The Light Ages (Paperback)

~ (Author) "I still see her now..." (more)
Key Phrases: aether engines, perilinden trees, high guilded, Mistress Summerton, Grandmaster Harrat, Walcote House (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Several hundred years ago a magical substance known as aether was discovered in England, and it changed the world in this beautifully written, complex fantasy novel, British author MacLeod's second (after the underrated The Great Wheel). Kings were overthrown. Aether-based industries flourished. Now, near the end of the Third Age of Industry (roughly the equivalent of our Victorian Age), great Guilds run the nation. Powerful captains of industry live like nobility, while the impoverished masses risk their lives mining, refining and working with the dangerous substance that supports the economy. Cracks are beginning to show in society, however. The poor are getting poorer. Quality workmanship is hard to find. Those who come into too much contact with aether often mutate into sometimes monstrous creatures called changelings. Worse still, there are dark rumors that the aether may be running out. The narrator, Robert Borrows, who rises from near-poverty as the son of a humble guildsman, falls in love with a changeling, participates in the revolution that brings the Third Age to its end and winds up among the masters of the new world that rises out of its ruins. With its strong character development and gritty, alternate London, this book won't attract fans of Robert Jordan or Terry Goodkind, but should hold great appeal to readers who love the more sophisticated fantasy of Michael Swanwick, John Crowley or even China Mieville.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Three centuries before the events of this extraordinary alternate-history fantasy, the human race discovered the substance aether, which permitted the use of magic to build a guild-dominated technological society. When Robert Borrow is born to a family belonging to a minor guild in northern England, the world has a distinct Victorian flavor. But soon his mother turns into a "changeling"--an ill effect of aether exposure--and dies. Then he meets Annalise, the lovely ward of an old friend of his mother who is also a changeling. Jumping ahead to the adult Robert, the story finds him in London, writing for a radical newspaper bent on overthrowing the guilds' rule. The complex story line takes Robert to places high and low, into the arms of the daughter of the equivalent of a duke, and through travels, travails, battles, plots, and terrifying discoveries--some in his old home town, and some in the company of Annalise. If MacLeod's narrative technique falls short of perfection, his characterization, world building, and command of the language do not. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (April 5, 2004)
• ISBN-10: 0743462440
• ISBN-13: 978-0743462440
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Light Ages makes for some heavy reading, July 5, 2003

By	Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Light Ages (Hardcover)

Ian R. MacLeod is most definitely a talented writer capable of making his words dance across the written page, but I have to admit I found The Light Ages a slow, sometimes frustrating read. The actual events and experiences driving the story are disjointed, and while the highly literate prose ebbs and flows at times like a beauty of nature, it proves incapable of assembling the whole into something completely intelligible. This is fantasy of a high order that many readers will surely enjoy more than I did, and any question of MacLeod's talent can be easily swept aside by noting the World Fantasy Award he won for his novella The Summer Isles. As this is MacLeod's first novel, though, I personally cannot help but wonder if he tried too hard to reach a lofty pinnacle of success. The words, as beautiful and carefully crafted as they are, just seem to get in the way of the story at times. There are several quite compelling scenes, but these inevitably fall away into a sort of miasma not unlike the alternative London MacLeod constructed for his novel.

The primary backdrop of The Light Ages is a future London wherein a Dickensian sort of social order has prevailed for a full three centuries, fueled by the discovery of aether, a magical substance that is mined from the earth. Industrialization failed to progress, to a large degree, because aether and the spells guarded zealously by the guilds could magically make inferior items, including those making up the industrial infrastructure of society, perfectly workable. On their own, such structures as the low-quality train tracks and flimsily-constructed buildings could never stand, but aether kept everything in working order. Thus, industry stagnated, and society, through the course of three century-long Ages, also stagnated into a tightly compartmentalized world of guilds. Social mobility was all but unheard of; the son of a toolmaker would grow up to be a toolmaker because there was no other option. A few individuals, though, seemed to possess magic inside themselves, and these creatures were rooted out and ostracized as trolls (i.e., changelings). Robert Barrows was born into this world, growing up in the town of Bracebridge, the most important aether mining town in England. One special day during his childhood, his mother took him to a home outside of town, where he met an extraordinary young girl named Annalise, and soon thereafter his mother began to change horribly. With her death, he chose to flee his world and seek his destiny in London. It is here that he becomes a social revolutionary, working to usher in the light of a brand new Age, one in which society is not stratified by wealth, status, or birth. Oddly enough, he also sometimes walks in the world of the guildmasters, the very persons he is trying to overthrow, and it is here where he meets Annalise again. The rest of the novel is a meandering tale of discovery and loss, mixing in a remarkable cast of characters, as Robert strives to discover the secret of his home town of Bracebridge, a secret that unites him and Annalise in the most fundamental, albeit mysterious, of manners.

