What do you think?
Rate this book
The Breath of the Sun
Lamat Paed understands paradoxes. She's a great mountain climber who's never summited, the author of a tell-all that didn't really tell anything. For years she guided pilgrims up the foothills of the Sublime Mount, leading them as high as God would let them go. And then she partnered the apostate Southern priest Mother Disaine on the most daring, most blasphemous expedition in history—an attempt to reach the summit of the sacred mountain, the top of God's head. Disaine returned in triumph, claiming to be the first person since the prophet to have summited and lived. But Lamat went into hiding.
Now, late in life and exiled from the mountain, Lamat finally tells her story to her partner, Otile. It's the story of why she really wrote her first book all those years ago, how she came to be cast out from the mountain-dwelling Holoh people, and how she fled to the anonymity of the city to hide from her fame. Most of all, it's the story of her bond with Mother Disaine—the blasphemer, charlatan, and visionary who stole Lamat's life to serve her own purposes—and what really happened on their last, greatest expedition.
Now, late in life and exiled from the mountain, Lamat finally tells her story to her partner, Otile. It's the story of why she really wrote her first book all those years ago, how she came to be cast out from the mountain-dwelling Holoh people, and how she fled to the anonymity of the city to hide from her fame. Most of all, it's the story of her bond with Mother Disaine—the blasphemer, charlatan, and visionary who stole Lamat's life to serve her own purposes—and what really happened on their last, greatest expedition.
243 pages, Paperback
First published July 31, 2018
11 people are currently reading
1392 people want to read
About the author
Isaac Fellman
6 books180 followersIsaac Fellman is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Dead Collections, The Two Doctors Gorski, and The Breath of the Sun.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
July 22, 2019
Lyrical, intriguing, a bit remote
This is a lyrical, lovely novel that is reckoning with intriguingly rich themes of faith and survival and healing from trauma, but ultimately feels a bit too remote to sink into fully. That remoteness is appropriate to the setting, I suppose, but I did want a little more access to really feel the moments come fully to life.
Still, I admire the economic, painterly beauty of the prose, and I was mesmerized at times.
My other quibble is that there are three different characters’ points of view that are expressed in the course of this novel, and none of their voices ever felt truly distinct from one another. When I read a first-person narrative, I prefer to feel like I’m hearing the voice of the character, not just the voice of the author, and in this case it was a bit too much of the latter, in the end.
I will definitely be interested in following this author’s career; for a first novel, it’s remarkably self-assured and imagined, and again, the actual sentence-to-sentence craft was in fine form.
This is a lyrical, lovely novel that is reckoning with intriguingly rich themes of faith and survival and healing from trauma, but ultimately feels a bit too remote to sink into fully. That remoteness is appropriate to the setting, I suppose, but I did want a little more access to really feel the moments come fully to life.
Still, I admire the economic, painterly beauty of the prose, and I was mesmerized at times.
My other quibble is that there are three different characters’ points of view that are expressed in the course of this novel, and none of their voices ever felt truly distinct from one another. When I read a first-person narrative, I prefer to feel like I’m hearing the voice of the character, not just the voice of the author, and in this case it was a bit too much of the latter, in the end.
I will definitely be interested in following this author’s career; for a first novel, it’s remarkably self-assured and imagined, and again, the actual sentence-to-sentence craft was in fine form.
March 21, 2021
It is thrilling, to be so far up. The very quality of the air is different; it conducts less of the sound of your voice, and its shallowness, its thinness, infects you. It is a small spike in your cold throat. In that narrow air, looking down over the misty land in the last few minutes of sunlight, you hear your own heart like a slow bass drum, and feel the anticipation of a good song beginning, somewhere in your bones, the percussion of the joints and the slur of the blood.The Breath of the Sun is another confirmation that an instinct that a book will be great is never to be ignored. I have waited over a year to be able to get my hands on the paperback and in the end, it was absolutely worth it.
With its gorgeous prose, unique concept, experimental structure, queerness, and complex relationships, it shot straight to my favourites and I’d even put it on the same level as The Winged Histories or even The Gray House.. I can’t praise it enough. If you’re looking for literary fantasy that’s unlike any other you’ve read before: that’s the book for you.
Lamat is a renowned author and mountain climber. Now hiding in the anonymity of a big city, she tells the truth of what really happened at her last expedition to the summit of an impossibly high mountain and her entanglement with the charlatan/priest Mother Disaine to her lover, Otile. Who leaves footnotes with little comments and inserts the odd section or two of Mother Disaine’s diary into the story.
I’m more than a bit of a sucker for the framing device of “you think you know the truth but this is what really happened” and at all points the story refused to go where stories usually go. It’s not about triumph, nor a tragedy. It’s quiet and slow and introspective and very, very queer. I don’t want to go all “not like other books” – but the general tone of it is rather hard to describe. It felt very literary and it not as much avoids fantasy clichés as sidesteps them, unaware of their existence.
The writing is absolutely beautiful, too. I cursed my decision to go for a paperback, because I wanted to highlight so many passages. But my favourite part aside from the loving descriptions of the mountain and climbing, were the paragraphs about love. I adored how none of the characters is attractive – Lamat is missing parts of her nose and cheeks due to frostbite, Otile has a face not even a mother could love, and Lamat’s former lover Courer is no beauty either – and yet.
I had always been shallow in love, had always been drawn to a certain clean, conventional beauty, a masculine beauty. But with Courer it was different. I simply underwent a process by which the things I found ordinary or ugly in her – her dirty hands, her bony nose and lantern jaw, her dry skin and pinched way of looking – became sweet, became like the things that were ordinary and ugly in my own body.(Plus avoiding the old dead horse “tragic gay” narrative by making it very clear from the start that Lamat has a loving partner now? Awesome.)
The worldbuilding is minimalistic, more deep than wide. There are only about two cities and the mountain mentioned, so the world did feel a little small for someone who is used to expansive fantasy worlds, but it works for the purposes of the story. Besides, I have always preferred cultural worldbuilding. The author more than made up for the laser-narrow scope with all the little details of cultures and religion – and the latter felt especially realistic. The way it explores faith is not something I have often (if ever) seen in fantasy, and it was deeply fascinating. Another detail I liked is how science and magic coexist in this setting and the relationship between them.
It also made me think how we should let the whole fixation on “strong female characters” go already. Reword it into “complex female characters,” perhaps. Lamat is not the most assertive of people, not a fighter in any sense of the word. But she is flawed and resilient and complex. Her relationship with Mother Disaine, who is the type to go and get what she wants no matter how much lying and cheating and using people it takes, was fascinating, though again, hard to do justice in a review. It would be easy to label one “weak” and the other “strong” but with all the value judgement those two words carry, both reductive and wrong.
