Clouds End

by Sean Stewart

"Stewart's beautifully lucid, poetic prose makes for a narrative of commanding power and enchantment that echoes the best of Le Guin and Tolkien." — Booklist
"An astonishing, wise, beautiful work, full of the terror and wonder and love and power of life and legend intertwined." — Locus
The island people of Clouds End are united by their history, an abundance of tales relating heroic struggles and the emergence of their land from the dreaded Mist. The preservation of their traditions is entrusted to a tribal Witness, who foretells the future and enshrines the past with stories of memorable lives. Young Brook longs for adventures that will culminate in her role as a Witness, and her journey begins when Jo, a shapeshifting "haunt" who sometimes assumes the guise of a seagull, forms her exact double. "Twinning" is a fearful fate since only one of the two can survive and both usually come to untimely ends.
The end seems very near at hand with the sudden pressure of an imminent attack by the forces of a mad emperor from beyond the sea. The threat forces Jo and Brook into an uneasy alliance to defend Clouds End. Together with other young islanders, they set sail to confront the forces of evil and fulfill their destiny.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Magic, Canada

400 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1996

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Sean Stewart (born June 2, 1965) is a U.S.-Canadian science fiction and fantasy author.

Born in Lubbock, Texas, Sean Stewart moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1968. After stints in Houston, Texas, Vancouver, British Columbia, Irvine, California and Monterey, California, he now lives in Davis, California, with his wife and two daughters.

He received an Honors degree in English from University of Alberta in 1987, following which he spent many years writing novels. He gradually moved from writing novels to interactive fiction, first as lead writer on the Web based Alternate Reality Game The Beast.

He served as a consultant on several computer games, and was on the management team of the 4orty2wo Entertainment experiential marketing and entertainment company, where he was lead writer for Haunted Apiary aka ilovebees and Last Call Poker. His newest novel Cathy's Book seems to represent the melding of his two careers, as it crosses the alternate reality game format with a teen novel. In 2007, he and several 4orty2wo co-founders left that company to start Fourth Wall Studios.

Awards:
* Arthur Ellis Award Best First Novel winner (1993): Passion Play
* World Fantasy Award Best Novel winner (2001): Galveston

Reviews

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Sean Stewart and I wish he hadn't given up on writing fantasy. His books are always a treat and pay back tenfold the effort put into them by the reader. _Clouds End_ was Stewart's "pure fantasy" novel, not the mixed urban fantasy with science fictional elements type of story that the majority of his works seem to fall into. I have to admit that the first time I tried to read this book I didn't like it. I still think that Stewart wasn't fully successful in realizing what he was attempting , but this novel still has some of Stewart's best writing, character development, and a truly marvellous vision of a magical world.

Stewart has said that he wanted to write an epic fantasy in the mould of Tolkien, but from his own agnostic perspective as opposed to the religiously infused one of Tolkien. The world he creates is truly magical. We start out on the island of Clouds End, a place that exists on the very edge of the magical otherworld known as the Mist. The Mist is the place from which mankind draws their myths and stories, both good and evil, and seems to interact with the human psyche in some sort of symbiotic way, bringing to life the unconscious dreams of those on its periphery. In this sense it is something like Ryhope Wood as seen in Robert Holdstock's classic _Mythago Wood_, though it seems to be creating the world around it in a much more concrete fashion even as it participates in the generation of myths and heroes; for the Mist produces gods and powers, giving physical substance to the folk heroes and villians of mankind. It also changes any humans who enter its depths, making them into Haunts, something akin to the preternatural fae of our more traditional mythologies. We see examples of the former in the world changing figures of the Gull Warrior and Sere, one apparently a folk hero of the island dwellers, the other a trickster god of fire and chaos; the latter comes directly into the story in the form of Jo, a human who had entered the Mist and became a shapeshifter who now longs to regain a human soul.

