the impact of revelations that the book clearly thinks should blow you away. But it also means you don't always live or die with these people, its just a story you're being told.
Even so, he manages quite a bit of imagery that lingers in the mind. While Drev isn't as amazing a hero as we'd like, Jyoti winds up being the breakout character of the set, a young girl thrust into rulership by battlefield promotion essentially, doing her best to scramble her away across a landscape filled with stuff that wants to kill her while doing her best to keep her extraordinarily whiny brother alive. Her scenes sparkle with a triumph that the other heroes can't quite approximate. He does do darkness well, though, with Wrat being uniformly creepy and sickening in equal measure, a weasel who gets elevated through luck and viciousness and barely has the weight to carry off his own petty yet lofty aims. We have bizarre witches and strange creatures, a ruler who is literally an evil sack of skin. The cacodemons kind of stop being frightening after a while but they do lead to some funny moments, like a group of heroes realizing that while magic won't work on them, beating them to death works amazingly well (the book leans toward the idea of everyone relying so much on Charm they forget how to swing swords but I feel like he abandoned wherever he was going with that).
If the book succeeds its due to that strangeness, with the geography resolutely amorphous even with a map, the locations strung together with odd names that suggest at culture and history and myth without having the usual fantasy of "we have in the nomad land now" or "this is the city of thieves". Having just watched Tarkovsky's "Stalker" for the first time maybe I'm just developing a tolerance/appreciation for people wandering through eerie landscapes for the sake of metaphor but it seems like the kind of world where the less you try to pin it down the more interesting it becomes.
Another plus is that despite it being part of a trilogy, the story started here also finishes, although not with a climax that comes anywhere near to rousing. Its realistic but after nearly five hundred pages I thought we'd get a somewhat more epic confrontation. But the journey to get there is probably like no other fantasy book I've ever read in terms of overall atmosphere and setting and what larger hints he does drop about the structure of the world (and the possible link to our world) give you an idea of the bigger picture he appeared to have explored in the remaining books of the trilogy. Fans of standard high fantasy, whether of the Tolkien variety or the "Game of Thrones" style may find it either too weird or too cold but for readers looking to venture off the beaten path this might do nicely.
February 6, 2010
To say that reading (& liking) this book as a guilty pleasure is not fair. It's good. First of all, A.A.Attanasio is the author, using a pen name for some reason, probably contractual, and Attanasio can really write. His prose verges toward purple at times and neologisms abound (or maybe using words in unique ways is more accurate), but the story is mind-blowingly strange and unsettling and unlike anything else out there: this guy was writing Weird long before it became a trendy sub-genre.
January 17, 2021
What are strange book.
On the surface, TDS is a Fantasy - it has trolls, ogres, elves, a Dark Lord for a bad guy (yes, that is what he's called... and, yes, he's that camp), and magic on an industrial scale. But there seems to be something else going on, something Attanasio never makes clear, that hints at this either being a completely different kind of Fantasy... or actually being SF.
There are so many questions. Just what is the Abiding Star that supplies magic like conventional stars give solar energy? What is the gulf that swallows things -like, for instance, souls- and seems to be a passage to other worlds in -possibly- other dimensions? Why do folk float upwards when they sleep? Why does one of the characters seem to have memories of our modern world of cities and cars (that gets mentioned once during the course of a chapter and is never even alluded to again)?
The book is a fast-paced, compelling read, colourful, with plenty of action; but, it has to be said that part of the compelling nature of TDS is from expecting an explanation as to why things are as they are... and one is never forthcoming. Are we just supposed to accept matters? Are there answers in the sequels (which, I have to admit, I'm in two minds as to whether I'll be reading)? As it stands, my overriding impression is that Attanasio doesn't know the answers himself and that he's really just making things up as he goes along.
Perhaps, then, not one to seek out with too much vigour - but, if it should come your way, don't pass up on sampling it.
On the surface, TDS is a Fantasy - it has trolls, ogres, elves, a Dark Lord for a bad guy (yes, that is what he's called... and, yes, he's that camp), and magic on an industrial scale. But there seems to be something else going on, something Attanasio never makes clear, that hints at this either being a completely different kind of Fantasy... or actually being SF.
