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The Blood of Roses #1-2
The Blood of Roses
An epic fantasy of eroticism, sorcery, blood and vampires, by a prolific writer of fantasy and science fiction works, who has won the World Fantasy Award on several occasions. This limited edition is signed and numbered by the author, and produced on high-quality paper with special design features..
678 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1990
6 people are currently reading
702 people want to read
About the author
Tanith Lee
615 books1,965 followersTanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of 77 novels, 14 collections, and almost 300 short stories. She also wrote four radio plays broadcast by the BBC and two scripts for the UK, science fiction, cult television series "Blake's 7."
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.
Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.
Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.
Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.
Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.
Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.
Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.
Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.
Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.
Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.
Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 8, 2019
the book is serpentine: coldblooded, winding slowly, lengthily, inexorably, its coils as deadly as its sharp poisoned fangs, dry scales colored black and red and green. black for deepest night, red for pulsing blood, green for the leafy woods. it was born in the heart of the forest but slips into places that the warmblooded frequent, searching for prey.
okay I think I've tortured that analogy enough, the book is like a snake, get it? time to move on. but I hope you appreciate snakes, like I do, because otherwise this book is not for you. and now for a synopsis.
synopsis: one character creates a second character and together they create a third character. this third character is the protagonist. so, eventually, is the second. the first character is the antagonist. the third character creates a fourth character. the second and the third characters create a fifth character. the fourth and fifth characters are also protagonists. all of these characters are born and die and are reborn. they turn into each other. they are immortal. they change and die often. confused yet? Tanith Lee doesn't give a shit if you are confused. this is her world and you are just living in it, for now at least.
the book is just that: Tanith Lee's world. I have followed this author since I was a teen and this anti-epic of epic length is the most perfect distillation of her entire ethos that I've experienced yet. her prose is ripely purple; her narrative is hallucinatory; her characters are often eerie ciphers. this book is like entering into her dreams. it makes perfect sense if you can understand its dream logic. you have to submerge your own expectations of what an epic novel looks and feels like to fully enter Tanith Lee's world of dreams and share her fascination with fate and (im)mortality and death and renewal and faith. maybe time for another synopsis now.
synopsis: there are two Gods: the Christus and the Son of the Forest. and so there are two sacrifices: both are nailed to wood, both die in service of humanity, both die to be reborn. both are worshiped, sometimes interchangeably. the ritual of drinking blood is sacred to both. are they the same God? if there is only one God, is all worship therefore to that one God? perhaps, perhaps not. one God wants to save you, the other wants to... well, that God's motivations are unknowable, like the forest. perhaps he wants to eat you?
despite her coldblooded nature, despite the coldness of the book and the uncaring quality of the world she has created, Tanith Lee is still an understanding author. this is a savage medieval world that she has borne and she understands that in such a world, women and the disabled get the shaft, in all variations of that word. this is a world controlled by men (and the women who abet them) who scorn women and who loathe disabilities, men who seldom spare a thought for the women and the disabled that they use as they would beasts of burden. and so she makes her heroes women, she makes them disabled, she makes them the most neglected and abused. this can be a tough world to read about. it can also be a grimly satisfying world to read about, as those that are trodden upon rise up, reborn, sometimes literally, to destroy those that have used them so poorly.
synopsis: the Son of the Forest has been reborn into human shape and takes mortal guise, as a priest of Christ; his powers dark and fearsome and above all, bloody. an elder son falls victim to supernatural forces and becomes misshapen, a joke among men, an easy sacrifice; he will rise again, and again. a woman is created, fulfills a purpose not her own, is discarded, is reborn; she is mother and then nemesis and then unifier. a dwarf is created, a shadow self that creates its own life, a joke that will make a joke of others, a little person that will become big. a daughter is born and then reborn, to live as chattel and slave, to live as slayer and avenger, to be a culmination. time passes, centuries like days, and these characters live on, intent on purposes unknowable even to themselves. such is life!
okay I think I've tortured that analogy enough, the book is like a snake, get it? time to move on. but I hope you appreciate snakes, like I do, because otherwise this book is not for you. and now for a synopsis.
