Customer Reviews

Maledicte

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

"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.

In the Relics, the slums of the courtly city Antyre, a young boy is kidnapped and a young girl is left beaten and alone. Four years later, a new nobleman enters the court: Maledicte, a beautiful, sharp-tongued, and dangerous youth with a mysterious background. He attracts the attention of the court, but Maledicte has intentions of his own--beneath his coats and padded corsets, he is really Miranda, a Relics streetrat, who has come to reclaim Janus and to revenge those that kidnapped him years ago. But Maledicte has made a dangerous pact with Black-Winged Ani, goddess of love and revenge, and must deal with the machinations of the court, Ani's growing power, and Janus's own ambitions. Mixing aspects and styles that have appeared in other books--magic, political intrigue, gender issues, decadence, decay--more skillfully than any other in the genre, Maledicte is a delicately plotted book peopled with realistically faulted characters, and it is an exceptionally decadent read. I greatly enjoyed it, highly recommend it, and plan to purchase it and read it again.

Maledicte is in the line of other fantasy novels that combined political intrigue, gender/sexuality, and magic--such as Bishop's The Black Jewels Trilogy or Cary's Kushiel's books, for example. However, Maledicte excels where these other attempts falter, using these elements to serve the story, rather than allowing them to run rampant over it, and combining them with strong storytelling, plot, and characters. The world of the book is completely of the author's creation, but convoluted politics and exposition do not overwhelm the text. Instead, Robins constrains both politics and worldbuilding to roles that precisely suit the story: they create plot and setting, but overwhelm neither. Miranda-cum-Madelicte's gender and sexuality is handled with skill and great respect: gender defines Maledicte's identity, and it complicates his various relationships, but Robins treats it with matter-of-fact respect and distance. As she does with other aspects, Robins constrains the issue of gender to its purpose as a character builder, and leaves the rest of the theorizing and contemplating to the reader. Finally, the book's magical elements manage to be both realistically grounded and truly fantastical without digressing into magical rule-making--or worse, faulty magical rule-making. From the delicate art of poison to Ani's ability to possess or heal her followers, magic sets the book in a world entirely unlike our own, but one with sensical structure and consequences. As Ani gains power, her threat is immediate and great, but without exaggeration or plot holes. In other, fewer words: Maledicte combines promising and successful concepts that appear in other dark fantasy books, and does so in a way that succeeds brilliantly where these other books fail.

Running alongside these promising and brilliantly-handled aspects is a delicate plot and a cast of realistic characters that make Maledicte a true, decadent delight of a book. As expected in a book of political intrigue, there are any number of plot twists and unexpected revelations, but Robins measures and times them well. Without cheap cliffhangers, and with few predictable twists, the book is still many-layered and slowly revealed, creating a plot that is compulsively readable without being overdrawn. The climax is satisfying, both in action and in revelation, and the ending is bittersweet, complete (but not simple) and entirely realistic. Throughout the book, all of the characters are faulted but few of them are unlikable. Some are hasty, some are conniving, some are lusty, and all of them have a flexible moral sense; they clash, love, argue, and kill each other, and they are all realistic and almost all of them are sympathetic, despite and even in the midst of their faults and their sins. While not a simple or a happy book, the combination of detailed plot and realistic characters make it a dark text that is violent, politically and personally, and truly engrossing to read.

My (probably singular) complaint about this book is the rapid changes in point of view. Although the narrative remains a limited third person and more-or-less consistently follows Maledicte's storyline, the narrative focus changes between the various figures that Maledicte interacts with, from his servant to the King and sometimes (but rarely) Maledicte himself. The result is a slightly distanced narration (simplifying gender issues) that still constrains its interest to Maledicte's story, making him a realistic and sympathetic character. However, the constantly shifting narration can be a bit unsettling and sometimes hastens the pace of the story. On the whole, however, I found this an entirely enjoyable book with remarkably few faults. It contained many promising plot elements, done with more skill and greater success than I have seen in any other book, and both the plot and characters were dark, realistic, sympathetic, and a pure joy to read. For me, reading Maledicte was like eating dark chocolate--every piece was decadent, worth consuming slowly and savoring in detail. This book far exceeded my expectations and I very highly recommend it to all readers, particularly to fans of dark fantasy. You will not be disappointed.

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.

Miranda, a girl child of the goddess-devastated Relicts, is destined to be a whore, but she has the companionship of her street crew to fill her days. Until her beloved Janus, who has the misfortune of being the bastard son of a nobleman short on heirs, is torn from her.