Seriously though. The Breath of the Sun is, pardon the pun, a breath of fresh air. Go read it.
Enjoyment: 5/5
Execution: 5/5
Recommended to: those looking for something new, fans of literary fantasy with amazing prose, anyone looking for: realistic fantasy religions, mountain climbing, queer stories, complex relationships among complex people or ugly people finding love
Not recommended to: those who like big, expansive worldbuilding
Content warning: abuse, miscarriage
More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.
Read
December 24, 2018Oh wow, this was breathtaking. Longer review hopefully in a few days. The surprise of the year so far, for me.
Update: my review is here!
http://www.bogireadstheworld.com/nove...
_______
Source of the book: Anonymous benefactor
Update: my review is here!
http://www.bogireadstheworld.com/nove...
_______
Source of the book: Anonymous benefactor
Read
January 28, 2023An emotional reconciliation of a mountain climber who has experienced losses unique to her world, a climber whose towering mountain is her religion—her god. To summit is to be a prophet.
The protagonist writes this reconciliation of her life from the future and to her love, so the reader reads with a sense of relief that she is past the difficult times in her telling, and has found a new life. Since the protagonist writes with a sense of distance, the difficult events are uncommon, and the writer refuses the audience an exciting climax when danger and miracles occur — they’re just too sad and profound for the protagonist to write it another way — for these reasons, I’d suggest this slow novel in particular for fantasy readers who might be coping with a difficult time in their own lives.
I try to decipher audience criticism from a writer’s perspective, so here’s some of what readers are struggling with based on reviews, and translated to what I think could have been approached differently in the dev edit. There could be more breadcrumbs or cueing in the novel to make the relationships between characters clear, earlier, even while details are still unfolding. This is much harder to do when the goals are more literary, i.e. in a novel that doesn’t want to stoop to tell the reader everything, that wants to let the spaces breathe and trusts reader intelligence. Still, with that worthy goal in mind, it’s slightly under crumbed or cued. With a small cast and three fantasy names that begin with D, things begin to get confusing. Additionally, some lines are overwritten, which makes the visuals less clear and obscures the better poetic lines. More mountain-climbing detail would have been very welcome. Finally, there are entire times on the mountain wherein you will, delightfully, forget about gender, so I was surprised and disappointed to find gender slurs at the end of the book. Totally unnecessary and I would have set the book aside if they occurred earlier: it certainly detracts from the novel’s uniqueness.
Heads up: Anything past the first couple lines of the book’s description online and on the back cover is a spoiler, so look out for that. The copy reveals the plot all the way through the second act.
The protagonist writes this reconciliation of her life from the future and to her love, so the reader reads with a sense of relief that she is past the difficult times in her telling, and has found a new life. Since the protagonist writes with a sense of distance, the difficult events are uncommon, and the writer refuses the audience an exciting climax when danger and miracles occur — they’re just too sad and profound for the protagonist to write it another way — for these reasons, I’d suggest this slow novel in particular for fantasy readers who might be coping with a difficult time in their own lives.
I try to decipher audience criticism from a writer’s perspective, so here’s some of what readers are struggling with based on reviews, and translated to what I think could have been approached differently in the dev edit. There could be more breadcrumbs or cueing in the novel to make the relationships between characters clear, earlier, even while details are still unfolding. This is much harder to do when the goals are more literary, i.e. in a novel that doesn’t want to stoop to tell the reader everything, that wants to let the spaces breathe and trusts reader intelligence. Still, with that worthy goal in mind, it’s slightly under crumbed or cued. With a small cast and three fantasy names that begin with D, things begin to get confusing. Additionally, some lines are overwritten, which makes the visuals less clear and obscures the better poetic lines. More mountain-climbing detail would have been very welcome. Finally, there are entire times on the mountain wherein you will, delightfully, forget about gender, so I was surprised and disappointed to find gender slurs at the end of the book. Totally unnecessary and I would have set the book aside if they occurred earlier: it certainly detracts from the novel’s uniqueness.
Heads up: Anything past the first couple lines of the book’s description online and on the back cover is a spoiler, so look out for that. The copy reveals the plot all the way through the second act.
July 3, 2019
A breathtakingly original meditation on love, belief, loss and the absolute complexity of human relationships. This book didn’t grab me from the start, but the slow, detailed world-building and the unflinching examination of each character's deepest desires and flaws drew me down into another world each time I opened it, so that by the end, I felt that I had just inhabited their lives right along with them. The writing is beautiful; so many times I had to stop to note a passage because of how perfectly the author captured a feeling or moment with just the right choice of words. I can already tell that the ideas and characters in this book will stay with me for awhile.
August 31, 2020
This is a different book than anything I've read before. It's a book about women partnering together in a scientific,religious and physical endeavor. Lamat is hired as a mountain guide by Disaine, a scientist/priest, to summit a mountain that's never been summitted before. In fact, no one even knows how high the mountain is. This mountain is believed to be a god by Lamat's people, who live partway up it, and climbing this mountain means that one must observe rituals, be careful of taboos and realize that climbing is an act of worship.
Lamat has failed to summit once before. In doing so, she and her party broke taboos and two of her climbing partners did not make it back. Her ex-husband was ex-communicated by the community after the climb and Lamat now runs his family's bar, while he does business in the flatlands.
Disaine wants to be a scientist, but she keeps inadvertently infusing magic into her science experiments which make them nonreplicable and useless. She's also cast out by her community and is looking to make a big discovery, a dramatic mark upon the world.
The author uses a lot of word roots to let us know what she thinks of her characters. For example, Lamat could allude to mountains, or to motherhood. Disaine sounds a lot like disdain, but could also allude to "design". Most names of characters have some form of this world play.
Lamat must surmount her past, literally. She has to climb past the bodies of her dead partners in order to guide Disaine to the summit. Disaine is testing suits that will allow the two of them to breathe in a place where there will be very little atmosphere.
This book is a character study as well as a meditation on how patterns repeat themselves. It looks at what it is to be exiled and it looks at how complex relationships can be, how trust and betrayal can live together. It's a book that kept me noticing lovely turns of phrase. I knew I'd forget them after coming across them because there would always be another phrase to make me stop and think. I read this book more slowly than I usually do because the pace of the book set it up that way. Reading the book was a meditative process in itself.
It's pretty much impossible to describe this book adequately. I would read another book by this author in a heartbeat.
Lamat has failed to summit once before. In doing so, she and her party broke taboos and two of her climbing partners did not make it back. Her ex-husband was ex-communicated by the community after the climb and Lamat now runs his family's bar, while he does business in the flatlands.
