Customer Reviews

Light Ages

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ian R. MacLeod is most definitely a talented writer capable of making his words dance across the written page, but I have to admit I found The Light Ages a slow, sometimes frustrating read. The actual events and experiences driving the story are disjointed, and while the highly literate prose ebbs and flows at times like a beauty of nature, it proves incapable of assembling the whole into something completely intelligible. This is fantasy of a high order that many readers will surely enjoy more than I did, and any question of MacLeod's talent can be easily swept aside by noting the World Fantasy Award he won for his novella The Summer Isles. As this is MacLeod's first novel, though, I personally cannot help but wonder if he tried too hard to reach a lofty pinnacle of success. The words, as beautiful and carefully crafted as they are, just seem to get in the way of the story at times. There are several quite compelling scenes, but these inevitably fall away into a sort of miasma not unlike the alternative London MacLeod constructed for his novel.

The primary backdrop of The Light Ages is a future London wherein a Dickensian sort of social order has prevailed for a full three centuries, fueled by the discovery of aether, a magical substance that is mined from the earth. Industrialization failed to progress, to a large degree, because aether and the spells guarded zealously by the guilds could magically make inferior items, including those making up the industrial infrastructure of society, perfectly workable. On their own, such structures as the low-quality train tracks and flimsily-constructed buildings could never stand, but aether kept everything in working order. Thus, industry stagnated, and society, through the course of three century-long Ages, also stagnated into a tightly compartmentalized world of guilds. Social mobility was all but unheard of; the son of a toolmaker would grow up to be a toolmaker because there was no other option. A few individuals, though, seemed to possess magic inside themselves, and these creatures were rooted out and ostracized as trolls (i.e., changelings). Robert Barrows was born into this world, growing up in the town of Bracebridge, the most important aether mining town in England. One special day during his childhood, his mother took him to a home outside of town, where he met an extraordinary young girl named Annalise, and soon thereafter his mother began to change horribly. With her death, he chose to flee his world and seek his destiny in London. It is here that he becomes a social revolutionary, working to usher in the light of a brand new Age, one in which society is not stratified by wealth, status, or birth. Oddly enough, he also sometimes walks in the world of the guildmasters, the very persons he is trying to overthrow, and it is here where he meets Annalise again. The rest of the novel is a meandering tale of discovery and loss, mixing in a remarkable cast of characters, as Robert strives to discover the secret of his home town of Bracebridge, a secret that unites him and Annalise in the most fundamental, albeit mysterious, of manners.

One problem I have with the book is the fact that some of the most important events and transitions take place between sections. We see Robert hop a train to escape to London, and the next thing we know he is working for a socialist newspaper five years later. Since MacLeod's main emphasis in this novel, at least as it appeared to me, was a careful and close critique of man and society, Robert's transformation would seem to have offered the author a perfect means of pursuing his loftier goals for the story. There were moments when MacLeod succeeded in demonstrating the common humanity of the wealthy guildmen and unguilded marts such as Robert, yet no individual's real self seemed to emerge from these pages; thus, the motivations of different characters at different times were difficult to understand, and the whole point of the novel is, in one sense, seemingly challenged by the ending. The Light Ages is not a cheerful, inspirational story, but I don't think it tries to be; personally, I'm not entirely sure what the novel was intended to be, and that is the source of my own dissatisfaction of sorts with what could have potentially been a truly insightful, socioeconomically challenging novel.

Ian R. MacLeod's The Light Ages is fantastically well-written, with believable, flawed characters. This fantasy-cum-alternate history eschews standard adventure plots and presents a contemplation of a society on the cusp of change. MacLeod deals with the affects technology has on society, the reactions people have to social change, and the way in which society mutates and evolves.

Unfortunately, MacLeod has very little that's new to say on any of these subjects. Although he tries to write in the steampunk, science-fantasy tradition, he seems to have forgotten that at the core of these sub-genres there must exist strangeness, newness, and wonder. The story he tells is remarkably mundane. Were it not for a few fantastic touches, such as the strange mutations that take place after too much exposure to aether (the novel's magical McGuffin), The Light Ages might just as easily have been a general fiction novel set in the turn of the last century.

