Empire of Unreason (The Age of Unreason, Book 3) [Paperback]

J. Gregory Keyes (Author)

Book Description

Series: Age of Unreason | Publication Date: May 9, 2000

When Sir Isaac Newton uncovered the secrets of alchemy, he could never have imagined the incredible and tragic results. Dark sorcery rules: Europe is lost and the American colonists have been driven south by advancing ice. In an age of unreason, Benjamin Franklin and his secret society, the Junto, manage a precarious existence founded on the mutual trust and cooperation of Native Americans, whites, and freed blacks.  But the demonic creatures known as the Malekim won't tolerate even a flicker of hope. For any who oppose them--Franklin, Voltaire, even the mysterious daughters of Lilith--will be swept away . . .

Though Tsar Peter the Great of Russia has mysteriously vanished, his vast armies and dark magics remain. They strike where they are least expected, unleashing cyclopean forces unseen on Earth since before the fall of mighty Babylon.  And even this is but a prelude to he who follows the living storm.  

As armies and alchemy clash in the southern colonies, the Choctaw shaman Red Shoes is drawn west by a vision of an ancient, implacable evil, and of a young boy who shines as brightly as an angel . . . the fallen, avaricious kind.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ten years have passed since Europe plunged into chaos following a directed comet strike on London by Louis XIV's alchemists. The resulting nuclear winter forced everyone southward. The Russian Empire of Peter the Great holds sway, but Tsar Peter has mysteriously disappeared and his chief alchemist, Adrienne de Montchevreuil, has been attacked by a creature of the malakim, who provide the power for many of the technological innovations created by alchemists. Ben Franklin now lives in Charleston and is part of a secret organization, the Junto, that seeks to destroy the malakim and their agents in the New World. Only here have their evil intentions been fully recognized. Now the enemy is on American soil in the form of Scottish king James Stewart and his troops in the East and a mysterious but terrifyingly powerful army led by the Sunboy in the West. Only an alliance of English, French, and Spanish settlers with the Native American tribes have a chance of defeating them.

The series continues to provide an intriguing blend of fantasy and historical characters, plenty of action, and fine writing. This episode, however, begins and ends abruptly. Read the first two books (Newton's Cannon and A Calculus of Angels) first, and be prepared for a cliffhanger ending that will leave readers anxious for the next book. --Nona Vero

From Publishers Weekly

Keyes's latest addition to his distinguished Age of Unreason series is a disappointment. Set, like its predecessors, in the 18th century, the book explores a world that's been knocked out of whack by Isaac Newton's alchemical discoveries. European leaders, thirsting for power, have devastated the European continent and plunged the northern colonies into a new Ice Age. Meanwhile, malevolent spirits called the malakim are plotting to destroy all of humanity by pitting one faction of mankind against another. Keyes (A Calculus of Angels) guides readers through this world via three separate stories of alchemy and intrigue. One concerns the secret, anti-malakim American Junto, a considerably outnumbered society made up of American Indian tribesmen, liberated black slaves and European intellectual refugees (like Voltaire), spearheaded by Newton's former apprentice, young Benjamin Franklin. Then there's Red Shoes, a Choctaw war prophet who's heading west to slay the malakim-sent dreams that are threatening humanity. Finally, in St. Petersburg, there's a beautiful scientist named Adrienne de Mornay de Montchevreuil who's playing a dangerous political game of Russian roulette with the factions clamoring to replace the missing czar, Peter the Great. She manipulates individual malakim and leaves Russia to search for her son, Nicolas, the prophetic Sun Boy rumored to be leading the malakim in a crusade against civilization. Although embellished by clever sidelong portraits of European and American thinkers of the real Enlightenment--including Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus and Russian Prince Menshikov--this intermediate stage of Keyes's fantasy saga lacks the driving brilliance of its two predecessors. Even Keyes's attempts to compensate for the absence of suspense (via thrilling set-piece nightmares and battle scenes) don't save the book from its hazy, diffuse plot. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; 1st edition (May 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345406095
• ISBN-13: 978-0345406095
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,462,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Unreasonable wait?, May 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Empire of Unreason (The Age of Unreason, Book 3) (Paperback)

This is book three in a four book series, which I have waited three long months for. As soon as I received my copy I read it within a day. It was a wonderful continuation that illuminated many of the mysteries of the malakim, or spirits that inhabit the ether which Newton discovered in the first book of this series.