Disaine wants to be a scientist, but she keeps inadvertently infusing magic into her science experiments which make them nonreplicable and useless. She's also cast out by her community and is looking to make a big discovery, a dramatic mark upon the world.
The author uses a lot of word roots to let us know what she thinks of her characters. For example, Lamat could allude to mountains, or to motherhood. Disaine sounds a lot like disdain, but could also allude to "design". Most names of characters have some form of this world play.
Lamat must surmount her past, literally. She has to climb past the bodies of her dead partners in order to guide Disaine to the summit. Disaine is testing suits that will allow the two of them to breathe in a place where there will be very little atmosphere.
This book is a character study as well as a meditation on how patterns repeat themselves. It looks at what it is to be exiled and it looks at how complex relationships can be, how trust and betrayal can live together. It's a book that kept me noticing lovely turns of phrase. I knew I'd forget them after coming across them because there would always be another phrase to make me stop and think. I read this book more slowly than I usually do because the pace of the book set it up that way. Reading the book was a meditative process in itself.
It's pretty much impossible to describe this book adequately. I would read another book by this author in a heartbeat.
January 20, 2022
Ufff, short books take me the longest.
I don't know if I enjoyed this book, i'm a bit conflicted. It is very poetic, full of metaphors and chats about God (and a mountain). I usually dont mind poetic metaphors, but dearlord the dose!! I could just think "stop comparing the balloon with a lung and get to the climbing!". I first thought this was what nagged me (which is just style stuff), but now I've found my problem is another and it hit me at the end: it ruins me when I have the impression the main character longs for things in life they have never seemed to enjoy. I mean, multiple times there are references to Lamat's love for the mountain and the bar and guiding - something that didn't manifested to me? Not amid book, not in flashback. For me, Lamat was miserable if she wasn't climbing - she was also Miserable in general (thats dragging), but you can be miserable and i can bond with you too, alright? Maybe it's a little thing but the book is short too. Anyway, stan Disaine!
I don't know if I enjoyed this book, i'm a bit conflicted. It is very poetic, full of metaphors and chats about God (and a mountain). I usually dont mind poetic metaphors, but dearlord the dose!! I could just think "stop comparing the balloon with a lung and get to the climbing!". I first thought this was what nagged me (which is just style stuff), but now I've found my problem is another and it hit me at the end: it ruins me when I have the impression the main character longs for things in life they have never seemed to enjoy. I mean, multiple times there are references to Lamat's love for the mountain and the bar and guiding - something that didn't manifested to me? Not amid book, not in flashback. For me, Lamat was miserable if she wasn't climbing - she was also Miserable in general (thats dragging), but you can be miserable and i can bond with you too, alright? Maybe it's a little thing but the book is short too. Anyway, stan Disaine!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 22, 2019
I really wanted to love this book: the folks at Aqueduct Press are friends of mine, and they were particularly excited about it (and I generally agree with them). The blurb on the front is from Sarah Tolmie, whose books I love, and who compared it to The Left Hand of Darkness.
And I did genuinely like most of it, but it didn't move me, except in spots. The story is told mostly by Lamat Paed, of the Holoh people. The whole world lives in the shadow of an incomprehensibly large mountain, which affects (or perhaps controls) everything, especially including religious and spiritual beliefs. No one has ever reached the summit of the mountain. The Holoh are roughly equivalent to the Himalayan Sherpas: the best climbers, the ones who live closest to the mountain, and often the climbing guides.
Fellman takes us through three major climbs of Lamat's -- one in the past that has shaped her life so far, and two with Disaine, an ethically dubious priest of a non-Holoh religion, and a mistress of climbing technology. In the course of their two climbs together, Lamat and Disaine find both the corpses left on the mountain after Lamat's first climb. They also find the limits of Disaine's technology, the range of Disaine's magical abilities, and Disaine's complicated relationship with the truth.
To complicate the narrative structure (interestingly), the book is a manuscript Lamat is writing for her current lover, Otile, who leaves little footnotes in the book and also provides some excerpts from Disaine's journal. The very end of the book gives us some context to Lamat and Otile's relationship.
All the pieces of a fine book are here, and sometimes they come together in a lovely prose passage or a compelling section of story. And yet, for me, much of the book felt forced, or awkward (perhaps just because Lamat is an awkward person), and didn't quite come together. Some sequences feel too long, or too short. The mountain is in some ways the best character, and absolutely makes the book worth reading.
I will definitely check out Fellman's next book; I want to see where she's going.
And I did genuinely like most of it, but it didn't move me, except in spots. The story is told mostly by Lamat Paed, of the Holoh people. The whole world lives in the shadow of an incomprehensibly large mountain, which affects (or perhaps controls) everything, especially including religious and spiritual beliefs. No one has ever reached the summit of the mountain. The Holoh are roughly equivalent to the Himalayan Sherpas: the best climbers, the ones who live closest to the mountain, and often the climbing guides.
Fellman takes us through three major climbs of Lamat's -- one in the past that has shaped her life so far, and two with Disaine, an ethically dubious priest of a non-Holoh religion, and a mistress of climbing technology. In the course of their two climbs together, Lamat and Disaine find both the corpses left on the mountain after Lamat's first climb. They also find the limits of Disaine's technology, the range of Disaine's magical abilities, and Disaine's complicated relationship with the truth.
To complicate the narrative structure (interestingly), the book is a manuscript Lamat is writing for her current lover, Otile, who leaves little footnotes in the book and also provides some excerpts from Disaine's journal. The very end of the book gives us some context to Lamat and Otile's relationship.
All the pieces of a fine book are here, and sometimes they come together in a lovely prose passage or a compelling section of story. And yet, for me, much of the book felt forced, or awkward (perhaps just because Lamat is an awkward person), and didn't quite come together. Some sequences feel too long, or too short. The mountain is in some ways the best character, and absolutely makes the book worth reading.
I will definitely check out Fellman's next book; I want to see where she's going.
March 26, 2019
This is in many ways a thoughtful novel, quiet and careful, and reminds me of the parts of Left Hand of Darkness that often get overlooked--the deeply embedded cultural experiences of religion that constrain and shape a character, the emotional intensity that an environmentally extreme long journey can draw out, the pensive first person reflective narration of a character considering huge, complex, life changing yet subtle moments of their life. The physicality of this book, and the realness of its protagonist, really moved me. I highly recommend for fans of Laurie Marks or Rosemary Kirstein. Come for the mountain climbing and icy trek across a beautiful and dangerous landscape, stay for the ambivalent and complicated relationships between older women.
