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The Five of Cups
This is three-time IHG award-winning author Caitlin R. Kiernan's long unpublished, "lost" first novel.
The Five of Cups attempts to blend the two dominant subgenres of the contemporary vampire tale, crossing the historical Gothic with the gritty, urban realism of "splatterpunk." Grounded in the squalor of street-life in Atlanta in the early 1990s, but with an epic scope that encompasses the Irish famine of 1847, a yellow-fever epidemic in 1853 New Orleans, and the Union assault on Atlanta in 1864, Kiernan describes her novel as an "overly-ambitious jumble of competing ideas and subplots, trying to unite vampirism, the grail myth, the tarot, T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, and the Arthuriad into a single, coherent storyline.
This limited edition hardcover will be the only edition ever published and will include the following:
* The original introduction, written by Poppy Z. Brite in 1996
* A lengthy new introduction by the author
* A 1999 essay on The Five of Cups written by Kiernan for her newsletter
* Facsimiles of original notes, outlines, correspondence, rejection slips, photos, and fragments from Kiernan's files and notebooks
* Black-and-white interior illustrations by Richard Kirk
The Five of Cups attempts to blend the two dominant subgenres of the contemporary vampire tale, crossing the historical Gothic with the gritty, urban realism of "splatterpunk." Grounded in the squalor of street-life in Atlanta in the early 1990s, but with an epic scope that encompasses the Irish famine of 1847, a yellow-fever epidemic in 1853 New Orleans, and the Union assault on Atlanta in 1864, Kiernan describes her novel as an "overly-ambitious jumble of competing ideas and subplots, trying to unite vampirism, the grail myth, the tarot, T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, and the Arthuriad into a single, coherent storyline.
This limited edition hardcover will be the only edition ever published and will include the following:
* The original introduction, written by Poppy Z. Brite in 1996
* A lengthy new introduction by the author
* A 1999 essay on The Five of Cups written by Kiernan for her newsletter
* Facsimiles of original notes, outlines, correspondence, rejection slips, photos, and fragments from Kiernan's files and notebooks
* Black-and-white interior illustrations by Richard Kirk
370 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2003
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About the author
Caitlín R. Kiernan
421 books1,668 followersCaitlín Rebekah Kiernan is an Irish-born American published paleontologist and author of science fiction and dark fantasy works, including ten novels, series of comic books, and more than two hundred and fifty published short stories, novellas, and vignettes.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
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May 10, 2015This is copy 919 of 1000 signed numbered copies.
November 4, 2013
An occasionally muddled but always ambitious novel, _The Five of Cups_ is Caitlin R. Kiernan's "lost" first novel. The characters are interesting, despite the claims of those who would not represent or publish it that they are too immoral and unsympathetic, who drift through the novel in a non-chronological sequence of dreams and memories. A bit more narrative focus could have turned this interesting novel into a truly great one.
Virginia is a vampire who was created by accident when the semen of the vampire who raped her entered her bloodstream and made her one of the undead. Her unlife is a very odd one, as she passes from self-induced crisis to self-induced crisis, with violence as the means to solve all of her problems. Which is fair enough, because if I was a predator of the living, a monster of the night, I would probably just do what was easiest too. Why risk death when you can end something quickly and relatively easily with violence instead?
Virginia stumbles across a conspiracy surrounding a collection of letters regarding the Holy Grail and its supposed ability to allow vampires to transcend their accursed state to become something else. I wanted to see more of the details of this conspiracy, which remains mostly in the background to the events that transpire.
A self-professed marriage between Arthurian myths and vampirism (both the splatterpunk and Gothic types), by way of _The Waste Land_, this book feels one draft away from fantastic. It does, however, present an intriguing insight into the author's fascinations and writing processes. Much of what is missing from this novel is passion, that indescribable connection with the text that catapaults you from page one to the end. This connection was only a spider's thread away, which is perhaps all the more a shame. The narrative arc could have been more precisely formed, to add that element of investment in the story, and I hope that in future we might get to see the author's final version of this book.
On the plus side, the writing is rather poetic and flows well. Caitlin clearly relishes language and rejects the current fashion for sparse prose. Overall, this is an enticing book from Kiernan, and hopefully a promise of great things to come.
Virginia is a vampire who was created by accident when the semen of the vampire who raped her entered her bloodstream and made her one of the undead. Her unlife is a very odd one, as she passes from self-induced crisis to self-induced crisis, with violence as the means to solve all of her problems. Which is fair enough, because if I was a predator of the living, a monster of the night, I would probably just do what was easiest too. Why risk death when you can end something quickly and relatively easily with violence instead?
Virginia stumbles across a conspiracy surrounding a collection of letters regarding the Holy Grail and its supposed ability to allow vampires to transcend their accursed state to become something else. I wanted to see more of the details of this conspiracy, which remains mostly in the background to the events that transpire.
A self-professed marriage between Arthurian myths and vampirism (both the splatterpunk and Gothic types), by way of _The Waste Land_, this book feels one draft away from fantastic. It does, however, present an intriguing insight into the author's fascinations and writing processes. Much of what is missing from this novel is passion, that indescribable connection with the text that catapaults you from page one to the end. This connection was only a spider's thread away, which is perhaps all the more a shame. The narrative arc could have been more precisely formed, to add that element of investment in the story, and I hope that in future we might get to see the author's final version of this book.
On the plus side, the writing is rather poetic and flows well. Caitlin clearly relishes language and rejects the current fashion for sparse prose. Overall, this is an enticing book from Kiernan, and hopefully a promise of great things to come.
September 3, 2007
Help, the vampires got me again. This one was written by an author who claims to have requested a moratorium on vampire books. Luckily, hers is one of the better ones. It was dark and violent, but with interesting back stories and compelling narrative. Somehow it didn't seem as gratuitous and nasty as Sonja Blue. I could even pick it up during a 2am bout of insomnia and not fear the nightmare extending into my own. (April 26, 2005)
July 23, 2019
99% of the time, I have no idea what's going on in her books, I just love the way she writes.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews