Mistress of Mistresses: A Vision of Zimiamvia [Mass Market Paperback]

E.R. Eddison (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Del Rey (December 12, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 034527220X
• ISBN-13: 978-0345272201
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,046,891 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfection in romantic fantasy, October 29, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Cupertino, California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mistress of Mistresses: A Vision of Zimiamvia (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a book of unearthly beauty. While I felt that Eddison's THE WORM OUROBOROS was somewhat on the light side, MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES captures the vision of romantic heroism, both in its peaks of joyful experience and its dark ambiguity. It is almost impossible to describe rapture in such a way as to actually evoke it in the reader---Eddison does this not once but several times. Yet looming behind the pleasures of flesh and spirit is a wintry grandeur, a coldness of sheer height and a thanatosis that makes one shiver.

The book begins and ends with death and the plot is standard. There is no character development---the characters are (sometimes literally) archetypes. It is not really a story. It is a vision---a painting that one would gaze at for hours. The value of this book lies in the strength of that vision and the beauty with which it is portrayed.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Re: what a great mini-series this would make, February 3, 2006

By 

M. Durham "andiam" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mistress of Mistresses: A Vision of Zimiamvia (Mass Market Paperback)

I read E.R. Eddison's books many years ago, but they are still vivid in my memory. I loved the way the author could write Elizabethan dialogue as if he had lunch with Shakespeare every day. The characters were so colorful, the scenes richly painted, and the strange, time-and-space-roving Lessingham had another life here in this other Europe, that seems to me now like something Tolkien might have wanted for his Fifth Age of Middle Earth.
I yearned for years that someone would make a film or films of The Lord of the Rings. I grew old waiting, but then it happened. Maybe someday there will be a Worm Ouroboros or a Mistress of Mistresses. I know the language would have to be made more simple and most of the philosophy dumped, but to see Lord Gro, of Ouroboros, doomed always to be a traitor, come to his end, or that grand villain of Mistresses, the Vicar of Rerek take time out from his plotting to be 'a washing of his cursed dogs' in his casstle yard, would be a mad treat.
Winston Chruchill once said that schoolboys should be allowed to study Latin as a reward, and Greek as a treat. Readers with imagination and an appreciation for language should be made lighter nad dizzy with the richness of Eddison's prose.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantasy world for the grown up thinking reader, March 10, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Mistress of Mistresses: A Vision of Zimiamvia (Mass Market Paperback)

If you tire of Lord of the Rings or endless triologies then Mistress of Mistresses is for you. It is set in a fantasy world similar to 16th Century Europe. The book demands concentration, a knowledge of philosophy and poetry. But beware. It will send you off on a lifelong hunt into these fields. You may end up learning Ancient Greek or Latin. You will fall in love with the women and follow the heroes blindly. Read, enjoy and return to. Like a good wine it matures well.