Customer Reviews

Beneath the Vaulted Hills : The River into Darkness

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This was the first series by Sean Russell where the back page description and the cover artwork didn't discourage me from investing money in it. To my chagrin Sean Russell is an excellent character developer, I found myself relating with Erasmus many times during the reading. When they went underground, I was scared that it would be a weak imitation of Jules Verne. This is where Sean Russell began to really interest me. Because he created a very vivid image in my mind of a place shrouded in darkness, and I had no problem seeing the setting as his characters did. This is due to a rare occurance, the level of imagery/descriptive writing and the character development worked vey well together, and so through understanding of the character, I was able to see their surroundings through their eyes, and not solely through narrative description. I think that Sean Russell's ability to keep their situation from getting to monotonous from a readers perspective really stood out in this book. Read this if you like Guy Gavriel Kay.

Boy, was I glad I brought this book to the beach. Out of a whole bag of books in several genres, this was the best one I read during that time. I loved the setting, which might be called "drawing room fantasy." The novel started out slowly, but the writing was so good that I didn't care. And once the characters entered the caverns, there was no turning back.

Most of all, I love the way Sean Russell doesn't fall into the old cliche of the noble heroes fighting an evil dark wizard. The characters in this book are ALL flawed. While probably you'll find yourself rooting for Erasmus, you're never quite sure who the villain is. If there is a villain

This was my first Sean Russell book and, like most of my favorite books, just came out of left field.
Rather than give details of the story, let me describe the reading experience.
Fantasy is so often placed in 'mud and thatch' medieval settings, which in reality leaves little to work with. Swords, fire, magic, horse-riding and running from the enemy are all one can play with. Ok, maybe elves and castles. Groveling beggars populate the masses.
Russell picks the perfect setting here. Elegance, style, pre-industrial but post-literate, old enough to have a shadowy history but young enough to be just awakening to the excitement of the 'renaissance'. I would place the culture as somewhere between 1700 and 1800, though there are obvious deviations.
As a sub-genre this might be called Alternate History Fantasy, as the environment is very 'real', almost contemporary, and magic is very, well, magical, and rare.
The energy of the characters following the 'magi' reminds me of contemporaries studying the Sphinx, though in fantasy something real can actually develop. This story is probably 80% academic mystery, and the depth of the plot and the mostly standout characters swirling around the unknown make for uncomparable fun.
The book diverges halfway through, and this is what really captures me.
I use to be a spelunker and Russell seems to have actually done some himself, because the second half of his book is so intense and real that he fully captures the sheer rigurousness and challenge of negotioting a real cave system. The combined sense of isolation, claustophobia and mystery that is unique to caving is captured perfectly, and really makes you feel like you've journeyed somewhere, rather than the few miles that in reality one has moved. (one does not journey lightly underground for long: bone-sucking chill, nowhere to go to the bathroom that somebody might not crawl through later, one must pack extremely light, you can't build a fire, its almost impossible to adequately respond to an medical emergency, etc)
Lots of good, intellectually-paced dialogue and very atmospheric.
All four are worth reading, but 'Vaulted' was my favorite. Hardly a cliche in the whole series.

Sean Russell has got to be one of the great undiscovered (or at least not getting the amount of attention he deserves) fantasy talents. There are some surface parallels to the Magic Rise duology - a naturalist is again drawn into affairs over his head and questionably involved with one of the greatest beauties of the age - but the cliffhanger endings of each chapter in the first third of the book more than kept me interested, and the gradual unveiling of the various factions and their motives (especially the Tellarite society but also the Church and Eldritch) gives the Magic Rise world a deeper texture retroactively. And by the time the novel enters the labyrinth, it becomes genuinely creepy and suspenseful, almost Lovecraftian in its sense of frail human beings in the grip of unimaginable and overwhelming forces ultimately indifferent to their fate. I'd certainly recommend Lovecraft for anyone who enjoyed this book, and also Tim Powers excellent *The Anubis Gates* which takes place in a similar world (an England in the late 1700's where magic is dying out) and is also very original and distinctive.