The Light Ages describes a tumultuous period - with society on the cusp of ruin, a group of disgruntled have-nots are in the process of orchestrating a people's revolution. The narrator, Robert Borrows, exists on the fringes of this group, and although their struggle is interesting, it is also off-putting. Most of us who have read a few history books know that revolutions, no matter in who's name, will inevitably turn bloody and cruel. We've know that revolutionary leaders who talk about equality, giving power to the people, and an end to ownership will almost certainly end up hoarding rights, power and property. That MacLeod expects us to be shocked or saddened when these very things happen is almost insulting.

In a possible attempt to humanize this struggle, MacLeod weaves in the story of Robert's life as he struggles to understand a tragic event that has colored his life, the life of his family and his home town, and eventually makes a discovery that alters the course of history. Both of these plots move slowly, and their revelations are thin and obvious, unlikely to surprise even the most inexperienced reader. MacLeod attempts to artificially inflate his story by bookending it in a conversation Robert has with a "changeling" - one of the aforementioned mutants. Her identity is supposed to be a big surprise, but it ends up being meaningless.

I gave The Light Ages three stars for the power of its prose and for being a fine attempt at thinking outside the fantasy box. Unfortunately, MacLeod was unequal to the task at hand, and I wouldn't recommend this book at all.

Plot Summary: The world is run by aether, a mysterious, magical substance mined from the ground in the small towns around London. One such town is Bracebridge, one of the leading producers and home to one Robert Borrows, the protagonist of the story. Robert is a young man about to join his fathers guild and work at the local plant. He meets an exotic grandmaster who shows him some things in his spare time that awaken Robert to deeper roots in the town. Specifically to a woman and child his mother introduced him to a few years earlier and to an event that is not much mentioned, the day the aether engines stopped their SHOOM BOOM rhythm. These events drive Robert, after his mother dies of exposure to the aether in some past event, to search in London for his answers. He becomes a revolutionary in the process, striving to end the current age and replace it with a newer one. It has been almost a hundred years anyway, so the age is ripe for ending.

Opinion: The story seemed a bit weak. The only thing in the story that I wanted to know was how the day the engines stopped related to everything or anything else. This seemed like a main driving force for Robbert's actions yet was only mentioned a few times, as if it wasn't so important. It was hard to tell until near the end. The other characters were well drawn and interesting in and of themselves, but did not seem to advance the plot too much. The descriptions in the book were great, I could see every setting and scene pretty clearly. The writing was also excellent and never particularly dull. In fact I liked everything about this book except the fact that the plot did not engage me. Many of the cover blurbs compare this book to works of China Mieville. I would say that this book is much more accessable to the average reader since it is more a an alternate history type fantasy with very little of the created species and wording of Perdido Street Station, for example.

Recommendation: I don't know if I should recommend this book. I will definately be happy to try more books by MacLeod though as this one was very good. Perhaps I was swayed too much by some massive hype and had too high of expectations. Several people really love this story, I just could not get into it. I rate this overall as a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Light Ages is far from light reading. Anyone wanting a quick read or the typical multi-book fantasy focusing on a questing band of travelers beset by evil should look elsewhere. Instead Macleod gives us a land more evoked than described, beautiful at times poetic prose, three-dimensional characters (including the "evil" ones), questions that aren't always neatly answered, and a pace that would be described as slow by many but which I found perfectly suited to the nature of the novel. There is rebellion, both personal and societal; corruption, both personal and societal; and finally, frustratingly and (realistically) only after fits and starts, change both personal and societal. What there is not is a lot of magic or spell-casting or simplistic conflict. The magical aether which is the center of the Dickensian society and which has caused industrial stagnation (why progress industrially if magic can do a worse but still adequate job?), though at the core of much of the societal action and the more personal "mystery", serves more as a backdrop to what is after all a character-driven story of change and discovery. MacLeod does not stint his secondary characters, all of whom are drawn with the same level of detail and interest as his main ones. The plot will tug (though not drag) you along, but it will be the characters and the evocative descriptions of situations and settings that will keep you reading.