June 18, 2020
I plan to write a longer review after chatting with my book club, but for now I will just say this:
Meditative, remote, and elegiac. This book embodies the climbing of a vast mountain, not just in subject but in form. You rise and fall, and each step is careful, reflective, and equal measures laborious and revealing.
Book Club: July 2020
Meditative, remote, and elegiac. This book embodies the climbing of a vast mountain, not just in subject but in form. You rise and fall, and each step is careful, reflective, and equal measures laborious and revealing.
Book Club: July 2020
July 10, 2020
2020 Popsugar Reading Challenge
2. A book by a trans or nonbinary author
3.5, I guess?
This is a hard one to rate. It's extremely well written and does exactly what it intends to with use of language. I absolutely loved the descriptions of the mountain and the snow and the cold, and I was interested in the overall story of finding out what exactly happened with the expedition/s.
That said, I am an extremely literal person who is terrible at metaphor, and introspective feelings talk, so that aspect I found it hard to engage with.
I would definitely recommend it to anyone who thinks it sounds interesting, though.
2. A book by a trans or nonbinary author
3.5, I guess?
This is a hard one to rate. It's extremely well written and does exactly what it intends to with use of language. I absolutely loved the descriptions of the mountain and the snow and the cold, and I was interested in the overall story of finding out what exactly happened with the expedition/s.
That said, I am an extremely literal person who is terrible at metaphor, and introspective feelings talk, so that aspect I found it hard to engage with.
I would definitely recommend it to anyone who thinks it sounds interesting, though.
December 2, 2021
if asam was wise and asam was kind and asam was nice, then why did he leave us?
disaine... 💔
disaine... 💔
December 3, 2018
This book sucked me right in, in the best way. The story is a written account by Lamat Paed, an experienced mountain-climber who lives on the side of a mountain so tall that space-suits are needed before an explorer can even see the summit. Lamat has already tried to reach that height once. The journey ended her marriage, killed her lover, and froze much of the skin and muscle from her face. Now she works in a tiny mountain village, running her ex-husbands bar and guiding tourists up to the monastery and the observatory. Until, that is, Mother Disaine shows up. Disaine is an outcast, a priest, scientist, and inventor. She wants to reach the top of the mountain and met God. Lamat has made a living out of lying low, but she is unable to resist the gravitational pull of Disaine's ambitions. So the pair set out upwards, Lamat rolling the dice a second time to see what, this time, the mountain will take from her. This story is queer, political, philosophical and deeply satisfying. I recommend it.
August 3, 2023
Isaac Fellman's novel is simply breathtaking. It felt so completely original and bracing, and lovely, and queer in ways that are not obvious (but that are beautiful). The structure is intricate - its form is a manuscript of a memoir, written for the eyes of the beloved, who reads as the writer goes on, and annotates with comments and occasionally, includes excerpts of other writing when it pertain to events described by the narrator. Thus, second and first person narratives intersect, and the result is rich and difficult to describe but simply done to perfection.
And then there's the world - impossible. Laws of physics both work and don't. Magic both exists and isn't quite so magical. There's bits that are absolutely modern and others that seem asynchronous (but this is a fictional world, so they aren't, and also, our own world would surely seem that way to someone looking from the outside, wouldn't it).
And it's simply beautifully written and just so well thought-out.
(If I were to think of comparisons, I think Le Guin is a good one, but also Ted Chiang.)
And then there's the world - impossible. Laws of physics both work and don't. Magic both exists and isn't quite so magical. There's bits that are absolutely modern and others that seem asynchronous (but this is a fictional world, so they aren't, and also, our own world would surely seem that way to someone looking from the outside, wouldn't it).
And it's simply beautifully written and just so well thought-out.
(If I were to think of comparisons, I think Le Guin is a good one, but also Ted Chiang.)
November 12, 2019
This is in many ways a remarkable novel, one beautifully imagined, richly characterized, and frequently deeply engrossing, but I'm not sure it's wholly successful. At the end, the whole did not quite seem to add up to its mostly estimable parts.
Perhaps because the novel is weighted so heavily towards past events and those that take up the middle of the book, or because the mountain people, the Holoh, are the most ethnographically detailed group, despite the fact that the last part of the novel takes place in a city that's clearly far more religiously and ethnically diverse, something feels unfinished, sketched in.
Nonetheless, this is a fine book, one well worth reading; surely a must for anyone interested in fantasy/science fiction that takes an anthropological perspective. Any fan of Le Guin or Maureen McHugh will find something of interest here.
Perhaps because the novel is weighted so heavily towards past events and those that take up the middle of the book, or because the mountain people, the Holoh, are the most ethnographically detailed group, despite the fact that the last part of the novel takes place in a city that's clearly far more religiously and ethnically diverse, something feels unfinished, sketched in.
Nonetheless, this is a fine book, one well worth reading; surely a must for anyone interested in fantasy/science fiction that takes an anthropological perspective. Any fan of Le Guin or Maureen McHugh will find something of interest here.
May 11, 2019
The best debut and the most Jewish fantasy I've read in a long time. Mountain climbing, God, loss, complex and difficult and queer relationships between complex and difficult and queer women.
July 11, 2020
This is a hard book to rate, because it's very unusual. I don't think it's the book for me, but I did appreciate reading it, and even more appreciated talking this over with my book club. This is a book with a literary conceit, written for the narrators partner, who she meets toward the end of the book, and who footnotes the book and at points seems to have edited it. It's not really meant for wider consumption--and I'm not sure why write a book for your partner instead of telling it, or when appropriate showing documents.
I will say that I had problems with the mountaineering (it's clear that the author hasn't climbed mountains as is clear in his bio at the end), but that didn't detract from the story (maybe because I just didn't care about the realism in mountaineering in fiction that much, at least not in a story like this). It did distract me, though, and I may have appreciated this more if it weren't for those issues, but in retrospect I don't care. This is a book that takes place on a mountain (that may or may not be God), but it's about the psychological journey, not the physical one, and abut the relationship between the people on the mountain.
I will say that I had problems with the mountaineering (it's clear that the author hasn't climbed mountains as is clear in his bio at the end), but that didn't detract from the story (maybe because I just didn't care about the realism in mountaineering in fiction that much, at least not in a story like this). It did distract me, though, and I may have appreciated this more if it weren't for those issues, but in retrospect I don't care. This is a book that takes place on a mountain (that may or may not be God), but it's about the psychological journey, not the physical one, and abut the relationship between the people on the mountain.
