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Arcady
From Library Journal:
In Williams's latest, the undulating Borders separate Presence from Absence. But Absence is released when Citizen Arouet ?the ruler of the realm?begins to mine bordermetal. With the Absence churning across the landscape, destroying everything in its path, Priest Solomon Hawken fights to save his family and their homestead, Arcady. This is a multilayered work combining ecological fantasy with concerns about both family relations and the stranglehold of military government. Recommended for fantasy collections.
In Williams's latest, the undulating Borders separate Presence from Absence. But Absence is released when Citizen Arouet ?the ruler of the realm?begins to mine bordermetal. With the Absence churning across the landscape, destroying everything in its path, Priest Solomon Hawken fights to save his family and their homestead, Arcady. This is a multilayered work combining ecological fantasy with concerns about both family relations and the stranglehold of military government. Recommended for fantasy collections.
492 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 1996
1 person is currently reading
66 people want to read
About the author
Michael Williams
40 books75 followersMichael Williams was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and through good luck and a roundabout journey through New England, New York, Wisconsin, Britain and Ireland, has ended up less than thirty miles from where he began. Over the past 20 years, he has written a number of strange novels, from the early WEASEL'S LUCK and GALEN BEKNIGHTED in the best-selling DRAGONLANCE series to the more recent lyrical and experimental ARCADY, singled out for praise by Locus and Asimov’s magazines. TRAJAN'S ARCH (to be re-released in 2019) and VINE (2018)(Blackwyrm, 2010 and 2012), two recent novels, have been revised and re-issued by Seventh Star Press as part of the new City Quartet. DOMINIC'S GHOSTS (2018) and TATTERED MEN (to be released in 2019) will complete this large and multi-faceted work.
Williams has a Ph.D. in Humanities, and teaches at the University of Louisville, where he focuses on European Romanticism and the 19th century, the Modern Fantastic, and 20th century film. He is married, and has two grown sons.
Of TRAJAN'S ARCH, he says:
“This is a story that kept entering other stories, like rooms opening into rooms in some big, unwieldy gothic mansion, both hard and necessary to tell. It takes a press with venture and backbone to bring it forth, and I believe I’ve found that press in BlackWyrm.”
VINE, a combination of Greek tragedy and contemporary urban legend, was released this summer by BlackWyrm. In this new novel, Greek Tragedy meets urban legend, as a local dramatic production in a small city goes humorously, then horrifically, awry.
Williams has a Ph.D. in Humanities, and teaches at the University of Louisville, where he focuses on European Romanticism and the 19th century, the Modern Fantastic, and 20th century film. He is married, and has two grown sons.
Of TRAJAN'S ARCH, he says:
“This is a story that kept entering other stories, like rooms opening into rooms in some big, unwieldy gothic mansion, both hard and necessary to tell. It takes a press with venture and backbone to bring it forth, and I believe I’ve found that press in BlackWyrm.”
VINE, a combination of Greek tragedy and contemporary urban legend, was released this summer by BlackWyrm. In this new novel, Greek Tragedy meets urban legend, as a local dramatic production in a small city goes humorously, then horrifically, awry.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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April 22, 2020Arcady by Michael Williams
Reviewed by Katherine E. Soto
Solomon runs from his duties as the head of the household when the responsibility of saving everyone in it overwhelms him. The world has gone berserk with the borders and absences encroaching on good lands every day destroying things in their paths. The world also has under currents of a civil war being fought. Solomon’s family calls him home from a disappointing career as a Seminarian expecting him to use the magic he learned during his education to save them and the ancestral house. Unfortunately, he knows he knows nothing. One of his brothers and a sister go in search of him and find themselves in adventures of their own. One brother is caught up in the civil war. The absences which are ruining the world end up affecting them in one way or another.
This is a strange world concocted by Michael Williams. It is a wild romp through the family’s adventures as they each try to save themselves and their world, as well as their home. If you want to read an unusual book with unusual world building, this is the one to read.
Reviewed by Katherine E. Soto
Solomon runs from his duties as the head of the household when the responsibility of saving everyone in it overwhelms him. The world has gone berserk with the borders and absences encroaching on good lands every day destroying things in their paths. The world also has under currents of a civil war being fought. Solomon’s family calls him home from a disappointing career as a Seminarian expecting him to use the magic he learned during his education to save them and the ancestral house. Unfortunately, he knows he knows nothing. One of his brothers and a sister go in search of him and find themselves in adventures of their own. One brother is caught up in the civil war. The absences which are ruining the world end up affecting them in one way or another.
This is a strange world concocted by Michael Williams. It is a wild romp through the family’s adventures as they each try to save themselves and their world, as well as their home. If you want to read an unusual book with unusual world building, this is the one to read.
January 31, 2015
In a world based on the north-central Ohio valley in which William Blake's Milton is considered a holy text, what's not to love? English majors and lovers of the Romantic movement will geek out, but there's a lot to enjoy in Arcady for everyone.
The headiness of the interspersed Milton passages is lightened with just the right dose of slapstick, and the magic parts are well-written and follow their internal rules well.
The climactic scene is a little disappointing, though. There seem to be two climactic scenes: one is a more physical one that would fit an adaptation for the big screen; the other is more thoughtful and fits the tone of the rest of the book. Maybe an editor passed the manuscript back to Williams and insisted he write in a "fight" scene.
This was my second reading of this, and I looked up relevant passages in Milton and elsewhere. This added a little to my reading, but it certainly wasn't necessary.
The headiness of the interspersed Milton passages is lightened with just the right dose of slapstick, and the magic parts are well-written and follow their internal rules well.
The climactic scene is a little disappointing, though. There seem to be two climactic scenes: one is a more physical one that would fit an adaptation for the big screen; the other is more thoughtful and fits the tone of the rest of the book. Maybe an editor passed the manuscript back to Williams and insisted he write in a "fight" scene.
This was my second reading of this, and I looked up relevant passages in Milton and elsewhere. This added a little to my reading, but it certainly wasn't necessary.
May 16, 2018
The story itself didn't really impress me, but I liked the concept of a story centered around a family: the crumbling manor home, the extended family of siblings, cousins, parents and grandparents, the landscape so familiar from childhood being consumed by a moving menace of chaotic magic. That aspect really inspired me.
May 28, 2012
4 & 1/2 stars. i liked this book a whole lot. it reminded me of the good old days when Lin Carter's Ballantyne Fantasy series first came out: opening all those books for the first time, that felt a lot like opening this one. It's a Borderland fantasy: bit of James Branch Cabell, bit of William Morris, that kind of thing. i was so disappointed to discover a whole lot of people didn't like it at all. it's a very literate book though: the text of magic is John Milton, augmented by the Commentary (romantic poets, for one). and the Absence consists of lacunae in the text, which is, if you think about it, just perfect. a book about art and beauty and time, with a whole lot of interesting characters and so much to say.
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July 22, 2015
I normally like weird, but not when it's disjointed and incoherent. Even going down the postmodernist close reading route didn't work.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews