Sombres cités souterraines (Bibliothèque voltaïque)

by Lisa Goldstein

Dans son enfance, Jerry avait été pris par sa mère comme modèle pour le héros d'une série d'aventures magiques.

Reclus, le vieil homme a été retrouvé par une jeune journaliste, Ruthie, bien décidée a obtenir une interview.

Ensemble, ils vont découvrir que la réalité ressemble étrangement à la fiction.

Dans les souterrains du métro de la ville, d'anciens mythes rôdent et des dimensions différentes sont reliées.

Autrice majeure de fantasy, l'Américaine Lisa Goldstein explore l'envers trouble des imaginaires merveilleux, dans une fantasy urbaine menée tambour battant, où s'incarnent des destins semblables à ceux de la vraie Alice ou des enfants auxquels Peter Pan fut raconté. La ville est magique mais les mythes ne sont pas sans dangers.

Genres: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Fiction, Mythology, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction

302 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Aka Isabel Glass.

Lisa Goldstein (b. November 21, 1953 in Los Angeles) is a Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award nominated fantasy and science fiction writer. Her 1982 novel The Red Magician won the American Book Award for best paperback novel, and was praised by Philip K. Dick shortly before his death. Goldstein writes science fiction and fantasy; her two novels Daughter of Exile and The Divided Crown are considered literary fantasy.

Elizabeth Joy "Lisa" Goldstein's father was Heinz Jurgen "Harry" Goldstein (b. June 08, 1922 in Krefeld, Germany; d. May 24, 1974 in Los Angeles), a survivor of concentration camp Bergen-Belsen; her mother, Miriam Roth, was born in Czechoslovakia and survived the extermination camp Auschwitz. Her parents came to the United States in 1947 and met in an ESL class.

She has published two fantasy novels under the pen name Isabel Glass. She chose to use a pseudonym to separate the novels from her other work. The "Isabel" is from Point Isabel, a dog park, and "Glass" was chosen because it fits Tor's requirements for pseudonyms.

With her husband since 1986, Douglas A. "Doug" Asherman, she lives in Oakland, California.

Reviews

[Pandora Black · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5 on va dire, comme le livre que j'ai lu avant. les idées sont bonnes, l'intrigue pourrait être chouette, mais ça manque de chair, de développement, comme les personnages qui du coup, ne suscitent pas beaucoup d'intérêt.

[Math le maudit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sombres cités souterraines est un roman qui m'a laissé perplexe. Il y a plein de bonnes idées dedans, un univers assez riche (qui m'a un peu rappelé American gods, toute proportions gardées) et de quoi faire une histoire palpitante.

Or, ce n'a été qu'en partie le cas pour moi. Le livre n'est certes pas raté, mais m'a laissé un sentiment de trop peu et d'une fin un peu trop brusque, surtout comparée à la lente mise en place préalable.

Et donc, après ce long préambule, de quoi est-ce qu'on cause ? Le roman reposant quand même pas mal sur le secret, et les énigmes, je ne vais évidemment pas trop en dire. Toutefois, un peu de mise en contexte. Le récit débute à Oakland, en Californie, autour de l'histoire d'une série de livres jeunesse à succès, la série des Jerémy Jones.

Sorte de Harry Potter des années 60, le héros de la série semble avoir été inspiré par le jeune fils de l'auteure (qui porte le même nom que le personnage de plume). D'aucuns disent même que les récits des romans sont directement issus de l'imagination de son fils, et que si la qualité des ouvrages a baissé après le tome 4, c'est parce que Jérémy avait cessé de raconter ses histoires à sa mère.

Partant de ce constat et de ce léger mystère quant à l'origine de cette série, une jeune journaliste va se lancer dans l'élaboration d'un livre enquête autour de la série des Jérémy Jones et se mettre en quête du vrai Jérémy Jones qui est désormais un homme d'une cinquantaine d'années.

Évidemment, ce qui s'annonçait comme une banale plongée dans le passé des protagonistes va se révéler bien plus compliqué que prévu, la frontière entre les récits de Jérémy et la réalité étant finalement plus ténues qu'on aurait pu le croire.