synopsis: one character creates a second character and together they create a third character. this third character is the protagonist. so, eventually, is the second. the first character is the antagonist. the third character creates a fourth character. the second and the third characters create a fifth character. the fourth and fifth characters are also protagonists. all of these characters are born and die and are reborn. they turn into each other. they are immortal. they change and die often. confused yet? Tanith Lee doesn't give a shit if you are confused. this is her world and you are just living in it, for now at least.
the book is just that: Tanith Lee's world. I have followed this author since I was a teen and this anti-epic of epic length is the most perfect distillation of her entire ethos that I've experienced yet. her prose is ripely purple; her narrative is hallucinatory; her characters are often eerie ciphers. this book is like entering into her dreams. it makes perfect sense if you can understand its dream logic. you have to submerge your own expectations of what an epic novel looks and feels like to fully enter Tanith Lee's world of dreams and share her fascination with fate and (im)mortality and death and renewal and faith. maybe time for another synopsis now.
synopsis: there are two Gods: the Christus and the Son of the Forest. and so there are two sacrifices: both are nailed to wood, both die in service of humanity, both die to be reborn. both are worshiped, sometimes interchangeably. the ritual of drinking blood is sacred to both. are they the same God? if there is only one God, is all worship therefore to that one God? perhaps, perhaps not. one God wants to save you, the other wants to... well, that God's motivations are unknowable, like the forest. perhaps he wants to eat you?
despite her coldblooded nature, despite the coldness of the book and the uncaring quality of the world she has created, Tanith Lee is still an understanding author. this is a savage medieval world that she has borne and she understands that in such a world, women and the disabled get the shaft, in all variations of that word. this is a world controlled by men (and the women who abet them) who scorn women and who loathe disabilities, men who seldom spare a thought for the women and the disabled that they use as they would beasts of burden. and so she makes her heroes women, she makes them disabled, she makes them the most neglected and abused. this can be a tough world to read about. it can also be a grimly satisfying world to read about, as those that are trodden upon rise up, reborn, sometimes literally, to destroy those that have used them so poorly.
synopsis: the Son of the Forest has been reborn into human shape and takes mortal guise, as a priest of Christ; his powers dark and fearsome and above all, bloody. an elder son falls victim to supernatural forces and becomes misshapen, a joke among men, an easy sacrifice; he will rise again, and again. a woman is created, fulfills a purpose not her own, is discarded, is reborn; she is mother and then nemesis and then unifier. a dwarf is created, a shadow self that creates its own life, a joke that will make a joke of others, a little person that will become big. a daughter is born and then reborn, to live as chattel and slave, to live as slayer and avenger, to be a culmination. time passes, centuries like days, and these characters live on, intent on purposes unknowable even to themselves. such is life!
June 23, 2020
A long book which is split into five sections, but there are connections between all. It is far too long and convoluted for a synopsis to do it justice, but suffice to say it is set in a world with Christianity which is slightly reminiscent of old Russia, but also has a parallel pagan religion of a god who is sacrificed on a tree. Blood being spilled and drunk is a key feature of both religions. In the case of the tree religion, an ancient father tree, on which the young boys or men were sacrificed, is finally cut down by a local lord and its spirit then morphs into human form and goes looking for something. What exactly I wasn't sure, as it seemed to involve a kind of indiscrimate vengeance against certain people who are horribly put to death for no real reason, and also a determination to have a son - which can't be done directly but by creating women who are then sent off to suffer and bear children for it. Meanwhile, it enjoys an exhalted position in the semi-Christian church.
There is a lot more to it, and the storyline is not linear, but instead dots about in the timeline so that sometimes we are shown the earlier life of characters who, in an earlier section, were either at the end of their lives or else had already died. As usual, the writing is baroque and gothic and gorgeous with vivid descriptions, but I do require some involvement in the story and characters. When the characters are all not really human and are often unpleasant into the bargain, I find that alienating, so I can't award this book more than 2 stars.
There is a lot more to it, and the storyline is not linear, but instead dots about in the timeline so that sometimes we are shown the earlier life of characters who, in an earlier section, were either at the end of their lives or else had already died. As usual, the writing is baroque and gothic and gorgeous with vivid descriptions, but I do require some involvement in the story and characters. When the characters are all not really human and are often unpleasant into the bargain, I find that alienating, so I can't award this book more than 2 stars.