August 10, 2018
I'm still not sure how I feel about Lamat. But I am sure that Otile loves her, tenderly. And that Disaine needs her, for many reasons, and not only to feed her ambition. For me this book was driven by the unfolding of the many intense relationships. It's also infused with a dense theology, that I could see as being another driver of the book, for a different type of reader than me.
I love that the mountain is very much a character in the story. This is my favorite sort of book, where the setting is as rich or even richer than the plot. It brings to mind De Maurier's Rebecca, where the rich, sinister feel of Manderley drives the story as much as anything else.
A lovely book, difficult to categorize (Will there be magic? No? Yes? Is it just early science? Is it really about religion?), but a pleasure to read.
I love that the mountain is very much a character in the story. This is my favorite sort of book, where the setting is as rich or even richer than the plot. It brings to mind De Maurier's Rebecca, where the rich, sinister feel of Manderley drives the story as much as anything else.
A lovely book, difficult to categorize (Will there be magic? No? Yes? Is it just early science? Is it really about religion?), but a pleasure to read.
March 19, 2023
Subtle and quiet at first, then devastating in little ways. It made me realize as I read that in fantasy, journeys are often made for the sake of a Quest. I don't see travel/exploration for its own sake (or for religious pilgrimage, for that matter) all that often. Just a lovely, unusual book.
November 12, 2020
What a beautiful, poetic, meditative book.
June 21, 2019
This book is going to be physically painful for me to return to the library it is THAT GOOD I will definitely be buying a copy once I can find one without the author's deadname on it, even if I have to order it directly from the publisher.
The worldbuilding? Perfect, incredible, Le Guin level or better. This book immerses you in an alien landscape in all the usual ways AND in all the ways my anthropologist sensibilities always wish other authors (besides Le Guin, who also managed this) would. There's deep explorations of religion (and the characters actually acting on all the assumptions that would follow from that religion!!), food, linguistics/word etymology (occasionally Fellman takes an English word and gives it an alien etymology that fits his world which is one of the coolest ideas I've seen in sci-fi in a LONG TIME), science/medicine, architecture, everything.
The characters? Perfect, incredible, by the end felt like listening to old friends or frenemies talk to each other. There's a little bit of love-hate to everyone, and all Lamat's significant relationships feel deep and authentic and yet each one is unique in feel - from the tense back and forth with Disaine, to the nostalgia with Courer, to the sweetness and settledness with Otile. I miss hearing about them all already.
The story? Perfect, incredible, not what I expected at all. At first just reads like an odd alien climbing memoir but becomes something much much more, though I don't want to spoil anything about it even under a spoiler tag. Please just read it.
10/10 would cry about scifi mountain climbing queer women again. VERY likely to be my fave book of the year.
The worldbuilding? Perfect, incredible, Le Guin level or better. This book immerses you in an alien landscape in all the usual ways AND in all the ways my anthropologist sensibilities always wish other authors (besides Le Guin, who also managed this) would. There's deep explorations of religion (and the characters actually acting on all the assumptions that would follow from that religion!!), food, linguistics/word etymology (occasionally Fellman takes an English word and gives it an alien etymology that fits his world which is one of the coolest ideas I've seen in sci-fi in a LONG TIME), science/medicine, architecture, everything.
The characters? Perfect, incredible, by the end felt like listening to old friends or frenemies talk to each other. There's a little bit of love-hate to everyone, and all Lamat's significant relationships feel deep and authentic and yet each one is unique in feel - from the tense back and forth with Disaine, to the nostalgia with Courer, to the sweetness and settledness with Otile. I miss hearing about them all already.
The story? Perfect, incredible, not what I expected at all. At first just reads like an odd alien climbing memoir but becomes something much much more, though I don't want to spoil anything about it even under a spoiler tag. Please just read it.
10/10 would cry about scifi mountain climbing queer women again. VERY likely to be my fave book of the year.
June 14, 2022
I read it a first time a few years back and it wasn't the right time, it wasn't the story I wanted, and the narrator's love of intricate metaphors lost me along the way. But the book sticked with me and I thought about it often since, sensing that with a re-read it would probably become a favorite.
I was right. The characters of Lamat and Disaine are amazing, some of the best written characters I've ever encountered in fiction. I loved revisiting the story knowing where it was headed and I'm very excited about the author's next book.
I was right. The characters of Lamat and Disaine are amazing, some of the best written characters I've ever encountered in fiction. I loved revisiting the story knowing where it was headed and I'm very excited about the author's next book.
January 24, 2024
It’s been a while since I read a story that was told in a mix of second and first person, but as always, I don’t dislike this format at all.
───────────────────
One of the main things to note in The Breath of the Sun is the fact that it’s a story being told to someone else. Not in the same sense as The Farseer Trilogy or The Wounded Kingdom but somewhat closer to The Memoirs of Lady Trent where there is technically an audience.
In this case, Lamat wrote a book for a character named Otile detailing this story.
But, unlike the examples I gave earlier, this form of storytelling is not a one-way street, but instead, there are a lot of footnotes that contain Otile’s input as well. Either through providing commentary on what a previous part of the story entailed, or a passage from Mother Disaine’s own diaries. That may explain the thought process in some parts of the story we’re hearing from Lamat.
To me, this works out pretty well. On one hand, I’m hearing the details of the story where I already know a bit of the ending, and in another, I’m also reading new things that not even Lamat herself knows.
This in particular made an impression on me, because I’m usually not a fan of books where I know what happens later because of a line or two the author put there prior to taking me on that journey with the characters, like how it was sadly handled in some instances in The Guardians of Erum and The Calamitous Child of Socotra.
The only reason this aspect worked out well in this case is because this entire book is a flashback and the reader, already knows how it ended.
Regardless of all of this, the journey of acceptance Lamat takes when climbing the mountain with Mother Disaine, was easily the best part of it. Coming to terms of what happened, confronting your demons, forgiveness and being in incredibly dangerous situations was an incredibly interesting thing to read about.
Something like the Mountain and all of its secrets, felt like a very worthy place to basically rediscover oneself for the two ladies and above all else, for the real aims to emerge as well.
As a concept and progression, I was reminded heavily by The Memoirs of Lady Trent, which is a book series I love very much. But, unlike it, The Breath of the Sun seemed to end the very interesting part, just as soon as it got even more interesting. The Mountain is the main setting basically in the book, while of course doubling as something else, and the way the climbing happened vs how it concluded to me, left me very unsatisfied.
I do understand why it happened, but that feeling still remains.
Overall, I do believe that it’s a very interesting read, and I enjoyed myself for the most part. Though, I do wish it progressed differently.