On a en effet à faire à un roman d'urban fantasy, où se mêlent les grands mythes humains à notre bon vieux XXe siècle (le récit semble se dérouler dans les années 90). On croise au fil des pages surtout des avatars de la mythologie égyptienne (comme le laisse deviner l'illustration de couverture), mais aussi un peu de mythe arthurien.

Si l'idée de retrouver les mythes humains (parfois sous forme archétypales, parfois pleinement incarnés) cachés dans les méandres des réseaux de métro du monde entier est plaisante, je l'ai trouvée finalement trop peu exploitée. Le roman souffre clairement à mon goût d'un déséquilibre entre sa mise en place nimbée de mystères, et sa résolution qui balance un peu ses révélations à l'emporte-pièce à la fin. Trop d'éléments sont survolés, peu ou pas expliqué et j'ai été un brin frustré.

Après, comme dit plus haut, je n'ai pas non plus détesté ce roman. Il lui a juste manqué un petit quelque chose pour que j'y trouve mon compte.

[V. Briceland · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a conspiracy theory, Lisa Goldstein's attempt to link Egyptian mythology to world subway systems, Victorian archaeology, children's fantasy literature, and thought control is a goldmine of weird tin-foil hat spooky good stuff. As a literary fantasy, however, Dark Cities Underground is a bit of a mess. Despite an engaging premise, her characters never really connect with each other or their audience; they seemingly are stuck in the very archetypal ruts they fear from their repeated visits to the underworld.

I've read this book three or four times at this point, and still can't really figure out what happens in the book's muddled, confusing second half. Like most conspiracy theories, Goldstein's novel isn't rewarded by too close an examination, or applying even literary logic to its madcap multiple mythologies.

[Elysia · Rating 3 out of 5]

C'est un petit 3. Disons un 2,5 arrondi au dessus. Y a des bonnes idées et des moments sympas, mais... Eh.

[Prospero · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember being moderately impressed by this book when I read it a few years ago, but when I was describing its themes to a friend over a phone call earlier today, I realized just how fancifully brilliant its underlying premise was.

Imagine discovering that the ancient Egyptian gods are still alive, and living deep beneath the London Underground, and have been doing so for thousands of years, and have now recruited entire populations to come and live with them, and that there's a war going on between two sides: the "good" side trying to preserve the force of creative anarchy that allows for natural growth and evolution, and the "bad" side trying to impose order and mechanical precision on this anarchy to make it more predictable and manageable. And now imagine that everything that goes on between them underground has a consequential effect on our behaviors in societies above ground, much like a magnet held underneath iron filings on a sheet of paper pulls and organizes them into discernible patterns. The good guys are trying to stop the bad guys from turning us into above ground automata moving around in predictable clockwork patterns set up by their minions underground through their control of our collective unconscious. And visitors who spend too much time in this world slowly become literary archetypes and can't leave, becoming character templates in turn that inspire further stories in the societies above ground.

Now imagine your kid gets lost in the London Underground, discovers this world, and the bad guys want to sacrifice him to make their master plan come true for eternity.

Tying together ancient Egyptian mythology, underground train networks, children's fantasy literature, Victorian archeology and Campbell/Jung archetypes into this sprawling theory of literature and its influence upon our lives, applying a standard literary analysis to this novel will make it fall short of expectations.

If you pick up this book, read it purely for the theory of art and society that the author is trying to communicate, which is basically that we become the art that we consume on a daily basis, until one day, there may be no distinction between the two. We become the stories we consume, and in a world of digital saturation such as we live in today, where the rate at which content being force-fed to us against our will has become impossible to resist, choosing what to consciously allow into our minds (and why) has never been more pressing (and arduous) a challenge.

[Melissa McShane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think I was in the right mood to read this book. Objectively, I think it's very good, but it felt like Tim Powers lite--which is probably unfair to it. The blend of mythologies, the child stumbling on an archetypal space and witnessing the events of the Osiris myth playing out, give it a mystical feel that's well balanced by the semi-mundane war between the builders of the London Underground. It made me want to go there just to see how the reality matches up with the fiction.

[Farah Mendlesohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved this when I first read it. Now it feels a little staid, and I wanted so much more of the transportation systems. But I liked it very much for it's sense of 'childhood is another country'.

