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Rats and Gargoyles Mary Gentle 9780451451736 Books

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Rats and Gargoyles Mary Gentle 9780451451736 Books

Will keep it very short: somehow this author has incredibly skill setting up a unique world, but as an author you have to do more than that... because this book totally and entirely lacks a story. It's a pure mess, the pace randomly picks up and slows down, a lot of stuff isn't explained, a lot of passages are incredibly confusing. And honestly, even when considering the world building aspects the internal logic seems to be nearly incomprehensible... it might make sense, but if it does I wasn't able to figure it out most of the time.


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Rats and Gargoyles Mary Gentle 9780451451736 Books Reviews

I'm a bit of a speed-reader, and "Rats and Gargoyles" is one of the few books that has had the honor of taking me more than a week to finish. It has an extraordinarily deep and convoluted plot (or, more accurately, web of plots and subplots) which has been described as "designed specifically to make the brain ache;" nonetheless, if you can actually follow the story, it's a highly original, intriguing, disturbing, amusing, and occasionally even erotic novel.
Although at times wonderful, Gentle's "Rats & Gargoyles" is rife with excessive characters, some of whom are likeable but undeserving of a storyline, stupid jokes, elongated chapters and a pregnant pause of a final climax. Essentially the book is a hundred pages longer than it should be (I found myself dozing off at the 400 page mark), with chapters that are so drawn out that skipping entire sections is a really tempting idea. Some of the ideas are novel though, and that is finally what redeems the work as a whole. The use of magic as a decendant of Paracelsus and Agrippa is a welcome change to the typical "high sorcery"; Rats are a nice change from those bloody elves; and the disceet history of the text is nicely portrayed. It's worth reading, if you're up for some fantasy and a long read.
This was an odd book, I have to say. I struggled through the first 150 pages, then raced through the next 150, then struggled again to get to the end. I think this is what is called "uneven pacing." I really had to work to find the story here. Everything is heavily described, which does a lot for creating atmosphere. This book has got atmosphere leaking out of the covers. I've never read so many descriptions of smells before. A few senesory clues here and there help the scene to live for the reader, but in this case I felt like the author was shoving my face into the scenes. A bit too heavy-handed there. But when characters DO things, we're not always sure what they did, since their actions are described so baroquely. Luckily, the middle portion doesn't suffer from this problem quite so badly, and the story moves along very well. You can actually tell what's going on, in other words. But then things get overly obscure again towards the end. Perhaps this is meant to add weight to the writing, but that weight is rather too much, I think.

The ending was very out of character with the rest of the book. Imagine, say, if The Lord of the Rings ended with Sauron reading bedtime stories to hobbit-children, orcs playing with elves, well...you get the picture. Not a satisfying ending. And our heroine, White Crow, suddenly reverts back into a small-minded, little person, after going through what should have been an incredibly life-changing experience. To use LOTR again, imagine that, after defeating the Balrog, Gandalf decides to make a living selling fireworks. You'd be scratching your head. As I did here.

Not sure why the SciFi Book Club added this one to it's 50-year Anniversary collection, but it was better than Snow Crash, at least.
Rats and Gargoyles is the first novel in the White Crow series. This novel takes place in a society much like Paris in the late 17th century, but wherein the Hermetic philosophy -- i.e., magic -- of that period can effect changes in the real universe, as can Masonic and Rosicrucian principles. The God-demons each represent ten degrees -- i.e., a decan -- of the circle of heavens. The ruling class are Rats and the Decan Acolytes are gargoyles. The city itself is the center of the world.
In this novel, Prince Lucas comes incognito from Candover to the city in order to attend the University of Crime. On his first day, he meets Zar-bettu-Zekigal, a Katayan princess and Kings' Memory, follows her through a shortcut in the catacombs, is separated from her and imprisoned by the Order of Guiry, escapes from his cell, meets his landlady Evelian and her daughter Sharlevian, and consults with the White Crow.
Zar-bettu-Zekigal goes with the black Rat-Lord Plessiez to a meeting with the Master Falke of the House of Salomon. While they are talking, Captain-General Desaguliers, a lean black Rat, intrudes on the meeting with his armed cadets, implies that it is a treasonous conspiracy against the Rat-Kings, but allows it to continue. An agreement is reached just before the Acolytes tear the roof off the hall and starting killing the participants.
Casaubon, a Lord Architect and scholar-soldier of the Invisible College, has been summoned to the city to build war machines for the Rat-Kings. He is surprised and delighted to find the White Crow there, for she is a fellow scholar-soldier and he has been looking for her.
This novel is much like Dumas' Three Musketeers tales, but is filled with magic of several flavors. It is replete with obscure symbolism, political satire, and ineffable purpose. The author draws upon her studies in history to imbue the story with the proper ambiance and character. For example, the legal trial and execution of the sow for murder at the very start of the story sets the tone of irrational logic that prevails throughout.
The various forms of magic presented in this novel were precursors to the natural science and technology of the 18th century. In fact, the earliest version of the Royal Society of London was called the Invisible College. Much of the technology as well as the practice of experimentation had already been developed by alchemists and other students of such magic, so subsequent developments in natural science were mostly on the theoretical side. During the next century, many plausible explanations for physical phenomena were proven to be false and were replaced with other notions which emerged from the experimental data.
Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys fantasies with a historical setting and rationale.
Will keep it very short somehow this author has incredibly skill setting up a unique world, but as an author you have to do more than that... because this book totally and entirely lacks a story. It's a pure mess, the pace randomly picks up and slows down, a lot of stuff isn't explained, a lot of passages are incredibly confusing. And honestly, even when considering the world building aspects the internal logic seems to be nearly incomprehensible... it might make sense, but if it does I wasn't able to figure it out most of the time.