Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"blood-red wine in a crystal goblet", August 8, 2007
There have been several reviews of this book that make comparisons to Jacqueline Carey. One of them says _Maledicte_ is a cheap imitation, and the other that _Maledicte_ is far too good to be compared with Carey's work. I'm not enough of a literary critic to tell you who is the better writer, Carey or Robins, but I will say that I'm not surprised the comparisons are cropping up. I'm a big fan of Carey and I'm always looking for beautiful, lush, sensual dark fantasy that scratches the same literary "itch." I rarely find it. Here, I've found it.
(Though I can also see the resonances with _Swordspoint_.)
_Maledicte_ tells the story of a young woman from the slums, Miranda, whose sweetheart is stolen away by his noble father. Miranda swears revenge upon the nobleman and disguises herself as a man in order to move more freely through the country's aristocracy.
As Miranda, now Maledicte, pursues retribution, Lane Robins does a great job of showing how Maledicte's quest begins to grow in complexity. Her moral and ethical qualms surface just as her aims begin to require more blood and as her choices become more irrevocable. Meanwhile, her love life also grows tangled; her lover Janus is not quite as she remembers him, and her friend and servant, Gilly (who believes her to be a man) falls for her. Also excellent is the way Maledicte always holds our sympathy, nearly losing it from time to time but always keeping it in the end, despite her violent acts.
This is a lush fever-dream of a novel and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the intermarriage of arch, beautiful prose and visceral themes.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Worthy addition to the genre, October 13, 2007
"I was what I was: a whore's unwanted get." Pretty early on it becomes clear that Robins' "Maledicte" could have easily been inspired by the Kushiel series. Thankfully, Robins did not outright mimic Carey's work. Though both take place in historically based fantasy worlds, while Phedre's story was one of mystery and court intrigue, Maledicte's tale is one of pure vengeance.
What works:
The plot of the book, as a whole, is well thought out and intriguing. Robins has created a number of multifaceted characters, some whose capacity for evil is only rivaled by their capacity for love. Miranda a young thief finds her closest friend and lover Janus kidnapped from the slum in which they live and whisked away by an agent of Janus' estranged father the earl of Last. Swearing vengeance on Last, Miranda takes up the guise of a young male courtier named Maledicte in order to infiltrate the court and get close to her target. Maledicte and Janus are both complex characters and exhibit the psychology of children forced to raise themselves in a violent environment. A score of well written secondary characters, including Maledicte's lecherous mentor Vornatti, his steadfast friend Gilly, and the enigmatic King Aris, also add depth to the story. Furthermore, Robins has developed an interesting country in Antyre and the city of Murne including the recent history of the realm and its gods.
What doesn't work:
Throughout the novel I had the sense of being alienated from the main characters. At first I attributed this to a lack of first person writing as seen in the Kushiel series. However, it was more than the third person writing, it was also Robins' failure to write more of the story in the pov of our main character Maledicte. Maledicte spends the majority of the book god-touched or half possessed by Ani the god of vengeance. Such a state drives Mal to acts of gruesome and remorseless aggression. Viewed from inside Mal's mind, even in 3rd person, this behavior would have been understandable and the inner turmoil of one possessed by a god would make for great reading. Unfortunately, more often than not the chapters are written from Gilly's pov, an important character but still on the outside looking in. As a result, behavior that might have added to Mal's complexity just ends up coming across as impulsive, heedless violence or nonsensical sulkiness. Mal's dealings with Ani are outside the realm of normal human experience and fuel the whole story line and yet are poorly covered. It's almost as if Robins was creative enough to write Mal from a distance but couldn't tackle the challenge of writing more from inside his head. Beyond this flaw of execution, the ending also felt rather abrupt, though there is a potential opening for further books in this story line as there were numerous potential plot lines left dangling.
Despite the book's few failings it is ultimately a gripping and engaging story that keeps the reader turning pages. If while reading Maledicte you are tempted to compare it to other stories in the genre I suggest reminding yourself that the ultimate motivators fueling this novel are somewhat different than those seen elsewhere and if the book seems to lack detail in comparison to the first Kushiel novel it is also only half as long.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Please -- no sequel!, October 15, 2007
Maledicte is Lane Robins' debut novel about Miranda, a street urchin whose best friend Janus is the bastard son of the King's brother. Janus has been reclaimed from the streets, and therefore stolen from Miranda, because his father has no legitimate heir. Miranda, in her grief, makes a deal with an evil god (who everyone thought was dead), gets a scary-looking sword, and sets out for vengeance. She manages to enter noble society dressed as a boy (named Maledicte) under the patronage of a lecherous old man, the only one who knows her secret.
The publisher's description of the book is misleading. First of all, the court is not "seething with decadent appetites unchecked by law or gods." It's just your average king's court full of gossiping courtiers. Not seething, and no more decadent that any other court I've ever read of. There really wasn't much political intrigue either. Then enters "a handsome, enigmatic nobleman, Maledicte, whose perfect manners, enchanting charisma, and brilliant swordplay entice the most jaded tastes . . ." He may have been handsome (not very well described), but I didn't find him (her) particularly enigmatic, enchanting, or charismatic. His manners were not at all perfect (which was the only reason I could find for the courtiers to consider him enigmatic), and his swordplay was not brilliant. Really, (s)he was just an sulking angsty girl trying to be bad, and she didn't seem so bad to me at first. I couldn't really understand why her behavior was so scandalous because all she did was draw her sword and mouth off to a couple of nobles. I think it was supposed to be witty mouthing-off, but I found it rather obnoxious. If the court was really seething in decadence and intrigue, Maledicte's behavior shouldn't have caused such a scandal. To me, the court seemed like a bunch of priggish gossips who were blown away when Maledicte acted like a spoiled brat. I just wasn't convinced. And I was bored with Maledicte.
Then, just as I'm thinking that this book is not as bad as it wants to be, suddenly Maledicte starts murdering people ruthlessly, a drive instilled by a hungry god. This god (and the other apparently dead gods) were not well described, so I had a hard time understanding or relating to this. In fact, not much was well described -- not the city, the court, the house where Maledicte lived, or the political and religious systems. The only motivation of Maledicte's that was described was his/her constant drive to kill Janus's father (whose name is Last), which seemed a bit unrealistic to me. All the father had done was to take his bastard son off the streets and raise him to be a nobleman. Not really a reason to murder him. And, we get no back-story on the relationship between Miranda and Janus, either. I never saw Janus as "the lover whose passion still haunts her dreams" since I never saw any dreams or passion until they were reunited. Again, I wasn't convinced that this was realistic behavior. Maledicte keeps on murdering people (and not very cleverly--she just jumps them at convenient moments) and shows no remorse or internal conflict. This goes on and on an on and I found myself searching for some reason to like Maledicte and some reason to care what happens to him/her. But I couldn't -- (s)he was utterly unlikable all the way to the end. In fact, only two characters were likable: Maldedicte's servant Gilly, and the king. But, both of them fall in love with Maledicte, even after seeing him murder people with no remorse. I had a hard time believing that, too.
But Maledicte is mostly very well written, and for that reason I think Lane Robins has a promising future as a writer. Sometimes the writing was over-done, resulting in vagueness, and points of view shifted unexpectedly, causing occasional confusion. The novel is character-driven, yet most of the characters were not as well fleshed-out as they should have been and I had a hard time understanding what drove them. But, all in all, the writing was better than a lot of what I've read by authors who have been publishing for decades, and I think I will pick up the next book that Ms. Robins writes. I just hope it won't be about Maledicte. --FanLit.net
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