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The Etched City: A Novel Paperback – November 23, 2004
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Gwynn and Raule are rebels on the run, with little in common except being on the losing side of a hard-fought war. Gwynn is a gunslinger from the north, a loner, a survivor . . . a killer. Raule is a wandering surgeon, a healer who still believes in just—and lost—causes. Bound by a desire to escape the ghosts of the past, together they flee to the teeming city of Ashamoil, where Raule plies her trade among the desperate and destitute, and Gwynn becomes bodyguard and assassin for the household of a corrupt magnate. There, in the saving and taking of lives, they find themselves immersed in a world where art infects life, dream and waking fuse, and splendid and frightening miracles begin to bloom . . .
“The plot, with its stories-within-stories and its offhand descriptions of wonders and prodigies, brings to mind the works of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges.”—Locus
- Print length400 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSpectra
- Publication dateNovember 23, 2004
- Dimensions5.16 x 0.85 x 8.2 inches
- ISBN-100553382918
- ISBN-13978-0553382914
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Aussie author Bishop turns in her first novel, and what a first novel it is. The language in The Etched City demands to be savored, lingered over. It is beautiful to the point of astonishment. This is, basically, the fastest way to get a top review from me.
The problem being that when held up against such masterpieces of perfect prose as Walker's The Secret Service, Mieville's Perdido Street Station (to which The Etched City is oft-compared), or McCarthy's Blood Meridian, The Etched City suffers in one respect: pace. The first half of the book, give or take, is told at a leisurely pace, to be kind. (It took me over three months to make it to the last half of the book.) Bishop takes her protagonists, the gunslinger Gwynn (who bears a striking resemblance to a more cynical, lighter-hearted Elric of Melnibone) and the doctor Raule, through a few episodes in another land before getting to the city at the heart of the book, Ashamoil. Once in Ashamoil, Bishop takes her time setting up character, setting, and theme before actually getting down to plot. A few subplots are begun, a few episodes spun out (and The Etched City is very much an episodic novel, contributing somewhat to its overall sense of languor), but the biggest ball doesn't get rolling until almost two hundred pages in. If you love language, though, it is doubtful you will care; the book can be put down and picked up at various times allowing the reader to go on to more pressing matters and return at leisure.
Perhaps the oddest thing about the novel is that Raule, with whom the book begins, ends up being such a minor character in the general scheme of things. Once they get to Ashamoil, Gwynn quickly becomes the focus of the story, which cuts back to Raule now and again to ensure we remember she exists. Gwynn's main quests are involved in working for a tyrannical slaver, Elm, and trying to find (and considering what to do with) the artist of an etching Gwynn stumbles upon in the night market, an etching that contains him. When not hunting down sex or violence, he's usually involved in theological debate over dinner with a fallen priest, whose name we never know but who grows to be one of the book's most endearing characters.
Bishop's ability to draw characters, especially minor characters, puts her into the realm of such authors as McCarthy and Stephen King, much of whose reputations are based upon their ability to create memorable characters. Bishop can certainly be added to this list. The reader will be hard-pressed to forget most of Gwynn's band of cronies, especially Sharp Jasper and Elbows. Lovely folks the both of them. Really.
All in all, a good first novel that would have benefitted from better pacing at the beginning. Recommended for lovers of language and strong characters. *** ½
He's just so refreshing, in a way. He lives by a simple code; either everything is forgivable, or nothing is. Either is doesn't matter how heinous your actions because you can still be forgiven, or you'll never be forgiven for your minor transgressions so why stop at just minor ones? Basically the dude just does what's most practical and best for him without a moment's guilt. It makes for a really fascinating and fun to follow character, but it also means I was constantly feeling disappointed in him because I wanted him to do the right thing and he so rarely did. There's a hint of character growth for him by the end, but when I say hint I really do just mean a hint. He sure was entertaining though.
Which is handy, because the plot of the Etched City is not so easy to follow, mostly because it doesn't really have one. You could almost call it a slice of life? The setting is amazing. It's this decaying city built between a river and a jungle, and the way the author describes the heat and the rain and the mosquito is so visceral and evocative, I loved it. Much of the book is just Gwynn working for his awful slave trader boss, doing nasty henchmen things to people, leaving a trail of innocent and not so innocent corpses behind. He also meets and falls into a relationship with a women who may or not be a literal sphynx? At about the sixty percent mark the book seems to realise that it's supposed to have a plot and makes a half-hearted attempt at it, but it quickly goes back to multi-page debates about the existence of God and the like.
There is a second POV character, who at first seems is going to be the main character but she quickly fades away almost entirely. I'm not entirely sure why she was even included, but then I'm not sure why a lot of the things in this book were included. Like the dude with the flower growing out of his belly button? Even for a new weird book, this book gets weird. Suffice to say that they all add up to something big and strange and wonderful, even if they don't make sense in the larger context.
If you read books for the characters and the prose I think you should give this one a shot. If you're someone in the game just for the plot, this one might frustrate you. It's definitely more concerned with ruminating on ideas and describing jungle riverboat rides than with any kind of standard plot arc, but sometimes such deviations can be fun, no?
Top reviews from other countries
fans of china mieville will enjoy this work, inferior though it is, because of gothic grossness that marks both writer's books. the etched city has it all; action, love, gore, intensity and wonderful concepts. the problem is that it's more of an "adventures of" book than anything else. you don't feel that there's any resolution at the end, the lives of the protagonists don't really affect the world they live in much and not even their own lives much either
despite the critism it's still a good read, something light and easy, ideal for when you just want to absorb a book rather than struggling to make sense of it