July 22, 2013
If you are a fan of Tanith Lee, and love her writing style for its intrinsic qualities, you will very likely love this book. Personally, I very much enjoyed it, because time spent reading it was like time spent inside the author’s dream. However, I can see that the book might not be for everyone.
In a musing on the cyclical nature of things, Lee spins a fable – and then spins it again, and again, creating characters and situations which sometimes parallel each other, sometimes loop, twist, and intertwine, meeting at junctions and arcing in tangents. Time seems to come unhinged, if the reader tries to keep track of sons, daughters and incarnations in this gothic fantasy…
The imagery and symbolism take top billing over plot: vampire moths, dark angels (or demons?), human sacrifice, decadent perversions, beautiful madwomen, religious/sacrilegious rites, (were)wolves in the forest, and innocents meeting their doom… making ones way through this prose sometimes feels like pushing ones way through dusty velvet curtains, lush and redolent of exotic incense… but a bit of an effort to get through.
In a musing on the cyclical nature of things, Lee spins a fable – and then spins it again, and again, creating characters and situations which sometimes parallel each other, sometimes loop, twist, and intertwine, meeting at junctions and arcing in tangents. Time seems to come unhinged, if the reader tries to keep track of sons, daughters and incarnations in this gothic fantasy…
The imagery and symbolism take top billing over plot: vampire moths, dark angels (or demons?), human sacrifice, decadent perversions, beautiful madwomen, religious/sacrilegious rites, (were)wolves in the forest, and innocents meeting their doom… making ones way through this prose sometimes feels like pushing ones way through dusty velvet curtains, lush and redolent of exotic incense… but a bit of an effort to get through.
April 16, 2015
Grim grim grim grim grim. Not a single moment of hope and barely any levity across the entirety of this book but I didn't dare put it down for fear of missing something. Vampirism, feudalism, fascism, feuds, moods, nudes, drams, scams, anagrams, metaphors, paramours and nevermores for most characters. Dark, twisted and completely unforgettable.
June 4, 2019
As an American Tanith Lee fan, I've been trying to get my hands on the Blood of Roses for a long time. It's only been published in the UK and is out of print. Nice hard covers can sell for over a $100. Luckily Abe Books has a few dinged paperback copies, one of which now resides on my bookshelf.
Blood of Roses is a book of Pagan Forest Gods and Christ the Redeemer. Large moths with fiery antenna roam the forest, drinking the blood of children. The initial chapters concern Mechail, the crippled son of a Forest Tower Lord. And although celibate God Brothers preach of mercy and God, forest peoples hang animal talismans on trees and even the son of the local lord participates in human sacrifice.
Blood of Roses follows dream logic and a characters are swept up in the plans of a reincarnated Pagan God whose goals are inscrutable. Events strike like lightening and characters merely persevere, rarely independent enough to make their own choices. Mechail has a strange supernatural origin, as does his mother, and certain other characters only revealed later. In this world, the Blood is the Life, the Devil can be a Wolf, a Moth, or a man hung on a cross. If all Gods understand the importance of blood, are all the gods one?
Tanith Lee's mesmeric writing style captures me like no one else. Symbols and the alchemy of words are her strengths, never plot. Her longer books feel like a long hallucinogenic journey and I am always up for the ride. However, your mileage may vary. Newbies to Tanith Lee are better served with shorter tales, this one is a long odyssey into bloody dark fantasy.
Blood of Roses is a book of Pagan Forest Gods and Christ the Redeemer. Large moths with fiery antenna roam the forest, drinking the blood of children. The initial chapters concern Mechail, the crippled son of a Forest Tower Lord. And although celibate God Brothers preach of mercy and God, forest peoples hang animal talismans on trees and even the son of the local lord participates in human sacrifice.
Blood of Roses follows dream logic and a characters are swept up in the plans of a reincarnated Pagan God whose goals are inscrutable. Events strike like lightening and characters merely persevere, rarely independent enough to make their own choices. Mechail has a strange supernatural origin, as does his mother, and certain other characters only revealed later. In this world, the Blood is the Life, the Devil can be a Wolf, a Moth, or a man hung on a cross. If all Gods understand the importance of blood, are all the gods one?