Miranda leaves her mother, determined to find Janus, to kill Lord Last and reclaim her companion. She takes shelter beneath the altar of Black-winged Ani, the goddess of vengeance responsible for the devastation around her, and emerges as Maledicte, goddess-ridden avatar of vengeance, and is determined to successfully pass as a male. In this new guise, Maledicte is taken in by a deviant count and taught the ways of twisting men and women to do his will, while doing that of the count. All the while just waiting for the opportunity to strike, for Black-winged Ani is not a patient deity, and vengeance must be served.

Maledicte is decadent and beautiful- language and languorously dangerous characters distract readers from the violence hovering just beneath the surface so that even as the crisis point of the book is reached, the reader is no more used to the bloodshed than when the book started. It is far too easy to write a book in which a reader becomes jaded to the violence and deviance contained within. Maledicte deftly avoids that trap, and pulls every necessary wince and gasp out of the reader as a result.

It is a book about love, and most of all about trust. It is about the ways people change over time, and the desperate way in which we cling to the shades of the people they used to be. Robin's does some wonderful things with language, skillfully writing a book that contains beautiful prose that does not distract the reader.

If you are looking for a different, dark sort of fantasy, give Maledicte a read. It is stunning.

I really enjoyed this novel. The setting is dark and lush. I'm fascinated by gender ambiguity, and particularly loved the pronoun confusion which occurred in moments of identity crisis. I think that simple technique spoke more about the main character's inner turmoil than any monologue ever could.

At times the writing style is a little overdramatic, but that can be attributed to a first-time published writer getting her fantasy-legs. Goodness knows fantasy writers can be far more verbose than this. All in all, I would recommend the book highly to anyone interest in dark fantasy, medieval settings, themes of violence, revenge, sexual fluidity, court machinations, and twisted love stories.

I don't know how long it's been since I laughed out loud for the sheer joy at just having been able to experience something so deftly crafted, so heart wrenching, so nail biting as Maledicte. But I did. And I laughed long, and loud, and joyously. Let me tell you how I over came the crappy blurb and my own reservations and found my new favorite book . . .

I'll admit it - the book sounded like crap. Intrigues, passions, desires, a half hearted cross dressing plot? Oh man, just set me on fire now so I can experience the less painful of two slow deaths - I tell you I've had it up to HERE with teen fiction. Hell, I even got the damned book for FREE and didn't want to read it. And then funny thing happened, I came across someone online who shared all my tastes in books and loved this. That sparked my attention a bit. You like x book and thought that THIS hunk of drivel was good? Well ok, if you say so. And so I begin to pick my way through it. According to Kindle I hated the first 26% of this book. Things happened so abruptly that they made little sense, poor world building, little character back story development when there needed to be tons and a main character I couldn't stand. But then I got 27% way through and suddenly I found myself in the midst of the novel I'd been hungering for my whole life but never thought existed. This novel is like the answer to so many years of prayer that I didn't think I'd ever find it. Every time I picked up a book that promised me adventure and romance, revenge, dark pacts with gods, twisted plots and honest to god true gender bending and all the time I only got pale shadows of what I asked for and then suddenly, unexpectedly, I found the real thing.

I won't talk about the plot, it's been done to death in other reviews - suffice to say it is very different from the asinine blurb. I won't talk about the book's failing, there are a few very real ones but they pale in the face of such a masterfully told tale that they aren't worth mentioning twice. Instead I'm just going to send out my wholeheartedly honest plea with anyone reading these words right now that you should read this book. Make it to that 27% and find yourself the best book of the year.

Maledicte, by Lane Robins is a dark and lush novel the likes of which I've never read before. It takes place in a fantasy world similar to 1700's France, and the somewhat aristocratic prose fit perfectly with the subject matter--courtly intrigue, revenge, and twisted love affairs. Robins has tremendous writing skill and I was so impressed with how the book unfolded. I have to admit that it's been a while since I've come across words that I didn't know, but in Maledicte I found several, and each time I found one I felt like it was a little mystery that had to be solved, adding to the experience.

This is a very literary novel and took three years to craft, according to the author, but it's still accessible to adult readers and this will be a fascinating change of pace for many. I loved the book, but one aspect that was a little jarring at first was the third person partially omniscient point of view that has gone out of fashion nowadays. The narrative generally stays with one character's point of view, but occasional pulls back and shows things from the God's eye view, or briefly gets into another character's mind. It wasn't as much of a God's eye view as I've seen done before--which is good--as some more amateurish writers switch from mind to mind constantly, which I despise. At first I was suspicious of the novel's chosen method of describing point of view, but Robins masterfully utilized the technique and after a chapter or two I had no more worries about it. Students of writing, like myself, can learn a lot by reading this book, as it shows how to properly--in my opinion--use the third person omniscient point of view without confusing the reader. My final assessment is that Robbins expertly navigated the fog of writing and delivered a true work of art.

Some books, like Maledicte, would suffer if they had been told in first person, or even the third person limited point of view, but by choosing this technique, all the richness, darkness, and malevolence came to the surface--though the author did pull back at times and spare us some of the gory details, which are better left to the imagination.

The main plot of the book involves a young woman named Miranda, who eventually enters into the aristocracy of Antyre, a crumbling kingdom who has lost a war. Disguised as a man, Miranda becomes a dark cavalier that everyone wants to bed--or run away from--as she is obviously possessed by some sinister force of evil. She has chosen this path to regain her lost love and take vengeance on the man who took him from her. She is aided by a bloodthirsty goddess with whom she had made a dark pact. The goddess, raven winged Ani, has given her some of Her brutal power--including a deadly sword that hungers for blood, and Miranda, who renames herself Maledicte, must struggle to remain in control rather than go into murderous rages and appease the hungry spirit within her.

I thought most of the book would be from Maledicte's perspective, but I was surprised to learn that much of it is from the point of view of a handsome young man named Gilley. He is the bound servant of a nobleman, Vornatti, a lecherous old pedophile who takes Miranda in and helps her attain her goal of revenge. Vornatti facilitates her becoming a courtier and gains her access to the man she wants to kill. I didn't see Gilly coming when I picked up the book, but he emerged onto the page and became the heart of the story. Gilley was plucked from the ranks of the poor folk to lead a privileged life as a servant, though the price he pays is steep and disturbing. Despite it all, Gilley is the only character portrayed in the novel--except perhaps the kindly king of Antyrre--with any moral qualms about murder and assassination. The ends justify the means and Maledicte will do anything to accomplish his goal.

She, or rather, he, is driven to the brink of madness by the spirit of the goddess inside her. Miranda/Maledicte's background as the daughter of an uncaring drug-addicted whore makes her behavior all too believable and at times cringe-worthy, but it was Gilley who made me believe that redemption was possible. He was the soul of the book for me and kept me connected to the novel when the darkness clouded my eyes.

The book is shocking and there is a brutal reality to everything that happens. What would you do to regain your lost love? The depravity that these characters engage in is mind-blowing, and Robins managed to show it, but kept the curtain pulled just enough so that we the reader would not be too repulsed. Instead, I read ever onward, hungrily taking in the scenes and wondering how far Maledicte would go to accomplish her goals and get back her lover.

Maledicte is a masterpiece of dark fantasy that will leave you quivering for more and checking for poison in your cup. Drink if you dare and afterward you'll never forget the dark power of twisted love, or the price of revenge.


Paul Genesse
Author of The Nubian Queen
Featured in the Steampunk'd anthology from DAW Books
[..]

I picked this book up at the library with some reluctance. But I am sooo glad I did. This is one of the books that I think is worthy of being bought. An excellent fast paced read. Maledicte and Miranda are two different characters with the same body. Maledicte is the male nobleman bent on revenge and murder. Miranda is the female street rat and thief who lost the only person she ever cared about. So many questions passed through my mind while I devoured this book but the one that stood out the most was who really is the villain? I recommend this book to anyone that doesn't mind bloody scenes. There's a lot of gore.

I just finished this fabulous book. I was intrigued by the cover, and for once the inside matched the outside.

I would not compare the pedestrian Jacqueline Carey's work to this book. The correct comparison is Ellen Kushner and her Swordspoint series.

Robins brings her own spin to a similar playground: a decadent world with faded gods, an impotent court were form counts more than substance, full of politics, plots, rivalries, and shifting alliances. The characters are aristocrats, servants, spies, killers, and the wretched and poor of a good sized trading city. The tone of the city is from times past, full of town houses, palaces, and dark and dangerous stews. Robins adds a touch of magic, and dangerous wild gods who touch the lives of those who seek their aid, often to their destruction.

The characters are exceptionally real, and their relationships and stories are well done. Robins looks at the limits of love, and loyalty, and how those feelings can be turned to obsession, and vengeance. How the lack of basic human needs (food, shelter, warmth) can drive people to forget the humanity of others, and how extreme wealth and privilege can prevent people ever recognizing that others have any humanity to begin with.

The book is also funny, sad, suspenseful and finally uplifting. There is a great deal of violence and an almost Arsenic-and-Old-Lace quality to the killings at the start. There are many layers to the story, with the national and political fueling the personal and bringing love, loss, violence, vengeance, greed, sex and the quest for survival into the mix.

The writing is very good, the dialog witty, and almost making it a (black) comedy of manners. Carey could not write anything like the dialog, almost Oscar Wilde like. It is the type of book where you want to savor it and not see it end. There is a very strong feeling of reading a fantastical historical novel, and of reading a very polished writer.

I want to read more by this author, and even more in this setting.