There are so many questions. Just what is the Abiding Star that supplies magic like conventional stars give solar energy? What is the gulf that swallows things -like, for instance, souls- and seems to be a passage to other worlds in -possibly- other dimensions? Why do folk float upwards when they sleep? Why does one of the characters seem to have memories of our modern world of cities and cars (that gets mentioned once during the course of a chapter and is never even alluded to again)?
The book is a fast-paced, compelling read, colourful, with plenty of action; but, it has to be said that part of the compelling nature of TDS is from expecting an explanation as to why things are as they are... and one is never forthcoming. Are we just supposed to accept matters? Are there answers in the sequels (which, I have to admit, I'm in two minds as to whether I'll be reading)? As it stands, my overriding impression is that Attanasio doesn't know the answers himself and that he's really just making things up as he goes along.
Perhaps, then, not one to seek out with too much vigour - but, if it should come your way, don't pass up on sampling it.
January 10, 2013
This book is classic Attanasio -- a truly unique setting, prose as evocative and dense as William Gibson, characters who transcend their own humanity, and familiar tropes revisited in new ways.
I consider Attanasio the Terry Gilliam of fantasy fiction -- he creates images that are shot into your head, mythical in dimension and simultaneously familiar and alien. On its surface, The Dark Shore has all the elements of a traditional epic fantasy -- a "dark lord" who returns to seek revenge, a pair of orphans who embark on a journey to reclaim their lost country, and fierce battles against loathsome and deadly enemies.
But these elements are supplemented with Attanasio's creative quirks -- Dogbrick, the philosophical beast-man; Ripcat, the wandering thief without an identity; even the Dark Lord has more dimensions than we usually get with such a villain. The atrocities the antagonist delivers are truly appalling, plumbing the depths of terrifying evil without lingering overlong.
I won't lie, AAA's prose is sometimes challenging. It's so poetic and packed that you have to pick your way carefully rather than charging in. Some readers are annoyed at having to learn handfuls of new words when they read. I love that sort of thing, and so The Dark Shore was a feast.
I consider Attanasio the Terry Gilliam of fantasy fiction -- he creates images that are shot into your head, mythical in dimension and simultaneously familiar and alien. On its surface, The Dark Shore has all the elements of a traditional epic fantasy -- a "dark lord" who returns to seek revenge, a pair of orphans who embark on a journey to reclaim their lost country, and fierce battles against loathsome and deadly enemies.
But these elements are supplemented with Attanasio's creative quirks -- Dogbrick, the philosophical beast-man; Ripcat, the wandering thief without an identity; even the Dark Lord has more dimensions than we usually get with such a villain. The atrocities the antagonist delivers are truly appalling, plumbing the depths of terrifying evil without lingering overlong.
I won't lie, AAA's prose is sometimes challenging. It's so poetic and packed that you have to pick your way carefully rather than charging in. Some readers are annoyed at having to learn handfuls of new words when they read. I love that sort of thing, and so The Dark Shore was a feast.
May 17, 2014
I first read A. A. Attanasio's The Dark Shore when I was in my early teens. At the time I read the science fiction and fantasy genres very sparsely. The Dark Shore immediately captivated me. Now some 15 years later, I don't read sci-fi or fantasy at all, preferring books and novels that try harder to recreate and lend insight into the truths of the world as we know it. Recently I decided to revisit The Dark Shore, wondering whether it would hold as much appeal for me as it had for my younger self. I was delighted to find that it held just as much, if not more.
When I was younger, I was less interested in the philosophical implications of this novel than the realism of the created worlds of Mr. Attanasio's imagination. For many readers I imagine that part of the appeal of novels and genres such as these is the fact that you get to suspend your disbelief and revel in a created world entirely different from your own. For me the opposite is true. I have found that in many science fiction and fantasy books, explanations of the workings of imagined worlds are often conspicuous and require a conscious effort on my part to suspend my disbelief which distracts me and diminishes my enjoyment of a text. This is not true of Attanasio's work. The constructed reality of The Dark Shore is so skillfully and seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of plot and character that it requires no choice on the part of the reader to endorse what is presented. The prose is smart and descriptive, utilizing word choice that allows the reader to see, hear, smell, and feel the text.
