Dance of Knives [Paperback]

Donna McMahon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2002

Vancouver in the twenty-second century is a city of stark contrasts, divided between its prospering Guild citizens and the starving descendants of American refugees who fled ecological catastrophe and political chaos decades ago.

Newcomer Klale Renhardt is struggling to survive on the half drowned, ungoverned island of Downtown, where every type of trade is controlled by tongs or gangs. When she finds a job through Toni, the tough, beautiful American bartender at the famous KlonDyke nightclub, Klale finally allows herself to feel safe--until she hears that Toni may have been a torturer for the tongs.

Even more disturbing is Toni's strange connection with Blade, the giant, bio-altered slave of Downtown's most feared blackmailer. Klale fears the rage that simmers behind the giant's eyes, but when she attracts the vengeful attention of a hidden enemy, Blade may be the only person who can save her.

Blade's psyche has been so profoundly twisted by neural implants that he doesn't even realize he's human. If Klale can't find a way to help him discover his own soul, she may not survive either her murderous enemy or the looming tong war.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A dark near-future world and emotionally distant, troubled protagonists starved for affection make for bleak storytelling in McMahon's first novel. Rival tong gangs vie for power in Vancouver in the 22nd century, and runaway Klale Renhardt finds herself in the middle of the action. She lands a job as a server at the KlonDyke, Vancouver's lesbian bar, after a mysterious man, Blade, rescues her from a nasty situation at the waterfront. Klale quickly befriends the 'Dyke's bartender, Toni, and learns that Blade is the enhanced tool of a powerful tong lord. Toni and Klale both become fascinated with the enigmatic Blade, who is much more than he seems, while they attempt to negotiate Vancouver's touchy power structure, whose instability threatens the 'Dyke and the community of Guildless people surrounding it. The action moves toward an explosive showdown: Blade's increasingly erratic behavior mirror the escalation of political infighting, forcing Toni to realize that she will have to confront her own dark past in order to help Blade, who has some secrets of his own. McMahon handles the lesbian subtext deftly, but the characters are so unlikable that it's hard to root for them. In addition, while she attempts to mediate the grittiness with laughter and dance (including Blade's dance of knives), a few too many coincidences spoil the fun. Finally, the author missteps by supplying an incongruously happy ending.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Klale Renhardt leaves the safety of the Fishers Guild for the uncertain but free life in Vancouver's dangerous Downtown, a city-within-a-city that provides refuge for society's castaways for a price. When Klale finds herself in the middle of a war between the independent have-nots and the criminal tongs and their corrupt lackeys, she discovers friends in unlikely places. McMahon's first novel presents a dystopian view of the 22nd century while simultaneously building a story of hope and courage. Combining the rapid-fire appeal of cyberpunk with edgy high-tech sf, this tale of intrigue belongs in most sf collections.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (June 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312875363
• ISBN-13: 978-0312875367
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,876,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My priority is to tell an engrossing story populated with memorable characters, in a vivid, textured setting that gives you something to think about later. My novels should be hard to put down, and when you turn that last page, I hope you think to yourself: "that was really worth reading.

In university I studied history; now I write future history. My 22nd century Cascadia (the Pacific Northwest of North America, from northern California to Alaska) is a post apocalypse landscape, but not a dystopia. I'm not interested in bleak dystopias. Human beings have tremendous resilience and creativity. We owe it to ourselves to imagine futures we would want to live in.

A native of North Vancouver, BC, I am fortunate enough to live in Gibsons, BC--a town that was voted "The Most Liveable Community in the World" (under 20,000 population) in a UN competition in 2009. Visit me at Drowned City Press (http://drownedcitypress.ca), or at my facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=110542395635802).

These are my novels:

Dance of Knives
Second Childhood

I also have stories in these anthologies:

A Mosque Among the Stars
Futures from Nature
Northwest Passages: A Cascadiacon Anthology

- Donna McMahon

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A winner, April 15, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dance of Knives (Hardcover)

In 2108, twenty something Klale Renhardt flees the Fishers Guild seeking fame and fortune in Vancouver because she cannot stand the rigorous rules of her group. In Vancouver, she heads to the island Downtown so she can avoid staying at one her former guild's hostels.

However, her first night in town is not a serene scenario as the street punks accost her and the Harbor Patrol nearly busts her. Looking for a place to stay, Klale enters the KlonDyke Bar where she immediately becomes involved in a brawl. This leads to her befriending the bartender Toni and obtaining a job there. Soon she meets the dangerous genetically enhanced freak Blade, who has already interceded in one of Klale's early run-ins. As the three becomes friends, the action becomes hot with them in the middle.