[Marc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grâce à ce roman, j'ai découvert la plume de Lisa Goldstein, et ce fut une découverte intéressante.
Avec Sombres Cités Souterraines, l'autrice déploie une Fantasy urbaine qui exploite les origines mythiques et merveilleuses du genre de la Fantasy, tout en nous montrant que les récits pour enfants ne sont pas toujours ce qu'ils semblent être, en dépit des apparences.
https://leschroniquesduchroniqueur.wo...

[Carol · Rating 2 out of 5]

Goldstein's books seem to be kind of hit or miss. This one's a little of both. It's an urban fantasy novel about Ruthie, a journalist, and Jerry, the son of a famous children's author, who discover that Neverwas, the world of the books, is actually real. It's the Nether Lands, an underground place of myth and archetypes which in the modern era has become connected to the world's subway systems. It's actually a pretty neat idea, and I particularly liked the way that Goldstein focuses on Egyptian mythology. However, I thought that the book was way too short. I wished that Goldstein had slowed down and spent a lot more time on just about everything: characters, setting, manifestations of myth, etc.

[James Brigham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads like a series of notes for what could have been a much more interesting magical realism / urban fantasy tale. Characters are pretty forgettable and few speak with any sense of authenticity. It reads quickly but I don't think I'll be keeping this one on my shelf.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book: imaginative, well-written, and well-plotted. My only complaint is that the dialogue between characters doesn't ring quite true.

[Amber Scaife · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this one is that all those children’s stories that we’ve been told were written by parents for their kids were actually true stories told by the children to their parents, who then exploited what they thought were just the vivid imaginations of their offspring. But the kiddos all went to the same underground world (because children can travel between worlds more easily than adults), and it’s the Underworld inhabited by Isis and Osiris and, most disturbingly, Set. Set’s trying to recover his old power and has manipulated the building of city subway systems around the world to build, essentially, a big power circle, or something, that will somehow do…something…? But one of the children who visited the realm is now all grown and wants to try to stop him.

Yeah, again, a cool idea but the execution didn’t live up to the potential and it really seemed to fall apart toward the end.

[Apocryphal Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dark Cities Underground is a novel in the mythology-comes-alive-in-the-modern-world vein (think Jim Butcher or Joe Abercrombie) of which there seems to be... well, a lot on offer, frankly. I enjoyed this one more than I enjoyed the other authors mentioned, even though I think Goldstein spends much of second half of the book trying not to trip over her own plot and I'm not really sure the whole set-up was very convincing.

But I did like the prose and the nods to Egyptian, Arthurian, and even modern fantasy myth (Tolkien, Grahame, Barrie, and other authors of modern Children's fantasy are brought into the monomyth). The characters were mostly interesting and kept me on my toes. Dark Cities Underground finds itself somewhere between Brian Catling's The Vorrh (for it's imagery and creative characters) and Seth Grahame-Smith's Unholy Night (with it's goofy and unconvincing villain). There's a huge amount of space between these books, so I'm not sure how revealing that is. 3.5 out of 5

[Sahar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Update lecture : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieUMQ...
Un voyage envoûtant mêlant monde moderne, mythologie égyptienne et contes pour enfants ! Une histoire qui casse les barrières entre les mythes, les civilisations et le cadre spatio-temporel pour vous transporter au grès des pérégrinations des personnages.

Je suis une grande amatrice de mythologies antiques donc ce côté là m'a énormément parlé mais il y avait aussi l'intelligence avec laquelle l'auteure a pu lier tous ces contes pour enfants avec la mythologie pour en sortir quelque chose de presque magique et inattendu.

Bref, j'ai trouvé que ce roman se prête autant à la lecture par des enfants à partir de 12/13 ans mais aussi par les adultes. C'est un roman qui peut se lire "en surface" comme un conte mais dont les nuances peuvent donner de la profondeur et dans ce cas toucher un public plus adulte, plus susceptible de comprendre les thèmes assez sérieux et profonds qui y sont abordés.

Une magnifique découverte que je ne peux que vous conseiller de lire ;)

[Agnese.Solfrinigmail.Com · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun! Adventurous, well written, though non extremely original (extremely derivative of Neverwhere, and that garden quote was straight out of Oz, and the shadow committee sounds like abarat absolute midnight), disappointed for absence of pirates who were promised. Overall very enjoyable, nice interweaving of real, almost real, fantasy, conspiracy.

To read if you liked neverwhere by gaiman!

[Ghostcat · Rating 1 out of 5]

The subject seemed quite interesting, a mix of urban fantasy with mythology through the undergrounds networks around the world. But I had troubles with everything in this book. The story doesn't make any sense, the development has no structure, characters are impossible to get attached to, they have no personality, no deepness, and the dialogues are by far the worst I've read in a long time.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting concepts but there was a lot going on here - too many threads vying for attention and none really fully satisfying. The characters started off fairly likeable, but never fleshed out and remained very superficial portrayals. The ending was a let down, more of a synopsis than an actual story.

[Safronia · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai beaucoup aimé toutes les allusions à la littérature jeunesse classique, ainsi que la mythologie créée et emprunté pour l'histoire.
Par contre, les personnages étaient un peu plats à mon goût....

[Richard Legault · Rating 4 out of 5]

A marvelous urban fantasy. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and the imaginative idea that the underground provides a gateway to the land of the dead. I also loved the connection to historical events, real places, and other stories where children are swept off into magical worlds. Highly recommended.

[Steve Vaughn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this gem I picked up at a used bookstore. It was jam packed with references to childrens books (such as The Chronicles of Narnia, Peter Pan), Egyptian mythology, and public transit systems... and it worked splendidly.

[Gene · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like it, but a little too predictable.

[Jean-Pascal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ça commence plutôt bien comme un bon gaiman. Puis ça s'accélère ; les péripéties et les personnages se multiplient et très rapidement on n'y croit plus du tout. Sentiment de gâchis.

[Res · Rating 2 out of 5]

The one where young Jeremy Jones used to tell his mother stories of the world he found when he went through the door in the tree, and she wrote them up into bestselling books. Now he's grown up, and the world on the other side of the door is real and out to get him.

The first half of the book spends more time in the real world than in the fantastic one, and it's tell-y, boring, and deeply improbable. (The fantastic creature comes to the lawyer and says, "Do this for us and we'll bring your dead husband back to life," and she says, "OK!" without asking a single question or stopping to think that this is a little bit unlikely.)

Once we actually get into the fantastic world, things get a little more interesting, but there are still problems. I mean, it's typical of fantastic quest stories that they involve a lot of traveling from place to place, a lot of meeting odd and eccentric people and trying to figure out where their loyalties are and get them to do things for you; it's up to the author to make the travel feel purposeful and assure that you can tell the eccentrics apart, and here again, all that is done by telling rather than showing.

My chief reason for seeking this out was to see how it used the city of San Francisco in a fantasy narrative, and the answer is that it mostly didn't. You spend pages riding BART trains, but if you didn't already what they sound like, whether they're clean or dirty, what kind of people ride them, etc., the book certainly wouldn't tell you.

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lisa Goldstein has long been on the list of writers I thought I should read something by sometime, and now she's on the list of writers I want to read everything by.

The set up for Dark Cities Underground reads like something from the manual of how to write a novel that appeals to me: Ruthie Berry is writing a book about the author of a beloved series of children's stories a la Barrie, Milne, Lewis, Grahame, et al. She manages to get an interview with the reclusive author's son, Jerry, the template for the books' hero Jeremy. Strange things start to happen, and Jerry starts to remember things he's forgotten since childhood . . . and I'm hooked.

Goldstein does two things extremely well in this book. She reworks mythic tropes into a modern day setting (reminding me a bit of Neil Gaiman, particularly Gaiman's Neverwhere, with which Dark Cities Underground shares some superficial plot points). And she cunningly weaves real historical data and figures into her fantastic plot, recalling Tim Powers' magnificent fantastic alternate histories. She pulls off some other neat tricks, not least of which is to use plot devices that might threaten a reader's suspension of disbelief, and then making them absolutely integral to the plot and thematic development.

This novel completely sidestepped my critical detachment. I had the sense that some of the concluding chapters felt a tad rushed, but that's probably mostly a reflection of my desire for the book to have more pages in it.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really, really great ideas in this book; not great execution. I love the idea that many of the great children's stories, like "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Peter Pan", were told to adults by children that had experienced these magical tales first hand. This basically is able to link several childhood (and adulthood) favorites to experiences had in the "Dark Cities Underground" or Neverwas.

I didn't like the adult protaganists at all, and unfortunately, most of the book is spent with them in the real world. I also felt like at times the author would forget where characters were... there would be pages of Ruthie centric action/dialogue and then all of a sudden there would be a forced reminder that Jerry was also in the room.

However, I gave it three stars because the last 100 pages or so of the book involved more of Neverwas and Ruthie's small child, Gilly. Gilly at times seemed a little composed and worldly for being as young as she is supposed to be. Also, I love books that take place in the SF Bay Area, especially since this promised to make use of Colma, a tiny SF suburb that has a higher population of dead people than living people, it's strange and it lends itself to fiction, but it wasn't really the point in this book and mostly, the characters just spend a lot of time on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit).

[Nora Peevy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! Combines Egyptian myth of the Underworld with a secret underground subway system around the world. Children over time have slipped into this world and brought back their own stories, which then became The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan, just to name a few classics. But the stories are all true! A wonderful concept. I have never read another book like it, but if I had to describe her story it would be like Neil Gaiman meets Tolkien meets Kelly Link. I think the Endictott Studio and Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling would be proud of this myth revamp. Highly recommend it. And who wouldn't want to step through a doorway in a tree to another world, grown or pint-sized? I have never read Lisa Goldstein before and now will be checking her other books out from the library. If you like urban fantasy, check out this novel.

More review will follow on my blog later this week.

And here's the link to my book review blog entry containing this one:

http://norabpeevy.blogspot.com/2011/0...

[Scottsdale Public Library]

If you ever read the Chronicles of Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, or Peter Pan and searched for magical lands in wardrobes as a child, you will probably enjoy this book. In Dark Cities Underground, E. A. Jones wrote a series of books about a boy who travels into the realm of Neverwas. However, when Ruth Berry begins her research for a book about this famous author, she discovers that the adventures were based off stories her son, Jeremy, told her as a child -- Stories that were more than the imagination of a young child, but actual experiences in another realm. Jeremy is now an adult and together they discover that there is a sinister connection that involves the Gods of Egyptian mythology, the Holy Grail, and the San Francisco BART subway station. Try this book if you want something imaginative and different. – Wendy M.

[JW · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read, not a barn burner, but enjoyable. A teeny bit Narnia-ish but not quite. More like Neverwhen in that regard. Modern fantasy, a bit like American Gods.

Okay, wait, Lisa Goldstein is not (as far as I can tell) a Gaiman ripoff. Don't think that.

It's a POV jumper, but there are two major protagonists. One is the son of a writer who uses his nightmares of adventures in an underhill type parallel realm to write books and get rich. He's angsty. The other is a single mother writer trying to get him to interview for a book about mom. She's earnest.

They end up having adventures. There's kind of a love story but it's more integral to the plot than a lot of grafted on let's-get-a-girl-in-here crap.

[Mike Vasich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really more of a 3.5 star. I loved the idea of mythic characters and themes replaying themselves in the 'underworld' of the subway system, and Egyptian myths were fun to read about, especially since they are often a tad neglected in pop literature for their more popular Greek and Norse cousins (yes, I'm complicit in this phenomenon).

The story worked best when it was focused on Jerry and his realizations of his past. Ruthie was an okay character, but I didn't feel she was as fleshed out as she could've been. I did find some of the plot to be overly complex near the 2/3 mark where the author introduced the Sneath character. It felt like a larger novel mashed into a smaller one.

A worthwhile read for anyone interested in mythology and their interplay in the 'real' world.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Jerry was a child, his mother wrote a bestselling series of books based on stories he told her. Now, as an adult, he is estranged from her, feeling she stole his childhood. Yet when strange people start popping up in his life, he begins to realize that the stories he told his mother may have been true...

This is an appealing, entertaining novel that, like Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, makes use of the London Underground as a setting. Goldstein does some really unique things with folklore and mythology, and the result by and large is quite good. Still, there was something about it that seemed "off" to me, as though parts of the plot were rushed or not fully explained.