The main characters are a group of four young friends, all inhabitants of Clouds End, who are drawn into a quest when one of their number, Brook, is "twinned" by Jo and is now mystically bound to her. They decide to follow Jo in her quest to the mainland and become embroiled in a war undertaken by the Emperor of a far land under the malign influence of the fire-god Sere. As usual with Stewart each of these characters are fully realized and interesting people, from the uncertain and apprehensive Brook and solid and dependable Rope, to the adventure seeking and rash Shale and the mercurial and love-lorn Foam. As well, true to form, Stewart's depiction of magic is spot-on. Magic is seen as a numinous and capricious force that touches human lives in unexpected and usually dangerous ways. This is not simply science by another name, it is the unknown and the unknowable taking part in our everyday lives; our dreams and nightmares come to life.

The story is full of exceptional scenes and characters and I found it a joy to read simply for the sake of Stewart's prose, but I have to admit that I don't think it ultimately worked as an example of epic fantasy. The supposed reason for the overall quest, the war being waged by the empire of the forest dwellers against the islanders, seems to peter out without really requiring any intervention on the part of the main characters. It is actually their individual stories that hold more interest, and follow much more reasonable arcs, than the supposed meta-plot of the novel and I think Stewart would have been better served to have simply told their stories without attempting to force them into the context of an 'epic fantasy quest'. Still, I think Stewart has written a worthy book in _Clouds End_ and it is exceptional both for its similarities to his other work and, perhaps moreso, because of its differences.

Also posted at Shelf Inflicted

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off I should perhaps state that I don’t fundamentally disagree with anything I said in my original review of _Clouds End_ ,except for perhaps one point, and I feel that this book deserves a four star rating, not my original 3 which was a bit stingy all things considered.

I’ve probably said it in every Sean Stewart review I’ve done before and I’ll say it once again because it needs saying: it’s a damn shame that Sean Stewart isn’t writing novels anymore. He is, without a doubt, one of the best authors I’ve ever had the privilege of reading. He excels from nearly every angle I view his work whether it be craft, characterisation, or the realization of a ‘real’ fictional world. He is an incredible stylist who somehow manages to create writing that is poetic without being flowery; stylistic without being ornate or overwrought. His deft hand with characters allows him, with only a few broad strokes, to create even minor characters that seem to breathe with life and personality. All of Stewart’s characters are real people whose lives are as complex and difficult as our own. Their ‘reality’ is as fraught with pain, anger, joy, and sadness as any I have seen in the real world so that even when they only appear for a few moments or pages, a minor piece of ‘set dressing’ in any other author’s hands, all of his characters provide his vivid worlds with realistic anchors amidst the often wild and amorphous magic that surrounds them. And magic? No one writes magic as convincingly as Stewart. He has a way of expressing the wonder, awe, and pure danger that comes about when the numinous intrudes into the mundane world that I’ve never seen equaled. What is that line from C. S. Lewis in regards to Aslan? “He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.” Well Stewart’s magic is just as wild and even more convincing.


I will forego giving any kind of description of the story and characters here, you can find that in my original review linked above, instead I’d like to discuss my major complaint from the aforementioned review: namely that Stewart was less than fully successful in his attempt to create a truly epic fantasy. Well, from a conventional perspective I still think this is mostly true. The climax or resolution of the main conflict, the war between the Islanders and the Woodlanders, seems too easy, too quickly resolved, but my re-read has prompted me to consider that perhaps this is because it is not the true conflict of the story after all. The real struggle is the one between Brook and Jo after the twinning at the beginning of the novel and all else is merely (is that too strong a word?) a pretext for this to play out. The ‘great war’ that is a backdrop is really just a reiteration of the conflict between magic and the mundane that lies at the heart of Brook and Jo’s story. Now, does this perhaps still mean that the tale is a little less than ‘epic’? Perhaps, but perhaps it would be more fair to say that the ‘epic’ has to be qualified. It is the epic that lives in the contrast between the ‘great’ events of the world at large and everyday life, or as Stewart says himself in the book: “Great fires fall to ash, and great stories turn to small ones.” The great can be a mirror of the small just as easily as the other way around and the two types of story intermingle and grow from each other in a symbiotic way as Stewart implies in the book when he speaks of leaf stories on the one hand and root on the other: the Mist-time tales of great magic and adventure that blaze into life like autumn leaves and demand our attention, as well as the ‘real’-time stories of our mundane lives which are more boring perhaps, but also more solid and the very things that nourish and produce the other type.