Final rating: 3.5/5
───────────────────
───────────────────
قد مر وقت طويل منذ أن قرأت قصة تم سردها بمزيج من ضمير المخاطب والضمير المتكلم، ولكن كما هو الحال دائمًا، أنا لا أكره هذا الشيء على الإطلاق.
───────────────────
من الاشياء الرئيسية في كتاب "نفَس الشمس" هو انه احداث الكتاب تروى على شخصية من شخصياته. ليس بنفس اسلوب "ثلاثية فارسيير" او "المملكة الجروحة" بل أقرب "لمذكرات السيدة ترينت" بسبب وجود جمهور من نوع ما.
هنا, لامات كتبت هذا الكتاب والقصة ككل لشخصية تسمى أوتيل.
ولكن، على عكس الأمثلة التي ذكرتها سابقا، فإن هذا الشكل من السرد القصصي ليس سردا فحسب، ولكن بدلا من ذلك، هناك الكثير من الحواشي التي تحتوي على مداخلات أوتيل أيضا. إما من خلال تقديم تعليق على ما تطرق له جزء سابق من القصة، أو مقطع من مذكرات الأم ديسين الخاصة. والذي يعطي منظور آخر لبعض أجزاء القصة التي نسمعها من لامات.
بالنسبة لي، كان شيء جيد. من ناحية، أسمع تفاصيل قصة انا اعرف نهايتها، ومن ناحية أخرى، أقرأ أيضًا أشياء جديدة لا تعرفها لامات نفسها.
هذا بالخصوص ترك انطباعا قوي علي, لأنني عادة لست من محبي الكتب حيث أعرف ما يحدث في وقت لاحق بسبب سطر أو اثنين وضعهم الكاتب في الرواية، قبل أن يأخذني في تلك الرحلة مع الشخصيات. مثل ما كان يحدث للأسف في بعض اللحظات في كتاب "حراس ارووم وطفل سقطرى الكارثي".
السبب الوحيد الذي جعل طرح هذا الجانب بشكل جيد في هذه الحالة هو أن هذا الكتاب بأكمله عبارة عن ذكريات من الماضي وأن القارئ يعرف كيف انتهى من بدايته.
وبغض النظر عن كل هذا، فإن رحلة قبول النفس التي تقوم بها لامات عند تسلق الجبل مع الأم ديسين، كانت بسهولة أفضل جزء فيه. كان في الرحلة الممتعة جدا, تقبل ما حدث سابقا ومواجهة شياطينهم ومسامحة النفس ومواقف خطيرة للغاية.
وفي مكان كالجبل وجميع أسراره, كان مكان رائع جدا لتعيد الشخصيات اكتشاف نفسها, وفوق كل شي, اكتشاف الاسباب الحقيقية لهذه الرحلة.
كفكرة, ذكرني هذا الكتاب بشدة "بمذكرات السيدة ترينت" وهي سلسلة احبها جدا. ولكن الفرق هنا، انه كتاب "نفَس الشمس" انهى الجزء الاكثر اهمية فيه, فور ما اصبح اكثر اهمية.
الجبل هو المكان الرئيسي في الكتاب، وايضا يرمز لشيء آخر. ولكن تصرف الكاتب في رحلة التسلق ضد تصرفه في نهاية الرحلة بالنسبة لي، كان غير مرضٍ ابدا.
انا اتفهم السبب خلف هذا القرار, ولكن هذا لا يغير ابدا انه غير مرضِ بالنسبة لي.
على العموم, كان كتاب ممتع لمعظم الوقت. مع اني لا زلت اتمنى انه انتهى بصورة مختلفة.
التقييم الأخير: 3.5/5
───────────────────
One of the main things to note in The Breath of the Sun is the fact that it’s a story being told to someone else. Not in the same sense as The Farseer Trilogy or The Wounded Kingdom but somewhat closer to The Memoirs of Lady Trent where there is technically an audience.
In this case, Lamat wrote a book for a character named Otile detailing this story.
But, unlike the examples I gave earlier, this form of storytelling is not a one-way street, but instead, there are a lot of footnotes that contain Otile’s input as well. Either through providing commentary on what a previous part of the story entailed, or a passage from Mother Disaine’s own diaries. That may explain the thought process in some parts of the story we’re hearing from Lamat.
To me, this works out pretty well. On one hand, I’m hearing the details of the story where I already know a bit of the ending, and in another, I’m also reading new things that not even Lamat herself knows.
This in particular made an impression on me, because I’m usually not a fan of books where I know what happens later because of a line or two the author put there prior to taking me on that journey with the characters, like how it was sadly handled in some instances in The Guardians of Erum and The Calamitous Child of Socotra.
The only reason this aspect worked out well in this case is because this entire book is a flashback and the reader, already knows how it ended.
Regardless of all of this, the journey of acceptance Lamat takes when climbing the mountain with Mother Disaine, was easily the best part of it. Coming to terms of what happened, confronting your demons, forgiveness and being in incredibly dangerous situations was an incredibly interesting thing to read about.
Something like the Mountain and all of its secrets, felt like a very worthy place to basically rediscover oneself for the two ladies and above all else, for the real aims to emerge as well.
As a concept and progression, I was reminded heavily by The Memoirs of Lady Trent, which is a book series I love very much. But, unlike it, The Breath of the Sun seemed to end the very interesting part, just as soon as it got even more interesting. The Mountain is the main setting basically in the book, while of course doubling as something else, and the way the climbing happened vs how it concluded to me, left me very unsatisfied.
I do understand why it happened, but that feeling still remains.
Overall, I do believe that it’s a very interesting read, and I enjoyed myself for the most part. Though, I do wish it progressed differently.
Final rating: 3.5/5
───────────────────
───────────────────
قد مر وقت طويل منذ أن قرأت قصة تم سردها بمزيج من ضمير المخاطب والضمير المتكلم، ولكن كما هو الحال دائمًا، أنا لا أكره هذا الشيء على الإطلاق.
───────────────────
من الاشياء الرئيسية في كتاب "نفَس الشمس" هو انه احداث الكتاب تروى على شخصية من شخصياته. ليس بنفس اسلوب "ثلاثية فارسيير" او "المملكة الجروحة" بل أقرب "لمذكرات السيدة ترينت" بسبب وجود جمهور من نوع ما.
هنا, لامات كتبت هذا الكتاب والقصة ككل لشخصية تسمى أوتيل.
ولكن، على عكس الأمثلة التي ذكرتها سابقا، فإن هذا الشكل من السرد القصصي ليس سردا فحسب، ولكن بدلا من ذلك، هناك الكثير من الحواشي التي تحتوي على مداخلات أوتيل أيضا. إما من خلال تقديم تعليق على ما تطرق له جزء سابق من القصة، أو مقطع من مذكرات الأم ديسين الخاصة. والذي يعطي منظور آخر لبعض أجزاء القصة التي نسمعها من لامات.