Tanith Lee's mesmeric writing style captures me like no one else. Symbols and the alchemy of words are her strengths, never plot. Her longer books feel like a long hallucinogenic journey and I am always up for the ride. However, your mileage may vary. Newbies to Tanith Lee are better served with shorter tales, this one is a long odyssey into bloody dark fantasy.
July 9, 2013
Horror/Fantasy/Epic – Epic tale told in a non-narrative structure. Pagans have offered human sacrifice to a tree. Christians put a stop to it. The blood spirit of the tree possesses the last sacrifice who becomes a priest called Anjelen – the vampire antichrist masquerading as a Christian priest. Throughout the centuries he creates various offspring, Mechkail, Anillya/Nilya, Jasha, these also create aspects of themselves/offspring each vying for freedom and identity.
Themes:
• Life/Death/Rebirth
• Nature of “self”
• The Bible/Book of Genesis
• Love/Hate relationship
• Male/Female
• Pagan/Christianity
• Evil priest
• Dwarf/Disfigurement
• Albinos
• Witchcraft
• Incest
It's like Gormenghast meets Anne Rice. VERY dense, descriptive prose but its just so damn beautiful. The description of winter as a cathedral and spring as a kind of avenging angel stuck in my mind as particularly evocative and I really liked the vampire as a moth rather than a bat. It is a bit of a slog but worth persevering with and a must for fans of gothic literature.
Themes:
• Life/Death/Rebirth
• Nature of “self”
• The Bible/Book of Genesis
• Love/Hate relationship
• Male/Female
• Pagan/Christianity
• Evil priest
• Dwarf/Disfigurement
• Albinos
• Witchcraft
• Incest
It's like Gormenghast meets Anne Rice. VERY dense, descriptive prose but its just so damn beautiful. The description of winter as a cathedral and spring as a kind of avenging angel stuck in my mind as particularly evocative and I really liked the vampire as a moth rather than a bat. It is a bit of a slog but worth persevering with and a must for fans of gothic literature.
January 12, 2021
I really enjoyed this book, which is difficult to obtain in the US. While reading, I had the impression repeatedly that the book itself was like a rose. It starts with a core plot event, then slowly unfurls from there, adding more and more layers and revealing more and more details and surprises about the initial characters (and how many who seem unrelated are all very related in actuality) until at the very end you're left seeing the whole picture-or flower-not just the center bud you started with. Probably too "flowery" a review, but it was really how I pictured it in my head. It was a strange book; it sort of plodded along and didn't have very many "likable" characters, yet I was always interested to see what was going to happen next. I may be tempted to re-read down the line, now that I would know "what" exactly was going on throughout.
December 11, 2015
Intriguing story, beautiful language. At some point towards the end I was worried about whether it would have a proper ending, and so it took me a long time to finish, but I needn't have worried. Everything was wrapped up quite nicely.
September 14, 2012
Years later and I still think of all the imagery... Sigh
October 8, 2015
This is copy 80 of 200 signed and numbered hardcover copies published by Legend in the UK.
August 29, 2024
7.5/10. Perhaps an 8/10? This is a difficult one to review. Tanith Lee is clearly a talented writer, and some of the imagery in her book is extremely evocative and beautiful. The plot and themes aren't necessarily to my taste, but this is clearly at least a step or two above most of the other books I've read recently.
July 15, 2025
Gotta love non-standard vampires. The layering of the narrative was cool too. And the pagan vs Christian vs are they really different here? That was really neat. I am very glad Jasha finally figured out how to be free.
November 23, 2017
I read roughly half of this novel last year, then didn't have time to finish it. So recently I picked it up again, and tried to start from where I left off. This book is long so I'd forgotten a lot of the details, which I'm sure subtracted from my enjoyment of the book because a lot of it is rather interwoven. Still, I tarried on and finished the novel, largely motivated by how much I remembered enjoying what I'd read of this novel last year, and the occasional burst of magnificent writing.