DANCE OF KNIVES is an exciting science fiction thriller that works so well because the audience observes twenty-second century Vancouver through the amazed eyes of Klale. This technique allows the reader a chance to feel the changes, some very nasty, caused by technology, economics, and major climatic impact. Blade is a weird but exciting character and Toni with her past helps bring to life her two compatriots. However, what makes this novel so good is Klale, one of the better protagonists to grace a genre book in a long time. Donna McMahon has written a powerful tale that belies the fact that this is her debut novel.

Harriet Klausner

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good But Could Be Better, September 5, 2001

By 

"lara_silver" (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dance of Knives (Hardcover)

Dances with Knives is an imaginative look at a post-chaos Vancouver in the early part of the 22nd century. Klale, a young member of the Fisher Guild of Prince Rupert, comes to the island of Downtown, a coastal version of the lawless 19th century Wild West towns, to make a life for herself away from the Guild. She falls into a job as the infamous KlonDyke, a lesbian/gay bar, and becomes involved in the lives of Toni, the mysterious bartender, and Blade, the behaviourally, neurologically and surgically altered human "tool" of one of the local tong leaders. Chaos is coming again to Downtown, as the main cities along the Pacific coast of North America try to link together by means of a railroad. This idea is strongly opposed by the 3 tongs that rule Downtown, but other residents, including the owner of the KlonDyke, see the railroad and the changes it will bring as a means to (quite literally, in some cases) get Downtown out of the gutter.

The book is interesting and the author has paid great attention to building this future world, especially the socio-political framework behind the story. The blurb on the book jacket is a bit misleading, though. Klale is only the titular lead character " it is very much Toni's book. Klale is, instead, a strong secondary character. This book is falls into the sci-fi category, so reference to future technology is a given. But figuring out what their tech toys were (extrapolating from our own) and how they worked, took a little time.

There were a couple of weaknesses in the storyline.

First, Toni, in a previous life, played a part in creating "tools" like Blade, or "wives" (read sex-slaves) like one particular one-scene character. Despite her remorse and attempts to help Blade, and despite the drug addiction that drove her to take that job to feed her habit, the fact remains that she victimised people for money. The author gives glimpses of the hard life Toni led prior to and after working as a Trainer, and describes some of the physical harm she experienced along the way, too, but it doesn't come close to balancing out the things she did. To the end of the book, this reader found it hard to forgive her for them. You can understand the motivations driving the drug addict who kills a stranger for the money in her purse, but would you excuse him because of them? Toni's actions were more akin to the Nazi experiments on people in their concentration camps, and are equally intolerable.

Second, Klale falls in love without Blade, without rhyme or reason. Literally overnight, she discovers that she loves him. But there is nothing that the reader can discern in Blade, from Klale's perspective, to bring this about. He is by turns violent or emotionless, though remnants of the child he had been before becoming a "tool" occasionally show through. The author gives the reader access to Blade's interior life, making him a person to us, but Klale is not granted the same privilege. So this sub-plot seems devised simply to get Blade to do specific things so the main plot can advance, or to serve the author's desire to include a little romance in her story, and it strikes a very discordant note.

All in all, I would recommend the book, because the world created by the author has great atmosphere and the story elicits strong emotions. But the discrepancies noted above do leave the reader a little unsatisfied by the story's end.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dance of Knives, An Amazing First Novel, June 19, 2001

By 

amber (Langley, BC Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dance of Knives (Hardcover)

I'll save time on the plot summary since you can read it above and just say that McMahon's story is one of the best I've read this year.

Set in a futuristic Vancouver, Dance of Knives gives long time Vancouverites a look at what may become of some of their favourite landmarks and even those who have never visited the west coast city will be able to picture its future based on McMahon's descriptions. While some of McMahon's characters may seem unusual, their interactions and emotions are so realistic that readers will find themselves growing ever more attached to them as they turn the pages.

If I have any criticism of this book at all it would be that I found the story took a while to get moving, but once it did I found I couldn't put it down. As the story unfolded I found characters doing the unexpected and events resolving in ways I hadn't predicted. For a new author to surprise me this much with a first novel is quite a triumph.

If you're looking for a great read this summer pick up Dance of Knives, it's well worth your time.