The part of the novel I particularly delighted in upon this reading is the philosophy of the work and the characters. The characters are attractive and three-dimensional and they grapple with realistic issues regarding the nature of the world. The implications and questions posed concerning love, greed, revenge, humanity, marginalization, etc are relevant in a way that I wholeheartedly endorse and are questions I would look for in texts of any other genre. Well written, Mr. Attanasio!
When I was younger, I was less interested in the philosophical implications of this novel than the realism of the created worlds of Mr. Attanasio's imagination. For many readers I imagine that part of the appeal of novels and genres such as these is the fact that you get to suspend your disbelief and revel in a created world entirely different from your own. For me the opposite is true. I have found that in many science fiction and fantasy books, explanations of the workings of imagined worlds are often conspicuous and require a conscious effort on my part to suspend my disbelief which distracts me and diminishes my enjoyment of a text. This is not true of Attanasio's work. The constructed reality of The Dark Shore is so skillfully and seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of plot and character that it requires no choice on the part of the reader to endorse what is presented. The prose is smart and descriptive, utilizing word choice that allows the reader to see, hear, smell, and feel the text.
The part of the novel I particularly delighted in upon this reading is the philosophy of the work and the characters. The characters are attractive and three-dimensional and they grapple with realistic issues regarding the nature of the world. The implications and questions posed concerning love, greed, revenge, humanity, marginalization, etc are relevant in a way that I wholeheartedly endorse and are questions I would look for in texts of any other genre. Well written, Mr. Attanasio!
May 17, 2014
I first read A. A. Attanasio's The Dark Shore when I was in my early teens. At the time I read the science fiction and fantasy genres very sparsely. The Dark Shore immediately captivated me. Now some 15 years later, I don't read sci-fi or fantasy at all, preferring books and novels that try harder to recreate and lend insight into the truths of the world as we know it. Recently I decided to revisit The Dark Shore, wondering whether it would hold as much appeal for me as it had for my younger self. I was delighted to find that it held just as much, if not more.
When I was younger, I was less interested in the philosophical implications of this novel than the realism of the created worlds of Mr. Attanasio's imagination. For many readers I imagine that part of the appeal of novels and genres such as these is the fact that you get to suspend your disbelief and revel in a created world entirely different from your own. For me the opposite is true. I have found that in many science fiction and fantasy books, explanations of the workings of imagined worlds are often conspicuous and require a conscious effort on my part to suspend my disbelief which distracts me and diminishes my enjoyment of a text. This is not true of Attanasio's work. The constructed reality of The Dark Shore is so skillfully and seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of plot and character that it requires no choice on the part of the reader to endorse what is presented. The prose is smart and descriptive, utilizing word choice that allows the reader to see, hear, smell, and feel the text.
The part of the novel I particularly delighted in upon this reading is the philosophy of the work and the characters. The characters are attractive and three-dimensional and they grapple with realistic issues regarding the nature of the world. The implications and questions posed concerning love, greed, revenge, humanity, marginalization, etc are relevant in a way that I wholeheartedly endorse and are questions I would look for in texts of any other genre. Well written, Mr. Attanasio!
When I was younger, I was less interested in the philosophical implications of this novel than the realism of the created worlds of Mr. Attanasio's imagination. For many readers I imagine that part of the appeal of novels and genres such as these is the fact that you get to suspend your disbelief and revel in a created world entirely different from your own. For me the opposite is true. I have found that in many science fiction and fantasy books, explanations of the workings of imagined worlds are often conspicuous and require a conscious effort on my part to suspend my disbelief which distracts me and diminishes my enjoyment of a text. This is not true of Attanasio's work. The constructed reality of The Dark Shore is so skillfully and seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of plot and character that it requires no choice on the part of the reader to endorse what is presented. The prose is smart and descriptive, utilizing word choice that allows the reader to see, hear, smell, and feel the text.
The part of the novel I particularly delighted in upon this reading is the philosophy of the work and the characters. The characters are attractive and three-dimensional and they grapple with realistic issues regarding the nature of the world. The implications and questions posed concerning love, greed, revenge, humanity, marginalization, etc are relevant in a way that I wholeheartedly endorse and are questions I would look for in texts of any other genre. Well written, Mr. Attanasio!
