Customer Reviews

Rats and Gargoyles

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

 

 

This is a gorgeously written book, involving some fascinating and very original concepts, and featuring some wonderful characters. It's also a very difficult read in terms of the plot; it's confusing; it rambles; and it probably could have stood some pruning. I recommend it anyway.

Gentle writes well. She uses language beautifully. Even when the plot had lost me, I still enjoyed the images she presents.

The setting is a sort of seventeenth -- maybe -- century European one, only with human-sized rats in charge of humans, and gods (Decans) over all. The gargoyles of the title are the Decans' bestial acolytes. Alchemical and architectural concepts, including illustrations from alchemical texts, give the world-building depth. There's no real discussion of how the rats got to be in charge, and little about rat society, which seems very human-like, but I didn't find that to be a major flaw.

Characters stand out in their refusal to be stereotyped as fantasy heroes. Casaubon, the large and personally unhygienic Lord Architect, is perhaps the best and I was happy to see that he "gets the girl" in the end -- the "girl" being the rather deadly scholar, sorceress and swordfighter White Crow. There are probably too many characters, over all, but I can't name one of them as being unentertaining.

The plot is utterly confusing. The world, at the will of one of the Decans, is going to end. The characters have to stop that from happening. Meanwhile, humans are rebelling against rats, humans are rebelling against Decans, rats are rebelling against Decans and rats are rebelling against their own monarchy. It's a wonderful chaos, and I became quite lost at various points. It's also true that the plot goes on for perhaps too long -- in particular the post-saving-the-world portion (though it included some lovely images). But the end is wonderful.

I'd recommend this to anyone who doesn't mind being somewhat befuddled and wants to read original, gorgeously written fantasy.

Rats and Gargoyles is the first novel in the White Crow series. This novel takes place in a society much like Paris in the late 17th century, but wherein the Hermetic philosophy -- i.e., magic -- of that period can effect changes in the real universe, as can Masonic and Rosicrucian principles. The God-demons each represent ten degrees -- i.e., a decan -- of the circle of heavens. The ruling class are Rats and the Decan Acolytes are gargoyles. The city itself is the center of the world.

In this novel, Prince Lucas comes incognito from Candover to the city in order to attend the University of Crime. On his first day, he meets Zar-bettu-Zekigal, a Katayan princess and Kings' Memory, follows her through a shortcut in the catacombs, is separated from her and imprisoned by the Order of Guiry, escapes from his cell, meets his landlady Evelian and her daughter Sharlevian, and consults with the White Crow.

Zar-bettu-Zekigal goes with the black Rat-Lord Plessiez to a meeting with the Master Falke of the House of Salomon. While they are talking, Captain-General Desaguliers, a lean black Rat, intrudes on the meeting with his armed cadets, implies that it is a treasonous conspiracy against the Rat-Kings, but allows it to continue. An agreement is reached just before the Acolytes tear the roof off the hall and starting killing the participants.

Casaubon, a Lord Architect and scholar-soldier of the Invisible College, has been summoned to the city to build war machines for the Rat-Kings. He is surprised and delighted to find the White Crow there, for she is a fellow scholar-soldier and he has been looking for her.

This novel is much like Dumas' Three Musketeers tales, but is filled with magic of several flavors. It is replete with obscure symbolism, political satire, and ineffable purpose. The author draws upon her studies in history to imbue the story with the proper ambiance and character. For example, the legal trial and execution of the sow for murder at the very start of the story sets the tone of irrational logic that prevails throughout.

The various forms of magic presented in this novel were precursors to the natural science and technology of the 18th century. In fact, the earliest version of the Royal Society of London was called the Invisible College. Much of the technology as well as the practice of experimentation had already been developed by alchemists and other students of such magic, so subsequent developments in natural science were mostly on the theoretical side. During the next century, many plausible explanations for physical phenomena were proven to be false and were replaced with other notions which emerged from the experimental data.

Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys fantasies with a historical setting and rationale.

I picked up this book on a whim, and found it to be a good read, but only when I had no distractions and the time to really concentrate on what was happening. There is a lot of description and detail, as well as quite a few characters to keep track of, and sometimes that can be difficult for me if I am just reading to kill time in a crowded space, or just before going to sleep when I'm already tired.

If you have the time and the lack of distraction to really get into this book, I recommend it. However, if you like fantasy novels such as the Dragonlance books, you probably won't like this book because it applies some real science to a fantasy setting, rather than the standards of magic found in many fantasy novels.

The characters are interesting, especially because the role of the women in this novel isn't that of the damsel-in-distress, which was refreshing. I especially liked the character of Zari because she was just so... well... different.