بالنسبة لي، كان شيء جيد. من ناحية، أسمع تفاصيل قصة انا اعرف نهايتها، ومن ناحية أخرى، أقرأ أيضًا أشياء جديدة لا تعرفها لامات نفسها.
هذا بالخصوص ترك انطباعا قوي علي, لأنني عادة لست من محبي الكتب حيث أعرف ما يحدث في وقت لاحق بسبب سطر أو اثنين وضعهم الكاتب في الرواية، قبل أن يأخذني في تلك الرحلة مع الشخصيات. مثل ما كان يحدث للأسف في بعض اللحظات في كتاب "حراس ارووم وطفل سقطرى الكارثي".
السبب الوحيد الذي جعل طرح هذا الجانب بشكل جيد في هذه الحالة هو أن هذا الكتاب بأكمله عبارة عن ذكريات من الماضي وأن القارئ يعرف كيف انتهى من بدايته.
وبغض النظر عن كل هذا، فإن رحلة قبول النفس التي تقوم بها لامات عند تسلق الجبل مع الأم ديسين، كانت بسهولة أفضل جزء فيه. كان في الرحلة الممتعة جدا, تقبل ما حدث سابقا ومواجهة شياطينهم ومسامحة النفس ومواقف خطيرة للغاية.
وفي مكان كالجبل وجميع أسراره, كان مكان رائع جدا لتعيد الشخصيات اكتشاف نفسها, وفوق كل شي, اكتشاف الاسباب الحقيقية لهذه الرحلة.
كفكرة, ذكرني هذا الكتاب بشدة "بمذكرات السيدة ترينت" وهي سلسلة احبها جدا. ولكن الفرق هنا، انه كتاب "نفَس الشمس" انهى الجزء الاكثر اهمية فيه, فور ما اصبح اكثر اهمية.
الجبل هو المكان الرئيسي في الكتاب، وايضا يرمز لشيء آخر. ولكن تصرف الكاتب في رحلة التسلق ضد تصرفه في نهاية الرحلة بالنسبة لي، كان غير مرضٍ ابدا.
انا اتفهم السبب خلف هذا القرار, ولكن هذا لا يغير ابدا انه غير مرضِ بالنسبة لي.
على العموم, كان كتاب ممتع لمعظم الوقت. مع اني لا زلت اتمنى انه انتهى بصورة مختلفة.
التقييم الأخير: 3.5/5
June 23, 2023
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I bought a copy of this for Kindle.
Thoughts: This was an interesting book. I didn't love it but I do respect the unique way it was written. This follows a character named Lamat as she tells her current partner, Otile, the true story of her last ascent up Sublime Mount.
The story jumps between present to far past to current past. Lamat is a climbing guide but the first time she went up the mountain with her husband and friends was a disaster for all (not to mention blasphemous to the Holoh beliefs). She was able to write a book about it which brought her some fame. Then a woman named Disaine shows up who admires Lamat's book and wants Lamat to help her test out a new bodysuit that will comfortably allow them to climb to higher elevations up the mountain. Disaines weaves a series of complex lies and draws Lamat into her plot.
This story can be a bit confusing. Each chapter starts with a quote from the Holoh people's religion; they believe that Sublime Mount is the body of God. Then we usually hear a bit from current day Lamat and then back to the past to the time where Lamat was climbing with Disaine. Interspersed through her days with Disaine are flash backs to the initial climb she did with her husband and friends. Then interspersed between all of that are footnotes from her current partner Otile, who comments on Lamat's story.
This took me a very long time to read for its short length but I found it strangely enjoyable. I always enjoy stories about survival, especially mountain climbing stories; it just seems like an odd thing to want to do to me. The mystery of what really happened, both during Lamat's first climb and her subsequent climb with Disaine, really pulls you through the story. The truth is unveiled slowly and honestly wasn't that surprising, but the journey to get to the truth was intriguing.
This is not your typical fantasy story. The world-building is loose at best and the characters are all very flawed and hard to like. The writing style is very unique and the whole book is like a strange puzzle (both the mystery and the theology behind it). It is a very layered multi-faceted story that seems simple as you read it but gets more complex as you think about it.
Would I read it again? Absolutely not, this was not an easy read. I had to digest it in small chunks. Am I happy I read it? Definitely. This was an odd little book and a strangely engaging story that I will think back to a lot.
My Summary (4/5): Overall this was not an easy read but I am happy I read it. If you enjoy adventure and survival stories with an odd set of flawed characters you will probably enjoy this. This is written in a more literary style and also deals with a lot of theology, so I had to digest it in small sections. I would recommend it, but only if you are in the mood for something a bit more deliberate and thoughtful.
Thoughts: This was an interesting book. I didn't love it but I do respect the unique way it was written. This follows a character named Lamat as she tells her current partner, Otile, the true story of her last ascent up Sublime Mount.
The story jumps between present to far past to current past. Lamat is a climbing guide but the first time she went up the mountain with her husband and friends was a disaster for all (not to mention blasphemous to the Holoh beliefs). She was able to write a book about it which brought her some fame. Then a woman named Disaine shows up who admires Lamat's book and wants Lamat to help her test out a new bodysuit that will comfortably allow them to climb to higher elevations up the mountain. Disaines weaves a series of complex lies and draws Lamat into her plot.
This story can be a bit confusing. Each chapter starts with a quote from the Holoh people's religion; they believe that Sublime Mount is the body of God. Then we usually hear a bit from current day Lamat and then back to the past to the time where Lamat was climbing with Disaine. Interspersed through her days with Disaine are flash backs to the initial climb she did with her husband and friends. Then interspersed between all of that are footnotes from her current partner Otile, who comments on Lamat's story.
This took me a very long time to read for its short length but I found it strangely enjoyable. I always enjoy stories about survival, especially mountain climbing stories; it just seems like an odd thing to want to do to me. The mystery of what really happened, both during Lamat's first climb and her subsequent climb with Disaine, really pulls you through the story. The truth is unveiled slowly and honestly wasn't that surprising, but the journey to get to the truth was intriguing.
This is not your typical fantasy story. The world-building is loose at best and the characters are all very flawed and hard to like. The writing style is very unique and the whole book is like a strange puzzle (both the mystery and the theology behind it). It is a very layered multi-faceted story that seems simple as you read it but gets more complex as you think about it.
Would I read it again? Absolutely not, this was not an easy read. I had to digest it in small chunks. Am I happy I read it? Definitely. This was an odd little book and a strangely engaging story that I will think back to a lot.