In the end I think one could still argue that Stewart did at least ‘side-step’ the epic in this tale if not fully miss it, but I am more inclined to be sympathetic, especially given how excellent the story is overall, and knowing that I am not likely to get any new ones from this master again.

[Cera · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tried reading this years ago, when I first discovered Stewart, but was put off by the language. This time it fell perfectly into place with my other reading, and I devoured the novel quite rapidly. It's dense and peculiar and structured very unusually for a novel -- which I guess shouldn't surprise me, given the structure of Nobody's Son, but this is even more obviously an attempt to get away from the normal 'rising, peaking, falling' form we're taught is The One True Story in school.

Does it succeed? I'll need to reread it to have a clearer opinion of its craft, but I think it does. And it does a lot more than trying to tell a story in a new way. The novel presents a fantasy world that felt a little Patricia McKillip-like around the edges, but new for all that, and characters who have strong desires and interesting flaws, and there's some nice stuff in there celebrating both traditional gender roles for those that like them, and non-traditional ones for those that don't. There's also an interestinglook at magical creatures from both the side of the creature and the side of the humans who are simultaneously threatened by and fascinated with them. There are cultural clashes in which both cultures are examined sympathetically.

As I write down these quick, fragmented descriptions, I find myself frustrated, because plenty of fantasy novels a lot less interesting than this one contain those things. I think what really strikes me, looking back on this book, is how realistic Stewart manages to be about it all. Life goes on, people change and grow, and yes, great events happen, gods and goddesses talk, quests are pursued, decisions are made -- but people have to eat, they want to stay dry, they worry about their relationships, they love people who drive them crazy, and life just keeps going on. Ordinary life is going on beside extraordinary life all the time, but most fantasy novels assume that only the extraordinary is really interesting. Stewart gives equal weight to both, and tells the reader that's what he's doing, and the result is fascinating.

[Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sean Stewart is one of my favorite authors. He wrote a stack of novels that combine great characters with unique and affecting magical worlds which I insta-recommend for anyone who likes fantasy. Every one of his books that I've read I've enjoyed thoroughly: Cloud's End, The Night Watch, Resurrection Man, and Perfect Circle. I look forward to reading his others and he's on my reread list, for when I'm tired of trying to find something good I can return to his novels for assured excellent storytelling.

Selfishly, I wish he was still novelling and I hope he returns to the form some day after retiring from the augmented reality biz.

[ambyr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this book more than it deserves, I think. It's messy; it clings so tightly to Tolkien that at times it feels like the two are a sheet-bend story of their own, with Lord of the Rings inevitably the stronger rope; the pacing is a mess. (Even Stewart himself, in interview, says that Nobody's Son--published first but written after--was an attempt to fix the flaws in Clouds End: "If you want to confound readerly expectations, don't wait 300 pages to do it: the reading protocols have gelled too hard.") And yet there are moments when it soars. Stewart's character work is stronger in his later novels, but the sense of the numinous is in full force here, as are the cultures he sketches, and the questions he raises about the purpose of stories are ones I'm still chewing over.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is beautiful, the worldbuilding is unique and inventive, and the character work is good too. This is a book that aims to make the everyday stories of home and family more significant than stories of adventure and war, and I guess it succeeded because until I reread it I had completely forgotten the adventures and war part.

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the next world over from Earthsea, a beautiful, dangerous archipelago. As ever, Sean Stewart creates something entirely new and fascinating, throws you into the middle of it, and trusts you to know how to swim.

[David H.]

Why I didn't finish this: What a weird book that I couldn't get into.

[Metaphorosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
On Clouds End, an island at the edge of the Mist, there's information that a threat is coming, and a group of young folk sets out to warn other islands, only to find even more danger everywhere they go.

Review
It’s no surprise that I’m a fan of metaphor. Metaphors, well deployed, can bring another level to prose, and one reason I like Sean Stewart is because he uses metaphor so effectively. In Clouds End (which is everywhere sans apostrophe), Stewart seems to set out to make the most of his metaphors. Unfortunately, they escape his grasp immediately and irretrievably.

Stewart uses metaphor in two ways here: First, as a central metaphor, which is broadly sea and sailing based, with a lot of knot references. This works, but is often fairly clunky. I’m sure Stewart knows more about sailing than I do, but the references don’t come across as either natural or expert. Second, Stewart uses metaphor and imagery as ornamentation, and here’s where they escape him – the prose is so rich that it’s very difficult to tell what’s actually happening. It’s a world where metaphor is part of life via the inchoate Mist, where everything is possible and legends come to life. But most of the story happens outside the Mist, in the ‘real’ world, and even there it can be a struggle to hang on to more than just the broad outlines of the plot, especially because Stewart seems to abandon so many of its metaphors mid-stream.

The result is a muddle. Interesting world, engaging characters (though the most interesting are not well enough developed), vague and skeletal plot. It’s hard to really like as a story overall. It’s not entirely helped by an (effectively) epilogue that bluntly says that the big Story is over, and now it’s down to daily life – except it’s not, quite. I wish Stewart had really committed to that idea rather than raising it and then dropping it for highlights mixed with shards of epic.

I think Stewart is a talented author, but in this book, he doesn’t really pull off what he’s aiming for. It’s a story that’s hard to hold on to even while reading it, and, because it’s so ill-formed, doesn’t stay with you for long.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved all of Sean Stewart's books, and this one is no exception. This book stands out from his other works in being set in a pure fantasy world, mostly centered on the sailing culture of the Islanders, who live at the edge of the Mist, a place where legendary heroes and dangers dwell, and which periodically releases new islands and dangers for the islanders to deal with.

Despite my high rating, this book has some significant flaws in construction. The last third of the book hits an entirely different pace from the rest, and begins to founder. But there was something about this foundering that struck me as charming. Really, none of the main characters truly has a happy ending. But it feels as though the book conveys an appreciation for life and the mundane rituals of daily life. Through Brooks's story, we see that nothing truly good comes from her earnest wish for magic in her life. And in the end, it is her thoughts of her children and their simple daily lives that resolve her to fight her initial follies. Rope's underlying desire to be more than his steadfast self ultimately lead him to betrayal and unhappiness. Foam longs for that simple daily fact of family, but can never achieve it. And Shale, who desires adventure, seems to strive continually and in earnest, with questionable success.

There is an odd point in the story where the twins relate the story of Seven. At the end, they say, there must be a balance between struggle and despair. And Jo whispers Never give up. But in the story, Seven does give up on his futile quest to bring back his wife, and seems to achieve some measure of peace. Does this tell us to accept what we have for true happiness? Brook to not desire magic, Rope to stop secretly wishing for more in his life, Foam to accept Shale's friendship, and Shale to accept what her life is? Or is it that there must be a balance between the days we search for more and the days we accept what we have?

In the end, I gave this book four stars for not only being as tremendously entertaining as Sean Stewart's books usually are, but also for giving me plenty of food for thought.

[Cindywho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent high fantasy in a strange world pulling itself out of a mist to weave knots and waves together in a small and large story. A young woman by the sea is twinned by a haunt and she and her friends go on an adventure to end a war. (March 15, 2006)

[Kristi Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice, nice, myth and mist and mystery. The ending was ambiguous, but I'd like to know if Brook or Jo survived... I was rooting for the haunt, actually.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorite books. There is an Adventure, and Heroes/Heroines, and gods, and demonic entities, and the Gull Warrior.