One problem I have with the book is the fact that some of the most important events and transitions take place between sections. We see Robert hop a train to escape to London, and the next thing we know he is working for a socialist newspaper five years later. Since MacLeod's main emphasis in this novel, at least as it appeared to me, was a careful and close critique of man and society, Robert's transformation would seem to have offered the author a perfect means of pursuing his loftier goals for the story. There were moments when MacLeod succeeded in demonstrating the common humanity of the wealthy guildmen and unguilded marts such as Robert, yet no individual's real self seemed to emerge from these pages; thus, the motivations of different characters at different times were difficult to understand, and the whole point of the novel is, in one sense, seemingly challenged by the ending. The Light Ages is not a cheerful, inspirational story, but I don't think it tries to be; personally, I'm not entirely sure what the novel was intended to be, and that is the source of my own dissatisfaction of sorts with what could have potentially been a truly insightful, socioeconomically challenging novel.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing - Sound and Fury Signifying Very Little, July 8, 2004

By	Abigail Nussbaum (Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Light Ages (Paperback)

Ian R. MacLeod's The Light Ages is fantastically well-written, with believable, flawed characters. This fantasy-cum-alternate history eschews standard adventure plots and presents a contemplation of a society on the cusp of change. MacLeod deals with the affects technology has on society, the reactions people have to social change, and the way in which society mutates and evolves.

Unfortunately, MacLeod has very little that's new to say on any of these subjects. Although he tries to write in the steampunk, science-fantasy tradition, he seems to have forgotten that at the core of these sub-genres there must exist strangeness, newness, and wonder. The story he tells is remarkably mundane. Were it not for a few fantastic touches, such as the strange mutations that take place after too much exposure to aether (the novel's magical McGuffin), The Light Ages might just as easily have been a general fiction novel set in the turn of the last century.

The Light Ages describes a tumultuous period - with society on the cusp of ruin, a group of disgruntled have-nots are in the process of orchestrating a people's revolution. The narrator, Robert Borrows, exists on the fringes of this group, and although their struggle is interesting, it is also off-putting. Most of us who have read a few history books know that revolutions, no matter in who's name, will inevitably turn bloody and cruel. We've know that revolutionary leaders who talk about equality, giving power to the people, and an end to ownership will almost certainly end up hoarding rights, power and property. That MacLeod expects us to be shocked or saddened when these very things happen is almost insulting.

In a possible attempt to humanize this struggle, MacLeod weaves in the story of Robert's life as he struggles to understand a tragic event that has colored his life, the life of his family and his home town, and eventually makes a discovery that alters the course of history. Both of these plots move slowly, and their revelations are thin and obvious, unlikely to surprise even the most inexperienced reader. MacLeod attempts to artificially inflate his story by bookending it in a conversation Robert has with a "changeling" - one of the aforementioned mutants. Her identity is supposed to be a big surprise, but it ends up being meaningless.

I gave The Light Ages three stars for the power of its prose and for being a fine attempt at thinking outside the fantasy box. Unfortunately, MacLeod was unequal to the task at hand, and I wouldn't recommend this book at all.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wordy Romance, April 26, 2004

By	Silas Traitor (The South, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Light Ages (Paperback)

A young man leaves his small-town home for London, where he learns about doomed love, revolution and aether.

The Light Ages is more of an alternate-history romance with a dash of fantasy. The primary fantastical element is aether, a magical substance mined from the earth, and the pillar supporting all industry. Those who have it live in opulence, those who don't suffer poverty.

The first 20% had me hooked. While watching a young workingman's son grow up, we learn all about aether: where it comes from, what it does, and its wondrously creepy dark side. Loved it.

But then young Robert Burrows goes to London, and all fantasy elements jump to the backseat. 80% of the remaining pages are given to a dozen years passing against the backdrop of a social revolution. It was then I began to notice MacLeod's lengthy descriptions becoming tedious; years crawling by as the revolution builds. There's a love story in there somewhere, buried under a heap of social events. It took an effort to stay involved.

Towards the end the pace picks up somewhat, but events fall into place all too conveniently, something that always stretches credibility.

If slightly fantastical historical romances are your thing, and you don't mind lots of description, then The Light Ages should hit the spot.