My Summary (4/5): Overall this was not an easy read but I am happy I read it. If you enjoy adventure and survival stories with an odd set of flawed characters you will probably enjoy this. This is written in a more literary style and also deals with a lot of theology, so I had to digest it in small sections. I would recommend it, but only if you are in the mood for something a bit more deliberate and thoughtful.
October 23, 2018
I found out about this book at my annual visit the Aquaduct Press table at my favorite con. It Several editors I trust gushed non stop about how it's been decades since a manuscript came across their desks that they could so unequivocally green light, and it was pretty much unanimous that if I bought one book I should buy this one. It was the first of that pile of books that I read and I must say the advice was good. As a debut novel it totally kicks ass, and even as a not debut novel it was an awesome read. It pulls together elements and ideas I haven't seen recycled in lots of other sci fi. It goes there with religion in a totally un-stale way. It is about mountain climbing but avoids all the masculinist top of the world tropes that are so tiresome. The world building is really lovely and not too overdone, I left the book feeling really satisfied with my understanding of a new pocket of possible cultural sequelae (which is one of my personal favorite things about reading SF). The characters and their relationships are really nicely developed; nobody is cardboard and the pacing and depth all play out very well. This was definitely a book I did not want to put down with an ending that did not leave me feeling hollow or disappointed.
January 16, 2025
Isaac Fellman does a phenomenal job of writing magical worlds that feel as natural as our own. This book was no different. Everything is so grounded- characters, locations, relationships, decisions- that you get lost in the words on the page and feel like a ghost watching the scenes unfold in real time. The pace of the book was slow in the beginning because he had to introduce so many threads of past, present, and future story lines, but the way he weaves them together at the end is fantastic. This is an overall sad, tragic book- certain parts you will feel viscerally while other parts are more mundane? Philosophically sad? It’s hard to describe. But the characters feel so very flawed, and so very real. Their behaviors are not always morally right, but make so much sense for them. And that is a type of reading satisfying in and of itself.
There is a lot of talk around religious excommunication, and while handled beautifully and also handled with a fake religion in this fantasy world, some of the themes may hit a bit close to home for folks. If you’re in a place to handle that, I HIGHLY recommend checking out this book. It was a 4.5/5 for me, but only because I’ve read his other 5/5 work and fell in love with those characters first!
There is a lot of talk around religious excommunication, and while handled beautifully and also handled with a fake religion in this fantasy world, some of the themes may hit a bit close to home for folks. If you’re in a place to handle that, I HIGHLY recommend checking out this book. It was a 4.5/5 for me, but only because I’ve read his other 5/5 work and fell in love with those characters first!
April 14, 2024
A very wonderful Wizles recommendation that means I'm just now excited to read everything else Fellman has written.
The best description I have of this book is "what if The Spear Cuts Through Water met Into Thin Air" but, somehow, a little less depressing than either.
This book is another one that understands why it has a framing device and uses it appropriately to comment on the nature of narrative and the stories we tell ourselves while also making you realize, as a reader, that you could never tell exactly this story without the frame and it's just so good.
Also, I mean, the Holoh are not Jews, but they're not...not Jews either and I mean that as a compliment. And the parallels Fellman draws and, in particular, the way that the dominant religion punishes the Holoh for not following their divine figure and makes a mountain out of a mostly non-event and Fellman uses that (like Arkady Martine in the Tiexcalaan books) to talk about what a people becomes when they are defined by the dominant power that they are not.
It was just so smart and so good and so thoughtful and I loved it so much.
The best description I have of this book is "what if The Spear Cuts Through Water met Into Thin Air" but, somehow, a little less depressing than either.
This book is another one that understands why it has a framing device and uses it appropriately to comment on the nature of narrative and the stories we tell ourselves while also making you realize, as a reader, that you could never tell exactly this story without the frame and it's just so good.
Also, I mean, the Holoh are not Jews, but they're not...not Jews either and I mean that as a compliment. And the parallels Fellman draws and, in particular, the way that the dominant religion punishes the Holoh for not following their divine figure and makes a mountain out of a mostly non-event and Fellman uses that (like Arkady Martine in the Tiexcalaan books) to talk about what a people becomes when they are defined by the dominant power that they are not.
It was just so smart and so good and so thoughtful and I loved it so much.
January 18, 2019
This is the most original novel I've read in at least a year. While it is speculative fiction through and through, because it does not take place in our actual world, both the characters and the setting (which could probably also count as a character) feel almost too real. Honestly, there are several aspects of this book that I would usually find annoying (footnotes from an unseen character, quoting from characters' journals, tangling magic with religion), but in this case they work so well that I could see how I'd like them to work in other novels. Part of me can't believe it's a first novel, but then I think that might be why the characters seem so real and not like they've been written a hundred times before. The writing is excellent too, almost like a poem. That kept me reading through the first quarter of the book where really not much was happening and I hadn't decided if I cared about the characters or not. As an example, the first quote I wrote down (p 67) was, "I'm fine. But I try to live my life as if I'm crazy. It's the only thing that gives it any feeling at all."
October 15, 2022
Is it cliche to call a book about mountain climbing "breathtaking"? I LOVED this book. It took me longer to read than most because I found myself lingering over some phrase, some paragraph, some perfect word choice on almost every page.
Lamat Paed is a climber who ascends the Sublime Mountain. For her companions, the mountain is God, or the body of God, or the home of God, or just a mountain. Lamat's last expedition destroyed her marriage and killed her only friend. Now she starts up again with Mother Disaine: a heretic, a scientist who relies on magic, a liar who would be a prophet. This journey will cost her more than the last one.
The world of this novel is beautifully crafted, complete but yet concisely portrayed. The reader gets the sense of thousands of years of history without endless pages of background. I can't remember reading a fantasy novel that is so well focused. The folk etymology, the relgions, the character relationships at the heart of the story.... I can't say enough good things about this spectacular book!
Lamat Paed is a climber who ascends the Sublime Mountain. For her companions, the mountain is God, or the body of God, or the home of God, or just a mountain. Lamat's last expedition destroyed her marriage and killed her only friend. Now she starts up again with Mother Disaine: a heretic, a scientist who relies on magic, a liar who would be a prophet. This journey will cost her more than the last one.
The world of this novel is beautifully crafted, complete but yet concisely portrayed. The reader gets the sense of thousands of years of history without endless pages of background. I can't remember reading a fantasy novel that is so well focused. The folk etymology, the relgions, the character relationships at the heart of the story.... I can't say enough good things about this spectacular book!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews