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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Sabella, or the Blood Stone - 4/5
Tanith Lee has been an author I've been meaning to read for a while now, she's a part of the generation of sci-fi/fantasy/horror writers who started in the late 20th century who've just been widely forgotten about outside of a few large exceptions but at the time were huge, until the 90s killed the publishing industry they were a part of. She wrote in a lot of genres and styles and all that, but Sabella is one in the "goth horror, complex gender/sexuality" subcategories which vibes with the whole goth subculture coming around in the late 70s/early 80s.
A lot of what I would have to say about the gender/sexuality aspect, which is by far the most interesting aspect, would involve spoiling the whole book so I'm going to leave that aside for now. Let's just say there's a lot of mutual masochism: sexual and not, desired and not.
Talking about the goth horror and Sabella instead. Lee is great at realising a depressed character without leaving them inert or shut in. Everything in this book is from Sabella's perspective, locked in her head, but through how she interacts with people () she does come across, at least to me, as outwardly projecting confidence, she can use her ability to snare people to do the s e x and drink their blood and everything but is very much still locked in that internal limbo depression can leave you in. It does get a little much, especially given Sabella can come across at times like that tropey "Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette" (I mean, she is a vampire), and wangsty at times, especially in a few of the Church scenes, but overall it came across well for me.
The little much did add to a trashiness, which I liked, as did the wolves which worked in context but were quite silly. It reminded me of an exploitation film in a way, that’s a complement, which a lot of "genre" books at this time were given how disregarded 99% of them were by any sense of making them respectable or widely appealing. You can then tackle what a wider public would consider a strange subject matter through the vampire lady who makes men orgasm a lot when she bites their neck and drinks their blood.
Lee's writing itself is excellent. The styling of the prose is excellent, and you can tell a lot of care went into each sentence to make it as evocative as it could be without overstuffing them with flowery language.
So yeah, a long post to say it’s good, it’s short, and that I guess I will be looking at more of Tanith Lee’s books soon.
Tanith Lee has been an author I've been meaning to read for a while now, she's a part of the generation of sci-fi/fantasy/horror writers who started in the late 20th century who've just been widely forgotten about outside of a few large exceptions but at the time were huge, until the 90s killed the publishing industry they were a part of. She wrote in a lot of genres and styles and all that, but Sabella is one in the "goth horror, complex gender/sexuality" subcategories which vibes with the whole goth subculture coming around in the late 70s/early 80s.
A lot of what I would have to say about the gender/sexuality aspect, which is by far the most interesting aspect, would involve spoiling the whole book so I'm going to leave that aside for now. Let's just say there's a lot of mutual masochism: sexual and not, desired and not.
Talking about the goth horror and Sabella instead. Lee is great at realising a depressed character without leaving them inert or shut in. Everything in this book is from Sabella's perspective, locked in her head, but through how she interacts with people (
Spoiler
who aren't JaceThe little much did add to a trashiness, which I liked, as did the wolves which worked in context but were quite silly. It reminded me of an exploitation film in a way, that’s a complement, which a lot of "genre" books at this time were given how disregarded 99% of them were by any sense of making them respectable or widely appealing. You can then tackle what a wider public would consider a strange subject matter through the vampire lady who makes men orgasm a lot when she bites their neck and drinks their blood.
Lee's writing itself is excellent. The styling of the prose is excellent, and you can tell a lot of care went into each sentence to make it as evocative as it could be without overstuffing them with flowery language.
So yeah, a long post to say it’s good, it’s short, and that I guess I will be looking at more of Tanith Lee’s books soon.
Read for my resolution to read Classic Sci-fi AND because it's spooky season.
5/5 stars
Sabella, or The Blood Stone is a Gothic sci-fi novel set on Novo Mars--not the Mars of our universe. It follows a young woman named Sabella Quay who is allergic to sunlight and needs to drink blood every so often. Yes, she's a vampire, and we know right off the bat. Sabella has been invited to her maternal aunt Cassi's funeral, where she meets a mysterious young man named Sand Vincent and is gifted a mysterious miniature coffin by her late aunt. Her aunt reveals to her, via a will, that she knows what she is and God has ordered her to destroy her. Pursued by Sand, Sabella tries to live as normal as a life as she can. But she's a vampire. So, Sand is entranced by her, and she needs to feed. And the wolves of Novo Mars call to her.
This is something completely different; and it's a great treat to my first Tanith Lee read. I consider this book the precursor to [b:Gideon the Ninth|42036538|Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)|Tamsyn Muir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538._SY75_.jpg|60943229], being a proper mishmash of Gothic and science fiction; albeit Gideon the Ninth is more Lovecraftian than Sabella. Lee makes it work for this genre mashup, and her lush, beautiful prose is the fine thread that is able to stitch everything together.
There are some of the traditional Gothic tropes found in the novella. A madwoman, an old house with a tragic backstory, and dark, undergrown (Martian) caverns that hold terrifying secrets. However, Lee does something different with them. The madwoman, Sabella's mother, is long dead and Sabella reflects on what happened between the two of them from when she was eleven--when she emerged from an old Martian cavern after her first period--up until her death. However, Sabella's mother still haunts the story, or at least Sabella herself. Her ghost haunts the old house where she died, metaphorically speaking. The Martian caverns themselves are different as they are the source of the vampire.
Ultimately, this is the story of woman wondering at her monstrosity, her Otherness, if you will, and wondering whether to flee from it or embrace it. When she was younger, Sabella would lure boys who catcalled and hit on her to drain their blood. She killed the first handful by accident and was terrified, but she eventually taught herself to only drain so much without killing. Some of these earlier encounters ended more horrifically for her. One man even raped her outside her house while her mother watched and did nothing. Her mother, too horrified by Sabella's initial ignoring of the catcalling boys and then further horrified by her vampirism, eventually became mad. This one fear hangs over Sabella and makes her question embracing her monstrosity.
Sabella is a fleshed out character. She is hiding a lot, she has to, but her spikes of rage and sorrow can really be felt throughout the novella. She is a literal monster wondering if she is to be considered beast or human. She even puts forth this question under religion. The religion on Novo Marts is Christian Revivalism; truthfully, it is just a slightly futuristic Catholicism. Nonetheless, Lee employs Christian symbolism and language around Sabella's journey. Sabella is a vampire with religion, though she isn't the most reverent follower. In fact, at one point Sabella calls Jesus a vampire (hello Midnight Mass); He shed His blood for the world so all could drink from it and be freed, and when people did not understand Him they drove (many) wooden stakes through Him. Sabella considers this thought blasphemy, but from what you learn about her along the way she also hopes that it's true. She wants a savior.
Sabella's desire for a savior ties into into her emotional reactions, and also her relationship with all the men in the book. As stated before, Sabella is often catcalled and hit on by men and some of those interactions end disastrously for her, other times disastrously for the men. There is a commentary about men being dangerous here, though it is more shown than told and not beaten over your head. Sabella being a vampire turns the danger against the men, but Lee's commentary goes more deeper than simply "Men are dangerous to women by default and women would have to become monsters to be actually dangerous to men" (a mouthful there, but you know what I'm referencing). As Sabella lets us into her mind behind these interactions with these men, particularly her uncle, Sand, and Sand's alluring brother Jace, we eventually see the power dynamics between men and women, but also, what Sabella truly wants out of these men.
She wants a savior. She wants someone not afraid of her monstrosity. Someone who she doesn't have to take from for selfish needs nor simply give him pleasure to satiate his typical male desires. Sabella wants what any person would want out of another: to be actually loved, to be actually seen. And, not to spoil things, Sabella eventually finds that through her monstrosity.
The other characters in the book, again mostly all men, do not get as huge a focus besides Sabella. Sand and Jace are pretty fleshed-out as is Sabella's mother despite being dead, but I think they fit into their roles well. Some of the smaller side characters like Sabella's aunt don't get much development but I wasn't totally bothered by that. I do wish that Sabella had more positive interactions with other women in the book.
This is an interesting study of a woman embracing her monstrosity. I've seen a lot of authors, even today, of any gender struggling with this. Sometimes they even back out of the descent into monstrosity. The vampire is a good choice for this motif because of the vampire's near constant sexualized Otherness and how its blood-sucking nature can tie into a woman's menstruation but also the blood of Christ in Catholicism. Additionally, there is some added imagery with the Martian wolves Sabella used to hunt with as a child. Feral creatures with base needs who primarily seeks sustenance and live on the outskirts of civilization.
This is truly a different but still haunting Gothic novel. I enjoyed it very much. This last part I am putting under spoilers, but I need to get it out anyway.
Tanith Lee truly did something different than everyone else, and it is utterly profound.
5/5 stars
Sabella, or The Blood Stone is a Gothic sci-fi novel set on Novo Mars--not the Mars of our universe. It follows a young woman named Sabella Quay who is allergic to sunlight and needs to drink blood every so often. Yes, she's a vampire, and we know right off the bat. Sabella has been invited to her maternal aunt Cassi's funeral, where she meets a mysterious young man named Sand Vincent and is gifted a mysterious miniature coffin by her late aunt. Her aunt reveals to her, via a will, that she knows what she is and God has ordered her to destroy her. Pursued by Sand, Sabella tries to live as normal as a life as she can. But she's a vampire. So, Sand is entranced by her, and she needs to feed. And the wolves of Novo Mars call to her.
This is something completely different; and it's a great treat to my first Tanith Lee read. I consider this book the precursor to [b:Gideon the Ninth|42036538|Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)|Tamsyn Muir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546870952l/42036538._SY75_.jpg|60943229], being a proper mishmash of Gothic and science fiction; albeit Gideon the Ninth is more Lovecraftian than Sabella. Lee makes it work for this genre mashup, and her lush, beautiful prose is the fine thread that is able to stitch everything together.
There are some of the traditional Gothic tropes found in the novella. A madwoman, an old house with a tragic backstory, and dark, undergrown (Martian) caverns that hold terrifying secrets. However, Lee does something different with them. The madwoman, Sabella's mother, is long dead and Sabella reflects on what happened between the two of them from when she was eleven--when she emerged from an old Martian cavern after her first period--up until her death. However, Sabella's mother still haunts the story, or at least Sabella herself. Her ghost haunts the old house where she died, metaphorically speaking. The Martian caverns themselves are different as they are the source of the vampire.
Ultimately, this is the story of woman wondering at her monstrosity, her Otherness, if you will, and wondering whether to flee from it or embrace it. When she was younger, Sabella would lure boys who catcalled and hit on her to drain their blood. She killed the first handful by accident and was terrified, but she eventually taught herself to only drain so much without killing. Some of these earlier encounters ended more horrifically for her. One man even raped her outside her house while her mother watched and did nothing. Her mother, too horrified by Sabella's initial ignoring of the catcalling boys and then further horrified by her vampirism, eventually became mad. This one fear hangs over Sabella and makes her question embracing her monstrosity.
Sabella is a fleshed out character. She is hiding a lot, she has to, but her spikes of rage and sorrow can really be felt throughout the novella. She is a literal monster wondering if she is to be considered beast or human. She even puts forth this question under religion. The religion on Novo Marts is Christian Revivalism; truthfully, it is just a slightly futuristic Catholicism. Nonetheless, Lee employs Christian symbolism and language around Sabella's journey. Sabella is a vampire with religion, though she isn't the most reverent follower. In fact, at one point Sabella calls Jesus a vampire (hello Midnight Mass); He shed His blood for the world so all could drink from it and be freed, and when people did not understand Him they drove (many) wooden stakes through Him. Sabella considers this thought blasphemy, but from what you learn about her along the way she also hopes that it's true. She wants a savior.
Sabella's desire for a savior ties into into her emotional reactions, and also her relationship with all the men in the book. As stated before, Sabella is often catcalled and hit on by men and some of those interactions end disastrously for her, other times disastrously for the men.
Spoiler
Such as Sand's spiral into total, unkempt devotion for her as she drains his blood which leads to his eventual death.She wants a savior. She wants someone not afraid of her monstrosity. Someone who she doesn't have to take from for selfish needs nor simply give him pleasure to satiate his typical male desires. Sabella wants what any person would want out of another: to be actually loved, to be actually seen. And, not to spoil things, Sabella eventually finds that through her monstrosity.
The other characters in the book, again mostly all men, do not get as huge a focus besides Sabella. Sand and Jace are pretty fleshed-out as is Sabella's mother despite being dead, but I think they fit into their roles well. Some of the smaller side characters like Sabella's aunt don't get much development but I wasn't totally bothered by that. I do wish that Sabella had more positive interactions with other women in the book.
This is an interesting study of a woman embracing her monstrosity. I've seen a lot of authors, even today, of any gender struggling with this. Sometimes they even back out of the descent into monstrosity. The vampire is a good choice for this motif because of the vampire's near constant sexualized Otherness and how its blood-sucking nature can tie into a woman's menstruation but also the blood of Christ in Catholicism. Additionally, there is some added imagery with the Martian wolves Sabella used to hunt with as a child. Feral creatures with base needs who primarily seeks sustenance and live on the outskirts of civilization.
This is truly a different but still haunting Gothic novel. I enjoyed it very much. This last part I am putting under spoilers, but I need to get it out anyway.
Spoiler
We eventually learn that Sabella is not exactly a vampire. As a child she went into the Martian caverns and came out with the titular blood stone. Later on, we learn that a little girl's bones were discovered in the caverns by construction workers and that the bones belong to Sabella. Sabella learns through Jace that both she and he are actually the ancient Novo Martians. The real Sabella died as a young girl when vampire Sabella copied her, replicated her body, or whatever she did (it's intentionally ambiguous but uses the book's common mirror symbolism to describe it) and came out of the caverns. The same happened with Jace. Sabella and Jace are united in the end, in their monstrosity. And I love itTanith Lee truly did something different than everyone else, and it is utterly profound.
Reading this book is like facing a blinding light, unleashed for a short period of time, which then makes you look at the darkness differently.
P.S. Cool writing. Love the style.
P.S. Cool writing. Love the style.
Le ultime 15/20 pagine sono state la parte più interessante, tutto il precedente è dato da pare di scarso interesse (almeno per me) che avrebbero potuto lasciare molto più spazio all'idea finale.
Peccato.
Peccato.
Better, much better, than expected. I'm pretty sick of vampires these days, but found this fresh (in a slightly dated way). Short of time now but will try to expand later.
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Just re-read this book in a day (8-Jan-2011) and: loved it all over again! Realised that these themes have been haunting me since my first reading (whenever that was - 20 years ago?): self, belief, isolation, burial, transformation, and of course redemption.
Loved Lee's lyrical, active descriptions & the physical awareness (self-awareness?) of her prose. Thought this a much more rich, dense book than SILVER METAL LOVER, though I know a lot of people would disagree with me. Brilliant take on the vampire trope.
Loved Lee's lyrical, active descriptions & the physical awareness (self-awareness?) of her prose. Thought this a much more rich, dense book than SILVER METAL LOVER, though I know a lot of people would disagree with me. Brilliant take on the vampire trope.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
First read 09/2024
Although this is the eighth Tanith Lee book I've read, it's the first since I signed up to Storygraph, so perhaps some background is in order. Lee steadily built up a name for herself in the 70s and 80s, writing primarily dark fantasy, dark sci-fi, and gothic horror, and was particularly known for her luscious, sensual writing (often called purple prose, but, in Lee's case, that was rarely a criticism). Her career struggled through the 90s and 00s as publishers became leery of her work, but began to pick up again before her death in 2015, thanks to the rise of small presses and internet sales. In an interview she went so far as to say that one editor-in-chief had told her, "I think this book is terrific. It ought to be in print. I can't publish it—I've been told I mustn't." So why the dropoff? My theory is that Lee's horror was too disquieting; rather than throwing in a few monsters and some gratuitous bloodshed, it often revolved around sexuality and power. The rapes are not dwelt on in detail, but neither are they elegantly insinuated and alluded to. They are an unmistakable blot upon the page, impossible to overlook. But her works cannot be neatly placed in the category of feminist fiction. The women are typically beautiful, delicate, and more-or-less passive. The rapes rarely lead into revenge plots, and when they do, vengeance comes not in the form of straightforward, enjoyable violence, but may well be more disturbing than the inciting event (I am thinking particularly of Jehanine from The Book of the Damned). When revenge comes from external sources, it seems less to be cosmic retribution than a continuation of the senseless violence that pervades the world (Johanos Martin, The Book of the Mad). But in both these cases, there are plenty of complicated sex/gender politics to be teased out.
Was Lee tapping into misogynistic fantasies by depicting the perpetration of sexual violence against highly sexualised women? Was she pursuing a feminist agenda all of her own, delving into messy mysteries of desire and eroticism in relation to femininity and victimhood? Was she a tasteless horror writer who churned out sensationalist books by the dozen? Perhaps a little of all of these.
I am overstating the sexual element of Lee's work, because it's an aspect I think particularly makes it stand out from the crowd—but it is only an aspect. She also has a knack for using Christianity, not in the evangelical mode of many Christian writers, but in the style of fantasy authors who plunder Celtic and Norse mythology for deeply rooted symbols and narratives, and this appears in full force in Sabella. The prose often seems to take on a brusque, punchy style reminiscent of crime noir, before slipping back into Lee's habitual descriptive habits. It works, as does Sabella's tendency to refer to herself occasionally in the third person. The setting is retrofuturistic, even by the standards of 80s sci-fi: the self-playing cassette tapes are typical of other books written at the time, but Christian Revivalism, ore-mining boomtowns, and mail delivered once a month to colonial houses all evoke the period of the American Wild West, a little way behind the frontier. Even the sci-fi fans who like to complain that the inaccuracy of writers' 'predictions' have tarnished their works should be willing to go along with this one. All the old Gothic staples have been given a fresh coat of pain: terrible passion, loss of control, revenge, day and night, light and shadow, inheritances (both mundane and supernatural), domination and manipulation, struggling against one's very nature, against one's faith... It's tremendously compelling, and the introduction to this edition gives away just the right amount of information. It plays constantly with sexual politics of power, and while I wouldn't say it gets it right per se, it never fails to be interesting.
I have to laugh every time the protagonist is referred to as Bella. I wonder what Stephanie Meyer and her Mormonism would have made of all this.
Although this is the eighth Tanith Lee book I've read, it's the first since I signed up to Storygraph, so perhaps some background is in order. Lee steadily built up a name for herself in the 70s and 80s, writing primarily dark fantasy, dark sci-fi, and gothic horror, and was particularly known for her luscious, sensual writing (often called purple prose, but, in Lee's case, that was rarely a criticism). Her career struggled through the 90s and 00s as publishers became leery of her work, but began to pick up again before her death in 2015, thanks to the rise of small presses and internet sales. In an interview she went so far as to say that one editor-in-chief had told her, "I think this book is terrific. It ought to be in print. I can't publish it—I've been told I mustn't." So why the dropoff? My theory is that Lee's horror was too disquieting; rather than throwing in a few monsters and some gratuitous bloodshed, it often revolved around sexuality and power. The rapes are not dwelt on in detail, but neither are they elegantly insinuated and alluded to. They are an unmistakable blot upon the page, impossible to overlook. But her works cannot be neatly placed in the category of feminist fiction. The women are typically beautiful, delicate, and more-or-less passive. The rapes rarely lead into revenge plots, and when they do, vengeance comes not in the form of straightforward, enjoyable violence, but may well be more disturbing than the inciting event (I am thinking particularly of Jehanine from The Book of the Damned). When revenge comes from external sources, it seems less to be cosmic retribution than a continuation of the senseless violence that pervades the world (Johanos Martin, The Book of the Mad). But in both these cases, there are plenty of complicated sex/gender politics to be teased out.
Was Lee tapping into misogynistic fantasies by depicting the perpetration of sexual violence against highly sexualised women? Was she pursuing a feminist agenda all of her own, delving into messy mysteries of desire and eroticism in relation to femininity and victimhood? Was she a tasteless horror writer who churned out sensationalist books by the dozen? Perhaps a little of all of these.
I am overstating the sexual element of Lee's work, because it's an aspect I think particularly makes it stand out from the crowd—but it is only an aspect. She also has a knack for using Christianity, not in the evangelical mode of many Christian writers, but in the style of fantasy authors who plunder Celtic and Norse mythology for deeply rooted symbols and narratives, and this appears in full force in Sabella. The prose often seems to take on a brusque, punchy style reminiscent of crime noir, before slipping back into Lee's habitual descriptive habits. It works, as does Sabella's tendency to refer to herself occasionally in the third person. The setting is retrofuturistic, even by the standards of 80s sci-fi: the self-playing cassette tapes are typical of other books written at the time, but Christian Revivalism, ore-mining boomtowns, and mail delivered once a month to colonial houses all evoke the period of the American Wild West, a little way behind the frontier. Even the sci-fi fans who like to complain that the inaccuracy of writers' 'predictions' have tarnished their works should be willing to go along with this one. All the old Gothic staples have been given a fresh coat of pain: terrible passion, loss of control, revenge, day and night, light and shadow, inheritances (both mundane and supernatural), domination and manipulation, struggling against one's very nature, against one's faith... It's tremendously compelling, and the introduction to this edition gives away just the right amount of information. It plays constantly with sexual politics of power, and while I wouldn't say it gets it right per se, it never fails to be interesting.
I have to laugh every time the protagonist is referred to as Bella. I wonder what Stephanie Meyer and her Mormonism would have made of all this.
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The female (vampire) protagonist is constantly assaulted and abused by men and even goes on to excuse the abuse. I was very unhappy with the relationship at the end of the book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Rape, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Murder, Sexual harassment