A young man leaves his small-town home for London, where he learns about doomed love, revolution and aether.

The Light Ages is more of an alternate-history romance with a dash of fantasy. The primary fantastical element is aether, a magical substance mined from the earth, and the pillar supporting all industry. Those who have it live in opulence, those who don't suffer poverty.

The first 20% had me hooked. While watching a young workingman's son grow up, we learn all about aether: where it comes from, what it does, and its wondrously creepy dark side. Loved it.

But then young Robert Burrows goes to London, and all fantasy elements jump to the backseat. 80% of the remaining pages are given to a dozen years passing against the backdrop of a social revolution. It was then I began to notice MacLeod's lengthy descriptions becoming tedious; years crawling by as the revolution builds. There's a love story in there somewhere, buried under a heap of social events. It took an effort to stay involved.

Towards the end the pace picks up somewhat, but events fall into place all too conveniently, something that always stretches credibility.

If slightly fantastical historical romances are your thing, and you don't mind lots of description, then The Light Ages should hit the spot.

I originally came across McLeod's fiction in the Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection, editied by Gardner Dozois, which I read cover to cover over the course of a couple of weeks. McLeod's "Breathmoss" was the first story in the anthology and although Dozois's anthology is brimming with a plethora of imaginative prowess and talent, McLeod's story, breathtaking in its patience and beauty, impressed me the most. Seeking an extended version of the wonderful experience I had with "Breathmoss," I naturally sought out one of the McLeod's novels. Having an interest in "steampunk" fiction, I thought that _The Light Age_ would be the perfect remedy to my McLeod craving. It was and it wasn't. First and foremost, McLeod is a talented and very technical writer. What I particularly enjoy about his prose is the (painstaking (but sometimes painful) attention to detail, and what many reviewers have likened to Dickens's trenchant realism. True, McLeod does demonstrate a keen interest in unpacking and displaying the heavy and extravagant fictive freight that appears to weigh upon his prodigious imagination, but at times I think the novel suffers for it. And truly, Dickens's novels often suffered from the same overflow of imaginative effluvia. Nonetheless, the traces of Tokein and D.H. Lawrence, both of whom McLeod claimed to have been influenced by, reveal themselves throughout the novel, much to its benefit.

Nevertheless, _The Light Age_ is slow going in places where one would expect a quicker pace, and is too quick, and even inattentive, in places where the reader might expect more explanation or character and plot development. I must say, however, that the novel contains moments of amazing artistry, particularly during the first half, that made my heart pound (I even had problems sleeping after reading one section of the novel). The second half of the novel, however, appears a bit confusing and disjointed and if the story had gotten away from McLeod.

While this novel will surely stay with me just as "Breathmoss" did at its conclusion, it will do so for a much differen reason since there really appears to be no definitve resoultion to the protagonist's quest, which in some ways seems to be the point---but that's just it: I am left with the discomfitting feeling that, while I enjoyed moments of imaginative revelry, there didn't seem to be any real point to the novel. There seems to be an underlying political agenda in terms of labor and class relations, but even this is poorly worked out. The human relationships are bland and as cold as the London winters and I often felt estranged from the fantasy elements of the story (aside from the presence of the somewhat tragic figures of unicorns and dragons) as if this was a story about the "end" of an age of fantasy and the beginning of an age of modernity in which myths, monsters, and magic are trampled under the wheels of progress and driven back into the dark recesses forgotten storybooks by the light of truth: yes, trolls, monsters, and Goldenwhites do exist, but they are more mundane than the human imagination makes them out to be. Nevertheless, certain fantasy elements also appear to proliferate at the end of the story. . .and just what is the role of aether in this new society?