And there is a lot of magnificent writing here in parts. Sometimes, Lee overdoes it (as she is wont to do), and one gets tired of how everything in Lee's world, has a tendency towards extreme - the red is always incredibly red, the black incredibly black, and the beauty always otherworldly. But at other times, the writing develops a strange music of its own, and it's pretty compelling stuff that you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else (it's kind of like Loren Eiseley meets Alan Garner, which an appetite for the macabre).
I liked the fact that this was kind of a high fantasy novel in its setting (read: medieval setting with warlords along with fantastical elements), but everything was coloured with a strange tinge of horror. And the things you saw - well, I guess, things that come back from the dead and drink blood are vampires? Except this doesn't feel like a vampire novel at all, simply because there's no myth being developed, no origin story about vampires or explanation about what they are.
I liked Anjelen in the beginning (). In fact, I liked a lot of the characters, but I sort of felt the conflict felt kind of engineered. And the resolution was weird, and not particularly satisfying. But ignoring that, there's certainly stuff to enjoy here. I also found it interesting how characters kept re-emerging, at first as strangers, then we see them as rebirths of previous ones, moving through new circumstances, new times, and new peoples.
I'm trying to decide if my flagging enthusiasm for this book (I definitely remember really really liking this book) is due to the fact that I resumed reading it a year after I had stopped and so I forgot some of the details that would have given this novel better coherence, or if the novel really does start to drag a bit after around the 300-page mark. Certainly, I don't think I find the conflict convincing (unless I missed something from earlier?), so I'm subtracting points for that, alas.
Giving this 4 stars, partially because I genuinely thought this book was great in the first half, and partially because of some really wonderful evocative writing that is scattered throughout novel.
And there is a lot of magnificent writing here in parts. Sometimes, Lee overdoes it (as she is wont to do), and one gets tired of how everything in Lee's world, has a tendency towards extreme - the red is always incredibly red, the black incredibly black, and the beauty always otherworldly. But at other times, the writing develops a strange music of its own, and it's pretty compelling stuff that you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else (it's kind of like Loren Eiseley meets Alan Garner, which an appetite for the macabre).
I liked the fact that this was kind of a high fantasy novel in its setting (read: medieval setting with warlords along with fantastical elements), but everything was coloured with a strange tinge of horror. And the things you saw - well, I guess, things that come back from the dead and drink blood are vampires? Except this doesn't feel like a vampire novel at all, simply because there's no myth being developed, no origin story about vampires or explanation about what they are.
I liked Anjelen in the beginning (). In fact, I liked a lot of the characters, but I sort of felt the conflict felt kind of engineered. And the resolution was weird, and not particularly satisfying. But ignoring that, there's certainly stuff to enjoy here. I also found it interesting how characters kept re-emerging, at first as strangers, then we see them as rebirths of previous ones, moving through new circumstances, new times, and new peoples.
I'm trying to decide if my flagging enthusiasm for this book (I definitely remember really really liking this book) is due to the fact that I resumed reading it a year after I had stopped and so I forgot some of the details that would have given this novel better coherence, or if the novel really does start to drag a bit after around the 300-page mark. Certainly, I don't think I find the conflict convincing (unless I missed something from earlier?), so I'm subtracting points for that, alas.
Giving this 4 stars, partially because I genuinely thought this book was great in the first half, and partially because of some really wonderful evocative writing that is scattered throughout novel.
November 26, 2015
Read this book many years ago, loved it so much I'd love to read it again but for all my years of hunting I have never found it (other than extremely expensive second hand copies). Well worth the read if you can track one down.
Update- Kindle edition being released this November (2015). I can't wait! Also terribly sad to hear we lost Tanith Lee earlier this year. R.I.P Queen of the Dark Fiction :(
Update- Kindle edition being released this November (2015). I can't wait! Also terribly sad to hear we lost Tanith Lee earlier this year. R.I.P Queen of the Dark Fiction :(
November 1, 2020
A strange and winding tale, with Tanith Lee's wonderful prose. The most Gothic book I've ever read.
March 29, 2019
One of her best. The descriptions of landscapes and especially the architecture are just magical. It also mixes the mythologies of christianity and pagan religions in a bizarre tale of sacrifice.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews