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3.38 AVERAGE
3.38 AVERAGE
This book is classic Attanasio -- a truly unique setting, prose as evocative and dense as William Gibson, characters who transcend their own humanity, and familiar tropes revisited in new ways.
I consider Attanasio the Terry Gilliam of fantasy fiction -- he creates images that are shot into your head, mythical in dimension and simultaneously familiar and alien. On its surface, The Dark Shore has all the elements of a traditional epic fantasy -- a "dark lord" who returns to seek revenge, a pair of orphans who embark on a journey to reclaim their lost country, and fierce battles against loathsome and deadly enemies.
But these elements are supplemented with Attanasio's creative quirks -- Dogbrick, the philosophical beast-man; Ripcat, the wandering thief without an identity; even the Dark Lord has more dimensions than we usually get with such a villain. The atrocities the antagonist delivers are truly appalling, plumbing the depths of terrifying evil without lingering overlong.
I won't lie, AAA's prose is sometimes challenging. It's so poetic and packed that you have to pick your way carefully rather than charging in. Some readers are annoyed at having to learn handfuls of new words when they read. I love that sort of thing, and so The Dark Shore was a feast.
I consider Attanasio the Terry Gilliam of fantasy fiction -- he creates images that are shot into your head, mythical in dimension and simultaneously familiar and alien. On its surface, The Dark Shore has all the elements of a traditional epic fantasy -- a "dark lord" who returns to seek revenge, a pair of orphans who embark on a journey to reclaim their lost country, and fierce battles against loathsome and deadly enemies.
But these elements are supplemented with Attanasio's creative quirks -- Dogbrick, the philosophical beast-man; Ripcat, the wandering thief without an identity; even the Dark Lord has more dimensions than we usually get with such a villain. The atrocities the antagonist delivers are truly appalling, plumbing the depths of terrifying evil without lingering overlong.
I won't lie, AAA's prose is sometimes challenging. It's so poetic and packed that you have to pick your way carefully rather than charging in. Some readers are annoyed at having to learn handfuls of new words when they read. I love that sort of thing, and so The Dark Shore was a feast.
From a purely narrative perspective it's onnthe surface actually a somewhat conventional narrative arc about a group of people fleeing from/fighting a monsterous dark lord's unstoppable invasion of a world of magic.
Everything else however is very idiosyncratic creative and strange. It's got the sort of wild deeply non generic creativity and fantastical fantasy that is also deeply thought out and a world where the logical consequences of the nature of the world and it's magic system have been thought through. It has a much more beguiling world.and characters than most fantasy
Well worth a read I will be interested to see where the series goes.
I will add I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator is astonishingly bad. I got.used to hereventually but she is but not good and detracts fom the book. I'd probably recommend reading if that's an option.
Everything else however is very idiosyncratic creative and strange. It's got the sort of wild deeply non generic creativity and fantastical fantasy that is also deeply thought out and a world where the logical consequences of the nature of the world and it's magic system have been thought through. It has a much more beguiling world.and characters than most fantasy
Well worth a read I will be interested to see where the series goes.
I will add I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator is astonishingly bad. I got.used to hereventually but she is but not good and detracts fom the book. I'd probably recommend reading if that's an option.
I was unaware of Attanasio until very recently, and I think it's a shame he isn't read more. Stylistically The Dark Shore is reminiscent of Jack Vance. The prose is elevated, sometimes florid, and some of the imagery is strikingly original, as when "twilight rain fell in harps over the distant isles." The world-building is informed by Attanasio's almost mystical cosmology, which regards the primordial singularity as the blissful union with the Divine from which the Big Bang was the fall from grace.
