Madness of Flowers: A Novel of the City Imperishable [Paperback]

Jay Lake (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 2009

The battle has been fought and won, and all have been transformed by the struggle. Imago of Lockwood has become Lord Mayor of the City Imperishable, though at a price beyond his wildest imagination. Bijaz the Dwarf has been imbued with a godlike power and a responsibility he scarcely understands. And Jason the Factor, resurrected from death at the hands of his sister, the Tokhari sandwalker Kalliope, has become the sula ma-jieni na-dia, the fabled Dead Man of Winter. When a beautiful mountebank arrives in the City Imperishable, offering to lead an expedition to uncover the lost tomb of the Imperator Terminus, she stirs up the mob with promises of treasure and imperial power... but what will her quest unleash? Political intrigue, adventure, and all-out war await the principles and inhabitants of the City Imperishable. Through it all, the City may endure, but none will remain untouched by the Madness of Flowers...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Readers unfamiliar with 2006's Trial of Flowers will be baffled by this sequel; those who have read the former are likely to be both delighted and flabbergasted by the latter. The City Imperishable is the decadent relic of a magical empire in which human and numinal forces struggled until the Old Gods were almost forgotten—but this familiar-sounding background doesn't set up a predictable heroic fantasy yarn. The city's diverse inhabitants, including demigods and manmade dwarves, are subject to violent physical and moral transformations, and Lake's lushly energetic writing pulls readers through startling developments. Major concerns this time include bloody political intrigue, a blockade by corsairs and an expedition to the North that may lead to the city's rebirth or its doom. The result is exuberantly odd, melodramatically ironic and dangerously wonderful. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

Lake’s Trial of Flowers (2006) won raves for its multilayered depiction of the labyrinthine metropolis, the City Imperishable. As the story continues, two principal characters, Bijaz the Dwarf and Imago of Lockwood, are still coming to terms with newly bestowed powers. For Bijaz, a baffling magic allows him to manifest small objects from his fingertips, while for Imago, his sudden rise to the lord mayoralty comes with daunting responsibilities. A third protagonist, Jason the Factor, has been resurrected by his sister from a Tokhari sandwalker cult but remains offstage here, supplanted by Onesiphorous, a rebellious leader of the city’s expatriate dwarves. Now these three and their loyal minions face new challenges, including a restless citizenry stirred by the appearance of a beautiful, charismatic mountebank, who promises extravagant treasures in the distant tomb of a long-buried emperor. Lake juggles multiple plot elements and colorful personalities, including scheming politicians, mercenaries, and even an exotic ice bear, in a tale that’s often disturbingly twisted and paradoxically mesmerizing at the same time. --Carl Hays

Product Details

• Paperback: 326 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books; 1 edition (October 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597800988
• ISBN-13: 978-1597800983
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,707,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jay Lake lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects. His 2010 books are _Pinion_ from Tor Books, _The Baby Killers_ from PS Publishing, and _The Sky That Wraps_ from Subterranean Press. His short fiction appears regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay is a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. Jay can be reached through his Web site at jlake.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unnecessary..., January 22, 2010

By 

Fyrth (Honolulu, HI, Hawaii) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Madness of Flowers: A Novel of the City Imperishable (Paperback)

