Corambis (Hardcover)

by Sarah Monette (Author)
Key Phrases: golden hare, fathom station, noirant power, Miss Leverick, Miss Bridger, Virtuer Ashmead (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The rambling conclusion to Monette's Mélusine fantasy quartet (after 2008's The Mirador) reveals the destiny of three exiles. Prince Gerrard Hume dies in an attempt to start the sinister Cymellunar engine, which he hoped would help win Caloxa's independence from Corambis. Blinded by the engine, Kay Brightmore, the margrave of Rothmarlin and the prince's illicit lover, is imprisoned by Corambis's duke of Glimmering. Meanwhile, far away in Bernatha, gay wizard Felix Harrowgate returns to prostitution to raise money when his half-brother becomes ill, but is gang-raped by Corambins in a ritual that restarts the Clock of Eclipses, another terrible Cymellunar device. Monette throws in numerous unsubtle lessons on love, lust and power, but for full effect, the intricate plot requires familiarity with prior installments. (Apr.)
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Review
“Monette’s characters deserve a standing ovation.”
—Booklist

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; 1 edition (April 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441015964
• ISBN-13: 978-0441015962
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #106,346 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 4 in The Doctrine of Labyrinths Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fairly good ending to the series, April 20, 2009

By	A. J Terry - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Let me say about the four-book series: I don't require literature to be cozy. However, almost all the major characters are deeply emotionally and/or physically damaged, and can't get their minds on anything else for almost the entire length of every part of every book they narrate. When they're not narrating, someone else is describing their depression, self-destructiveness, serious physical illness and/or injury, etc. The series would be more effective if the characters got to enjoy themselves once in awhile; rather than the most relief being, currently they don't feel too awful though they know they will soon.

Corambis is apparently supposed to be about emotional healing. However, it's an extended therapy session where the characters are confessing everything readers have already known about for three books, and which these characters have confessed before to other characters. So, I've spent four books thinking, get over it, and get on to _doing_ something. I read this last book in the series in the hope that they would.

Especially, I wanted a happy ending for Felix who, apparently in his early 30s, still thinks and acts like an abused child. He's realized his half-brother Mildmay loves him--which considering how faithful Mildmay's been for four books, took much too long--but Felix wants a lover, a spouse. The author leaves even that question open, with three somewhat possible candidates with whom Felix would have had very different relationships. And really, is Felix going to be happy living a retired country life, considering his few pleasures used to stem from a sophisticated urban and palace environment? What about Mildmay, whose only goal in life has become to follow and support his brother--doesn't he deserve something for himself?

Throughout the series, the author has only been willing to grant happy endings to characters who then vanish from the series, for example the actress Mehitabel. But although I enjoyed the books, I don't want to see a fifth one that gives Felix a happy ending. The material in these four should have been condensed into about three novels of the same size--even with a few upbeat experiences thrown in.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ends with a whimper, April 11, 2009

By	M. Jacobs (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews

The best thing about this final book in Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinths is the brand-new character Kay Brightmore. Given how I felt about the other three books in the series--namely, that they were by far the best thing going in fantasy today--this actually constitutes something of a tragedy. (Mild spoilers follow.)

Gone are the fraught and mysterious magical doings, the unexpected and dangerous situations Mildmay and Felix used to stumble into practically every time they turned a corner, the spiky and fascinating relationship between the half-brothers. In place of these things we get brief and unsatisfying showdowns with a giant stomping robot and a bad-tempered clockwork octopus, and a lot of hand-wringing about Felix's emotional state.

Mildmay's character is flat; whereas he used to have his own side projects, not to mention his own excruciating emotional struggles, he has at this point become something more akin to a traditional (and hence uninteresting) sidekick. One would have thought, as a result of his having recovered from his Strych-induced amnesia at the end of book three, that Mildmay might have had a few issues of his own he'd need to resolve in this volume. Apparently not, as his only role here is to act as a sounding board for Felix and patch up his half-brother's clothes and socks. Felix, for his part, works hard on rehabilitating himself. This is something he certainly needs to do, but the process (which involves a lot of confessionals to other characters, including various recitals of his difficult sexual history) was unconvincing, as it required Felix to abandon his dignity completely and repeatedly.

I have a lot of respect for Ms. Monette's abilities as a writer, but this book just doesn't live up to the rest of the series. Admittedly, she set herself a very high bar with the first three books, which is why I'm giving this novel three stars. It's still a good read, even though it fails with the heart-in-your-throat factor that made the rest of the tale so extraordinary.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Finish To A Strong Series, April 18, 2009

By	Sacramento Book Review "SacramentoBookReview.com" (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

Monette brings her //Mélusine// trilogy to a powerful close in this book, pitting the exiled wizard Felix and his outlaw half-brother Mildmay against the worst of a fantastically singular world of ancient powers, clandestine deprivation, and at least one sophisticated subway system. If they can survive the terrible engines of destruction without and the equally terrible cycles of destruction within, they may finally find their place in this strange new land of Corambis.

This book is to be recommended cautiously. Firstly, as intelligent and well-written as it is, it would be unadvisable to make it your introduction to the series. A good half of the plot points are lost on strangers to the first two books, though there may be enough there to suggest that you're missing out on a good thing. Second, this book's audience must be prepared to see the most intense scenes of conflict pass not on an epic fantasy battleground, but rather within the thoughts of a desperate gay prostitute. If you have the stomach for brutal scenes of boudoir antics and the patience to go without brutal scenes of swords and fireballs, this may be the series for you.

Reviewed by Micah Kolding