Customer Reviews

The San Veneficio Canon

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I've already written a review for The Divinity Student, so the majority of this will focus on the second half of The San Veneficio Canon. In The Divinity Student, you are introduced to an enigmatic character whose insides are stuffed with papers and he lives off of formaldehyde. His task is to create a lexicon of lost words. In order to do this, he must slip into other realms of consciousness and (literally) probe the brains of the deceased. The cast of characters he encounters are wildly imaginative. Cisco really pulls you into the world of San Veneficio.

In The Golem (the second half of The San Veneficio Canon), the Divinity Student returns, but with a different purpose this time. Unable to go into the underworld himself, he creates a copy of himself, The Golem, and proceeds to chase after the woman he loves to marry her. Cisco creates a dazzling and overwhelming underworld. The pace of the novel, once the chase begins, is pretty fast paced.

Michael Cisco has been hailed by many authors as a Gothic revivalist of sorts. The worlds and characters he creates are simply unparalleled. If you're a fan of decadent literature, Thomas Ligotti, Jeff Vandermeer or Neil Gaiman, this book is for you.

The San Veneficio Canon was my first exposure to Michael Cisco, and I approached the book with some trepidation. I'm not a fan of Thomas Ligotti, but I adore early Mieville, Lovecraft, and Vandermeer, all of whom I read Cisco being compared to. I wasn't sure how I'd react.

The result? For me, a mixed bag. There's no doubt Cisco can write. According to the notes, he's got a PhD, so one assumes he's a smart guy. He's also got quite a talent for creating uniquely visceral imagery and captivating atmosphere. The problem for me was he didn't do enough with these images; the plots of these two related novellas did not live up to the heights (or depths, considering the ghoulish subject matter) of the stylish writing.

I will never forget some of the set pieces and literary power contained in this book, and how Cisco's writing made me feel, but I felt there was little to make these images more than just lurid mental pictures. What actually happens in The Divinity Student and The Golem becomes so buried by the heavy-handed writing, the events seemed little more than a loose, abbreviated structure upon which Cisco piles his considerable descriptive arsenal.

For example, I got the strong sense that San Veneficio itself was a strange and broken place indeed, but I could never put my finger on exactly why. San Veneficio seemed to be largely sensation with little grounding, making it difficult for me to accept it as a "real" place. Opposing examples would be Vandermeer's Ambergris or Barker's Imajica, with their richly imagined histories and mythologies.

If you're the type of reader who enjoys a mesmerizing barrage of incredibly poetic gothic language, change my ranking to five stars; you'll eat this up. If, like me, you prefer your dark fantasy to also feature an involving plot and relatable characters, look elsewhere. Mieville's Perdido Street Station, for starters.

If Cisco ever dreams up substance to match his style, the result will be a wonder indeed. For my taste, however, his Canon was half-amazing.