I loved the book and all the things that it revealed, however it is set ten years after "A Calculus of Angels" which to me seemed like a little too long for the story, but it was adequately explained what occurred. However, unlike the other two books in the series there are no satisfactory conclusions at the end of the book, which only makes me want the fourth book sooner.

This book seems to be a dramatic middle act that raises up many expectations, which by the end of the book are not addressed and leaves you wanting more. The book could've moved the story farther, but seems to be willing to give the reader a waiting room so the final book can present the thunderous finale that can only come after this book.

I loved the book and think it is a must have, along with the previous two in the series, even though it seemed a little short. The author crafts the mythology of this world and is exremely detailed in his description of the beings who inhabit it. It's a wonderful and engulfing fantasy world that I recommend to any SF fan.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A steady progression towards the climax of the series, May 30, 2000

By 

R. Todd Ogrin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Empire of Unreason (The Age of Unreason, Book 3) (Paperback)

I consider myself a big fan of J. Gregory Keyes, so it probably comes as no surprise that I found this book, like its predecessors, to be delightful. This third book in the "Age of Unreason" series picks up ten years after _A Calculus of Angels_ left off, and the three main characters of the tale (Ben Franklin, Adrienne de Montchevreuil, and Red Shoes of the Choctaw) soon realize a malevolent entity in the western reaches of North America threatens all the Colonials have fought for.

Keyes' style is round-robin, and he rotates between characters, chapter by chapter, throughout the book. He is somewhat guilty of blatant cliff-hangerism, but I've learned to enjoy it. His characters are interesting enough that I didn't mind being torn away from one to hear about another.

But without a doubt, his strength is his masterful concoction of cultures that could have been ancestors of our own. His knowledge of native American tribes is evident, and he uses it to greater effect in this volume than in the previous two. My biggest complaint was that _Empire of Unreason_ seemed to end like a movie whose film had run out, which is why it gets only four stars. Certainly, there could've been a grander climax, but the book as a whole stands solidly.

If you've read the first two books in the series, the third is no reason to stop. My favorite still remains _Newton's Cannon_, but this book sets up a fourth (and final, so I hear) book that I eagerly await.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More character development,please, May 30, 2000

By 

William Kirk (Rochester, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Empire of Unreason (The Age of Unreason, Book 3) (Paperback)

Ten years have passed since the death of Isaac Newton, ten years since the Russians had access to his scientific journals fromn Prague, the less critical ones than the few he could manage to take with him to Venice. We see now why he did not want to contribute to the 'science' of the Royal Society, nor lend much aid to the monarch in Prague - in reality the 'technology' of the malakim (the realm of spirits between humans and God), or even more correctly - plain old fashioned sorcery - "philosophically useless" as Newton once told Ben Franklin. A guilded cage for the truly scientific spirit. And what use have the Russians made of his discoveries? They produce more and more hideously evil machines of war, even a life-gobbling maelstrom of malakim known as the keres, a "dark engine". One suspected that Leonhard Euler would make an appearance, but so far, maddeningly, he JUST MAKES AN APPEARANCE!. Probably the most gifted mathematician to ever live, he frees himself from service to Tsar Peter, and goes in search of, who else?, Newton's clever young apprentice, Franklin. And the subplot is dropped there! Red Shoes becomes a frightening apotheosis of the Native American shaman, and Adrienne finally learns the error of 'using' the malakim, thoughtlessly, like a witch. But is it too late?, and her son...it is her passions that will destroy the world. And maybe that is the point of Keyes' opera: that what makes us humans distinct from our mere human nature - (read especially her 'dream' in the abandoned wilderness that was once the gardens of Versailles) - is our reason, which we ought not abandon, even in the face of extraordinary temptations to gain everything: power, wealth, revenge, victory ... simply by "asking" for it.