January 19, 2018
Further review to come later.
August 4, 2020
I'm not normally a fan of high fantasy-horror hybrid stories, but this was pretty good. A blend of steampunk elements are thrown into the mix. For fans of Dragon Age and Fable III.
January 2, 2022
One of the most creative and unique sci-fi reads I’ve come across.
February 19, 2020
A fairly generic sci-fantasy novel loaded with tired tropes and written in a overwrought manner, littered with unnecessary purple prose that stifles rather than elucidates.
Very disappointed after enjoying the utterly fantastic world building of 'Last Legends of Earth', which led me to read this book.
Very disappointed after enjoying the utterly fantastic world building of 'Last Legends of Earth', which led me to read this book.
December 29, 2025
From a purely narrative perspective it's onnthe surface actually a somewhat conventional narrative arc about a group of people fleeing from/fighting a monsterous dark lord's unstoppable invasion of a world of magic.
Everything else however is very idiosyncratic creative and strange. It's got the sort of wild deeply non generic creativity and fantastical fantasy that is also deeply thought out and a world where the logical consequences of the nature of the world and it's magic system have been thought through. It has a much more beguiling world.and characters than most fantasy
Well worth a read I will be interested to see where the series goes.
I will add I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator is astonishingly bad. I got.used to hereventually but she is but not good and detracts fom the book. I'd probably recommend reading if that's an option.
Everything else however is very idiosyncratic creative and strange. It's got the sort of wild deeply non generic creativity and fantastical fantasy that is also deeply thought out and a world where the logical consequences of the nature of the world and it's magic system have been thought through. It has a much more beguiling world.and characters than most fantasy
Well worth a read I will be interested to see where the series goes.
I will add I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator is astonishingly bad. I got.used to hereventually but she is but not good and detracts fom the book. I'd probably recommend reading if that's an option.
July 4, 2024
I was unaware of Attanasio until very recently, and I think it's a shame he isn't read more. Stylistically The Dark Shore is reminiscent of Jack Vance. The prose is elevated, sometimes florid, and some of the imagery is strikingly original, as when "twilight rain fell in harps over the distant isles." The world-building is informed by Attanasio's almost mystical cosmology, which regards the primordial singularity as the blissful union with the Divine from which the Big Bang was the fall from grace.
Read
June 21, 2009Fantasy
July 5, 2012
An excellent read. Fantastic writing throughout and very exciting.
November 9, 2012
Adam lee aka AAAttanasio
A fantastically weird book in a brilliantly haunting trilogy
I have it now on kindle and will reread for old timesake
A fantastically weird book in a brilliantly haunting trilogy
I have it now on kindle and will reread for old timesake
May 30, 2009
Good in parts, but rather pretentious use of language in others!
Read
July 22, 2015For a variety of reasons, I found this completely unreadable.
April 30, 2017
In short, if you love worldbuilding, you'll love this book. I love worldbuilding.
There's a plot, sure, but the main draw is the chance to explore the world and the insane physics by which it works. Attanasio works wonders with an environment both alien and well-thought-out, to the point that the reader can feel the grit under the characters' nails even as they contend with demons and cursed destinies.
Another point: the descriptive language. While again, many of the plot turning points are straightforward, Attanasio paints a verbal picture of every scene and action.
If anything, I wanted to rush through the first reading so I could go back, re-read, and luxuriate in the world and the incredible use of language.
I can't do the book justice. Read the descriptor, read the sample, and give it a shot.
There's a plot, sure, but the main draw is the chance to explore the world and the insane physics by which it works. Attanasio works wonders with an environment both alien and well-thought-out, to the point that the reader can feel the grit under the characters' nails even as they contend with demons and cursed destinies.
Another point: the descriptive language. While again, many of the plot turning points are straightforward, Attanasio paints a verbal picture of every scene and action.
If anything, I wanted to rush through the first reading so I could go back, re-read, and luxuriate in the world and the incredible use of language.
I can't do the book justice. Read the descriptor, read the sample, and give it a shot.
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