In the Sean Russell's book Beneath the Vaulted Hills, he arguably creates one of the deepest fantasy stories ever contrived in a long while. Throughout the book Russell's style is unparalleled as he weaves an enchanting tale about a European-esque world. Reinventing the overly done concept of magic and mages, while setting it to an engrossing fictional world, creates an amazing atmosphere that will keep you on the edge of Russell's every word. Sean Russell continues to best himself though as he also creates memorable characters with gripping inner conflicts with actually believable personalities. Russell, in writing such a fine novel, proves himself worthy to sit in the Pantheon of fantasy greats with the likes of Tolkien and the lot.

Though this is a prequel to Moontide and Magic Rise, I found it quite entrancing, even though the reader has some idea as to what is going to happen to some of the characters in the future (if you've read the previous books). Russell is a master of characterization and the art of weaving intriguing plots together, and this makes even a prequel entertaining. In fact, I found it more interesting than Book Two of Moontide & Magic Rise, and more concise.

I*m not much for prequels, yet I found myself enjoying this one to Moontide & Magicrise. That series left me still unsure as to what magic secrets had to be eternally closed; this book does not clarify them either, a virtue or flaw of Russell*s works. Oddly, while the previous works suggested a Georgian England-France world, this one is almost pre- or early Victorian. Little actaul Magic is actually on-stage and the reader must pay attention as to just what secrets Erasmus Flattery and his contemporaries are looking for, secrets never fully cleared up. Fully half of the novel takes place underground as Erasmus and company explore a mysterious labryinth of caverns. Anyone who enjoys such deep endevors will find this compelling in its own right. Thier discovery of a mage*s rooms do not dispel the urgency of the larger situation of being trapped underground; indeed, the cave system and its adventures could almost be set in our own world. Yet Russell keeps giving us glimpses of something deeper, darker, that never quite reveals itself.

Very well written and intricate tale. Great characters, excellent plot. Highly recommended. I'm annoyed I'll have to wait for the reasonably priced paperback, though -- on principle I don't buy the hardbacks. :)

This is a book which truly lives up to Russell's talents. He paints his alternate 19th century world with an incredible clarity--more even than in the Moontide Magic Rising series, if such a thing is possible.

The characters in this book (and the sequel, The Compass of the Soul) are impeccibly tailored. Not one is either black or white, but all have varying shades of good and evil within them.

The 'villain' of the story is made sympathetic, if cold, and at many times throughout the books you are left wondering if the protagonist and his comrades are in fact acting on the side of good.

A fair portion of this book takes place in the nether regions of the earth, as the title implies, and Russell's handling of this subteranean adventure is nothing short of remarkable. The claustrophoibic darkness and travails into the caverns, as well as the majestic and often remarkable beauty, come across without a hitch.

I read this book, and its sequel, in under three days, and while saddened by running out of material at the end of the second book, I was left with a feeling of completion I was not sure I would find.

I believe Russell is something of an original in the contemporary fantasy scene; I read a review somewhere comparing his world to the world of Sherlock Holmes. I think this a very apt comparison. Russell's Europe is a slightly dark and gothic Europe, with the pomp and manners of the court spread throughout society, yet also with mysteries beyond mortal ken springing up in the most unlikely of places, and strange ties binding everything together.

I would recommend this book whole-heartedly to anyone who enjoys a good mystery, with twists and turns perpetrated by believable and passionate characters. There is something of a derth of action in these books, and the 'magic' is incredibly subtle, but to me this merely adds to the flavor of the world, in a wonderfully pleasing manner.

Being a fan of all of Russel's earlier works I was eagerly awaiting Beneath the Vaulted Hills. Needless to say I was not dissappointed. Beneath the Vaulted Hills answers so many of the questions left unanswered in Moontide and Magic Rise. Of course there are a great many new questions revealed in this novel also. Taking place decades before Moontide and Magic Rise, we get the chance to meet many charcters from the MT&MR book in their prime, or characters that were long dead before MT&MR. I think one of the strengths with this book (as well as MT&MR) is that there are mysteries in the world and we see how people interact among them. Of course this is also one of the most frustrating things as we can't know. Its like going to Greece and looking at the ruins and having to draw our own conclusions. Needless to say I enjoyed this book and it certainly left itself open for a follow-up novel. But also if the story ended then and there, that is just fine.