I will continue to read McLeod's fiction because he's still a fairly young writer and I get the feeling that this talented writer can only get better. As for _The Light Age_ I recommend it, but only if you're as patient a reader as McLeod is a writer.

I was intrigued by the concept of "aether" and picked up the book mostly because I wanted to see what this alternative Dickensian world run by magic might be like. Unfortunately, it turns out that the fantasy aspect of the novel is mostly just a gimmick -- details about how this world is different from ours are scarce, and the point seems to be mostly that it isn't all that different after all.

I suppose I would agree that the writing was literary and skillful, although there also seemed to be more typos than usual -- sloppy editing, perhaps? Personally I get bored with long passages of description that don't advance the plot, so much of his colorful verbiage was wasted on me.

As other reviewers have said, the "mystery" that's supposedly at the center of the plot -- Robert's quest to find out what happened on "the day the engines stopped" -- turns out to be almost irrelevant to much of the book, which is mostly a historical fiction about a young man realizing that history is cyclical and the dream of revolution is a false hope. The plot as a whole is vague and misty, perhaps in keeping with the overall atmosphere of the era that MacLeod is portraying, but my lasting impression was of an author who wasn't sure what kind of story he really wanted to tell.

While the writing was beautiful and the characters haunting the plot was only almost there. It's like the author had an idea of what he wanted to convey but no real story to convey it with. I read the whole thing but was left wanting much more of an explanation or of an ending. Don't think I would recommend this book to anyone, this was a very good "rough" draft but really the story was just missing?

While there's fantasy in this alternative English history, the fantasy is more instructive than entertaining. The story remains dead serious and delves deeper into the motivations of society than sheer realism reveals.

We are told the life and times of Robert Borrows, an Englishman in a Victorian age which is influenced by a dark magic. It takes him from childhood as he first rebels against the society he's born into and then as an adult against the basic society. We're given the full story of his revolution and face essential questions which involve the issue of just what the revolutionary is truly revolting against and of the inevitable consequences of such revolt.

The story-telling is highly evocative and set against a darkly surrealistic backdrop. Idealism is portrayed along with the traps that go with this idealism. Obsession is looked at and dissected.

This novel isn't for Jordan and Tolkien fans, at least not for those unwilling to look deeply enough to see what is real at the bottom of the fantasy.

A key point to understanding this book is the protagonist's discovery that his lifetime adversary is merely human and that this discovery is somehow a disappointment. Then comes the question as to just who is the true adversary.

This is not a book for fast reading, but more of one to allow oneself to become absorbed in.

Highly recommended.

I really wanted to love this book, but I can't recommend it to anyone except the steampunk/industrial fantasy completist. It appealed to me because it takes place in an alternate Earth, where steam and gas technology have been supplemented (and sometimes supplanted) by a magical substance called aether. Some humans have been permanently changed by the aether, becoming outcasts with strange powers. Throw in some class struggle and revolutionary impulses, in a realistically constructed society. Sounds interesting, right?

Unfortunately, only about 20% of this book fulfills that promise. The rest is an unhappy soup of disjointed descriptions, tantalizing but unrealized worldbuilding, characters slowly realizing their own irrelevance, and annoying verbal tics. I got rapidly sick of the author describing things as "(some positive adjective), yet (some negative adjective)." There is a distinct lack of plot in most of the book. I suppose that's intentional and the author's main point may be that the more things change, the more they stay the same. However, if you want to pull that off, you had better be an *amazing* wordsmith, and the writing here, while often good, falls short of the level needed.

Keep in mind that I love slow, strange, introspective stories (like, say, In the Mood for Love) and also wordy Victorian-ish prose with thick layers of description (such as Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell). And I *still* thought this book failed to be involving. Actually, I found myself wishing that Scott Lynch and Susanna Clarke had somehow collaborated to write this story instead. Or perhaps a heavier-handed editor would have helped bring out the gem of a story that I felt lay in there somewhere, obscured by awkward prose and no sense of movement.

It's really a shame, because the setting is intriguing, some of the characters are well-drawn, and there seems to be so much potential here.