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I enjoyed book 2 of the series more than the first volume. This was one coherent tale, with the framing structure of the young scholar in the "present" day - from clues, a version of the 18th century perhaps - being given lodgings in an old house with a sinister past, encountering someone from that past who carries a deadly curse and then having the scholar return as the focus of the end of the tale.In the central part of the book, we learn of the beginning of the curse during the founding of th...
Beautifully written dark fantasy about demons, lust, and humans who become monsters.
another volume of gorgeous and ultraviolent sex—death poetry from the apparent queen of the form. book of the beast is comprised of one single story, broken into a few non-linear sections, as opposed to the three stories in book of the damned, but even with the extra room lee's confident, pithy prose enables her to tell a story of raw, transformative, malefic magic that spans centuries in barely over 150 pages. complete queen shit i am TELLING you. an excerpt from the first chapter — "The rain a...
This is copy 30 of 250 signed numbered copies published by Unwin & Hyman in the UK.
Tanith Lee is a master of dark and elegant fantasy, and this book is no exception. Well paced and plotted, but the ending seemed abrupt.
Reasonably well written, but imo not as interesting as the last one.
2.5This review and others posted over at my blog. For this collection of shorts, I thought it would be more interesting and entertaining if I just typed out my notes, as is. So here we go:The Scholar – He’s staying in a haunted house, fancying a ghost, then goes to a goth hooker. She kills herself (via poison douche!?) after finding out he’s staying at the haunted house. He meets the ghost lady who seems real, but says she’s dead. She tells him her story which leads to…The Bride – She marries...
I've read all the Secret Books of Paradys before, and this my year to give the series a reread. And I have to say, I've read all the Books of Paradys more than once already, except for the Book of the Beast. This is by far my least favorite of the series. I didn't even remember the second half of the book where the history of the curse is revealed and dispelled. But that said, the monstrous sex in the first half will always be vivid in my memory. The Book of the Beast details a sexually transmit...
More like a 3.5 but in this case I am rounding down. I wanted to love it more than I did. The writing is absolutely beautiful and evocative, the story creepy and altogether original. It's hard, actually probably almost impossible, to sit down and just devour. I could only handle a few pages at a time, as the writing is quite dense. It just left me feeling a bit unsatisfied.I have the next two books in this series, and I have the distinct feeling that they are better taken as a whole, so I'll get...
Since I read the last chapter in 2010, I think it still belongs in 2009.This one was much easier to deal with. Only the beginning was the kind of scary I can't do. (Ghosts, no. Monsters, oh hell yes!) And as Lucas said, the monster was excellent. I'm still a little confused about the change in eye color from purple to green, but I have decided to believe that she wouldn't leave such a gaping hole, and that it's in there somewhere.Overall, I don't think it was as good as Book of the Damned, becau...
The Book of the Beast wasn't nearly as bad as the Book of the Damned as far as leaving me feeling icky. I enjoyed the story of how the Beast was laid on this family as a curse. The only thing that was left open was why the woman laid the curse on the Roman soldier in the first place. And also why the eyes started out amithyst and then later they turned emerald green. Still I liked the ending. It was pretty good.
I want to read more Tanith Lee, but I think I am done with Paradys. I hope her other books aren't so dang rapey, like, calm down. The story was interesting, I like the jumping narrative. Didn't like how she kept repeating the Jew and Jewess. Like I said in my review for the last one, just because you're using old-timey style, doesn't mean you need to use old-timey language all the time.
Overall, more consistent than the first book, but it never reached the heights of Malice in Saffron. Will any story in this series? It was very cleverly constructed; each story was a puzzle piece that fit together perfectly at the end. I give it a 3.5.
An epic in miniature that manages to pack a Gothic saga in fewer than 200 pages. Very evocative and atmospheric, The Book of the Beast builds on the foundation established by The Book of the Damned, but this story is better realized and the "beast" is truly monstrous and intriguing.
The second volume of The Secret books of Paradys is more of the same high-Gothic, colourful, arcane, mysterious fiction as the Book of the Damned, but more of a piece, the tales tied together more directly into a consistent single story.
One of the 1st 2 books in the Paradys series, which must all be read together to be truly enjoyable. See my review of Book of the Dead.
I love Tanith Lee's books, but one cannot gobble them.. these take a little longer to read....