So, I recommend this book, but only if you want to read a book that engages you and makes you think. If you are looking for a "pulpy" book to kill time on an airplane or in a bus station, this is a bad book for that purpose. --Kim

I'm a bit of a speed-reader, and "Rats and Gargoyles" is one of the few books that has had the honor of taking me more than a week to finish. It has an extraordinarily deep and convoluted plot (or, more accurately, web of plots and subplots) which has been described as "designed specifically to make the brain ache;" nonetheless, if you can actually follow the story, it's a highly original, intriguing, disturbing, amusing, and occasionally even erotic novel.

This is one of the more imaginative sci-fi books I've read. After all those typical fantasy books (eg. Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, etc.) Rats and Gargoyles really fired up my imagination again. The use of Hermetic magic is inspired - a whole lot better than the usual twiddling of fingers and some mysterious chanting most standard fantasy authors use. It brings a sense of realness to the world which is a melange of different time era. As the earlier reviews pointed out, the sometimes over-convoluted prose is hard to read and it took me a while to comprehend the what the author wants to tell me. The author also tends to disrupt the dialogue which can lead to reader confusion on who is speaking what. That's the reason why this book isn't getting a 5 star from me. But the immersive of the setting has had me reading it again and again and it just gets better with every read.

This book is, first and foremost, a difficult read. That's not necessarily a bad. It's sometimes nice to sit back with a book where language and imagery are just as important as plot. Michael Williams' _Arcady_ and most of Patricia McKillip's works spring to mind as similarly "difficult" reads (that I have enjoyed), for comparison.

However, where those other works reward the reader's efforts with intriguing characters or classic story, Rats&Gargoyles failed to catch my interest at just about every turn. Too many characters, too much peripheral action, too little time spent on important elements left me feeling "at sea" throughout the book, wallowing through page after page of pretty language without any stable character or plot thread for me to latch onto as the "important" stuff. In the end, I finished the book more because I had paid for it and felt obligated to finish rather than out of any real enjoyment gained.

Culturally and chronogically eclectic, successfully combining elements of philosophies and technologies, very tightly and intelligently written to form a (for once) truly original fantasy "universe". Well written in an intensely descriptive style. The plot is very entertaining as are the peculiar characters. Two quibbles: habit of alternating a line of dialogue with a line of description (disruptive); and White Crow's teenage daughter is totally superfluous.

This was an odd book, I have to say. I struggled through the first 150 pages, then raced through the next 150, then struggled again to get to the end. I think this is what is called "uneven pacing." I really had to work to find the story here. Everything is heavily described, which does a lot for creating atmosphere. This book has got atmosphere leaking out of the covers. I've never read so many descriptions of smells before. A few senesory clues here and there help the scene to live for the reader, but in this case I felt like the author was shoving my face into the scenes. A bit too heavy-handed there. But when characters DO things, we're not always sure what they did, since their actions are described so baroquely. Luckily, the middle portion doesn't suffer from this problem quite so badly, and the story moves along very well. You can actually tell what's going on, in other words. But then things get overly obscure again towards the end. Perhaps this is meant to add weight to the writing, but that weight is rather too much, I think.

The ending was very out of character with the rest of the book. Imagine, say, if The Lord of the Rings ended with Sauron reading bedtime stories to hobbit-children, orcs playing with elves, well...you get the picture. Not a satisfying ending. And our heroine, White Crow, suddenly reverts back into a small-minded, little person, after going through what should have been an incredibly life-changing experience. To use LOTR again, imagine that, after defeating the Balrog, Gandalf decides to make a living selling fireworks. You'd be scratching your head. As I did here.

Not sure why the SciFi Book Club added this one to it's 50-year Anniversary collection, but it was better than Snow Crash, at least.

Although at times wonderful, Gentle's "Rats & Gargoyles" is rife with excessive characters, some of whom are likeable but undeserving of a storyline, stupid jokes, elongated chapters and a pregnant pause of a final climax. Essentially the book is a hundred pages longer than it should be (I found myself dozing off at the 400 page mark), with chapters that are so drawn out that skipping entire sections is a really tempting idea. Some of the ideas are novel though, and that is finally what redeems the work as a whole. The use of magic as a decendant of Paracelsus and Agrippa is a welcome change to the typical "high sorcery"; Rats are a nice change from those bloody elves; and the disceet history of the text is nicely portrayed. It's worth reading, if you're up for some fantasy and a long read.

The only fantasy genre book I never finished. It is a pet peeve of mine not to finish books even when they are bad. However, I made an exception for this one. I have no idea what the plot of this story is and what the heck was going on, but whatever it was it added up to bad reading. Seems like a good idea for a book; however, I'm not exactly sure what the author was trying to convey with this story or even what that idea may be. Apologies for lack of detail, but I just don't know how to describe this book except that it was bad.