Is the single kindest word I can use to describe Jay Lake's Madness of Flowers. After reading it, I was rather forcefully re-convinced that Trial should have been remained as it was: a single, brilliant stand-alone. Madness does nothing but take away and tear down what was so carefully constructed in the first novel- and what's worse, is it leaves the reader wondering: why?
Why, for instance, is the pacing so godawful? This is a more technical point of complaint, but it's still one of the major ones. The first half of the book plods along at a sedate, rambling pace, and then somewhere around the three quarter's mark, things kick into overdrive. And not the good kind of overdrive either. An antagonist we've never even heard of is introduced literally in the last quarter of the book and we're all supposed to figure out what it is and what it wants...before it gets thwarted (?) less than a hundred pages later. One character stumbles his way around through a swamp for the majority of the book, only to successfully resolve HIS conflict in the last couple of chapters. As I was reading and nearing the end of Madness (pun intended), I kept thumbing through the remaining pages wondering if I had missed the announcement of a third book. It seemed impossible to me, with less than fifty pages to go, that all these disjoined, disconnected, and sprawling story lines could be tied off. Turns out, I was wrong. They were tied off. But in the most dissatisfying way I could have imagined.
Which leads me to major complaint number two. The ending. Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of the outside-of-the box kind of writing used by Lake and Mieville and VanderMeer. You don't go into their books expecting the formiac and the usual. But there's controlled bizarreness and then there's just over the top, what the hell is happening, this makes no sense, lunacy. Trial was tight, consistent with itself, and knew its limits. Madness goes way the other way and chucks all sense of logic out the window around the time of the big conclusion. It's as if Lake's editor went on leave, freeing him up to start scribbling nonsense over what was already a rather weak book. Giant wasps? Fine. Some bear possessed by some unexplained spirit? Alright. A character turned giant weeping tree with fruits for eyes? Oookay. The emergence of not one, but two new Old Gods no more than ten pages from the end? Uh... The death shout of a city? A translucent floating bubble of city essence?
Am I losing you, yet?
The problem with Madness was, it was a sequel to a book that needed no sequel. Trial had wrapped up everything in a very satisfying way. The baddies were defeated, the City survived, some characters lived, some didn't. But the point was: the story was over. To introduce a whole new and poorly resolved conflict in a second book just seemed, like my title states, unnecessary. There was nothing in Madness that added to the characters. Nothing that added to the City. But there was a lot that was taken away. Some examples follow below- with minor SPOILERS
- A main character dies halfway through in a very pointless and arbitrary way. Not only was it a terribly undeserving death for someone that had done so much, but it was also found out that he was bethrothed. And that his betrothed was coming to the City (again in the last fifty pages or so) to find him. What was the point of any of this? Who was this random fiancé we had never even heard about before? My guess was it was to tug at the heartstrings a bit, but considering we don't even get to see this woman's reaction to her fiance's death and considering it is implied she turns her attentions to his brother instead....I'm afraid I just don't get it.
- Terminus' tomb is another good example. In Trial, it was made out to be some legendary place, you know: hallowed, in every sense of the word. It was built up, built up, built up...but when the quest in Madness finally reaches it...It's sheer disappointment! Lake spent more time describing the pointless and aforementioned swamp blunderings of another character, than he invested in describing this: the main heart and soul of the book. We get an obligated: here's the tomb. The tomb was dark. Oh, and here's a bunch of frozen dead guys, before the party is chased out of there by the horrendously late antagonist. Suffice to say, it was completely unfulfilling.

Those are just two choice examples out of many, but in the end the ultimate question any reviewer should ask themselves is: would I recommend this book to someone?
And I'm sorry to say, that I can't. There are several people I know who I could easily prod into reading Trial, and who would like it- even if it was less mainstream than what they would normally read. But Madness (and I can't get over the irony of that title) is another beast entirely. The only people I could suggest it to would be hardcore Jay Lake fans and I'm not sure even they would like it. It's too disjointed. Rushed. Nonsensical to the point where it stops being `artsy' and `unique' and becomes frustrating.
In conclusion: if you enjoyed Trial and are excited about the thought of a sequel, approach this one with caution. It's not what you think it will be.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I beg to differ, August 21, 2011

By 

A. K. Thompson "Media Gourmand" (Allston, MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Madness of Flowers: A Novel of the City Imperishable (Paperback)

There's only one other customer review of this book on Amazon at the moment. I am not going to attempt to repudiate or dispute the reviewers opinion, but I do disagree with it, and the book definitely deserves more than one star.
In brief: I like Jay Lake's work. This sequel may not have been quite as good as Trial of Flowers, but I enjoyed it and will certainly get myself a copy of it when I can. I hope he writes another book set in and around the City Imperishable.