⋙ Download Gratis The Book of the Damned Secret Books of Paradys Tanith Lee 9780879514082 Books

The Book of the Damned Secret Books of Paradys Tanith Lee 9780879514082 Books

Download As PDF : The Book of the Damned Secret Books of Paradys Tanith Lee 9780879514082 Books

The Book of the Damned Secret Books of Paradys Tanith Lee 9780879514082 Books

This, & the rest of the series, is gripping. You never know what will happen next. Pure Tanith Lee.


Tags : The Book of the Damned (Secret Books of Paradys) [Tanith Lee] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Three novellas linked by their setting in the strange magical city of Paradys, in a timeless France, evoke an alternate world of dark fantasy,Tanith Lee,The Book of the Damned (Secret Books of Paradys),Harry N. Abrams,0879514086,Fantasy - General,Fantastic fiction.,Fantasy fiction, English.,Paradys (Imaginary place);Fiction.,ENGLISH SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY,FICTION Fantasy General,FICTION General,FICTION Literary,Fantastic fiction,Fantasy,Fantasy fiction, English,Fiction,GENERAL,General Adult,Great BritainBritish Isles,Paradys (Imaginary place),Short stories

The Book of the Damned Secret Books of Paradys Tanith Lee 9780879514082 Books Reviews

I love all of the Paridis stories. I highly recommend them for anyone who likes fantasy/horror.
The first novella ("Stained with Crimson") rambled along deliriously until it had long overstayed its welcome. The second ("Malice in Saffron") was relentlessly, unapologetically violent. After slogging through those two, I dragged my feet at reading the third ("Empires of Azure"), but it was best, evoking the spine-tingling suspense of a Gothic horror tale.
Throughout, there was too much emphasis on gender-bending in all its permutations. It would have been a nice touch, if it hadn't been so liberally applied. You had your men with women, men with men, women with women, men with women dressed as men, men with men dressed as women, men turning into women, women turning into men, people of the either/or variety turning into... well I guess they were pretty contented as-is. As for myself, I was more than ready to simply call everyone "a person" and never mind who they slept with, but that would have eliminated two thirds of the book.
There you have it. It was fantasy, it was horror, and it was a blatant call for publicly-funded sex change surgery.
The Book of the Damned is perhaps the best of Tanith Lee's Books of Paradyse series, if only for the presence of the second novella, "Malice in Saffron". The first novella, "Stained with Crimson" begins with an interesting encounter, but becomes so mired in atmosphere and more atmosphere that the plot becomes indecipherable. Still, it evokes such a sense of hopelessness (in me at least!) that it's worth a read just to feel one's emotions tugged so. The third novella, "Empires of Azure", is less compelling. The characters feel caricatured despite Lee's typically stylish prose. It should be for "Malice in Saffron" that you buy this book. Jehanine, a peasant girl who's raped by her (step?)father, undergoes a personality split when she flees to Paradyse. Her nighttime persona of a carousing, murderous young man is a gripping portrayal of repressed rage finally unleashed. Late in the story, Lee introduces a plague to the city, and her subsequent descriptions rank with Camus, in my opinion, for depicting mass reaction to that particular fear of death (obviously, I like Lee very much). Finally, the twist of the "miracle" meal caps the story in a very satisfying manner. I think readers of various genres, fantasy, horror, even history, will get a kick out of this story.
Tanith Lee is quietly one of the great writers of dark fantasy, and though now passed, still deserving of a wider audience. Walking her own path in a field filled with wannabes, she slowly but steadily built an oeuvre of stories grounded in rich prose, a sensitivity to the workings of the human soul (ill-intentioned, good-hearted, or otherwise), a deep understanding of the power of myth and faery, and a talent for synergizing it all in fascinating stories. 1988’s The Book of the Damned (reprinted by Open Road Media in 2016) is the first in a series of works examining the phantasmagorical depths of the decadent, haunted city Paradys. It remains one of not only Lee’s, but fantasy’s best works.

Presented as stories from a strange city (the subtitle is The Secret Books of Paradys), The Book of the Damned is ostensibly three novellas “Stained with Crimson,” “Malice in Saffron,” and “Empires of Azure.” Like Lee’s earlier Flat Earth books, however, the tales bleed and seep into one another to create a whole, of sorts. Distinct yet suffuse entities, the characters and stories at each’s core takes one step further toward building in the reader’s mind the city of Paradys.

In “Stained with Crimson,” writer Andre St. Jean is walking the streets one night when a strange man hands him a ruby ring before dashing away. Another with hounds approaching soon thereafter, asking if he’d seen a man running this way, St. Jean’s tucks the ring into his pocket, and answers no. Life only getting more intersing in the days that follow, he soon finds himself head over heels in love with an aristocrat’s wife—his desires seeming to outstrip his conscience as she only emerges at night. Forcing a meeting with the woman one evening, however, changes his mind. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) for St. Jean, it also changes many other things.

In “Malice in Saffron,” a young woman has enough of the abuses of her peasant family and escapes to the alleys and shadows of the city of Paradys. Disguised as a boy, she learns its decaying wonder, of its gangs, and the thriving underworld. Joining a nunnery, she also learns that the abuses of her home have competition. Rogue by night and holy woman by day, eventually something has to give in her dual-identity.

And lastly, “Empire of Azure.” A frame story, it tells of a journalist and their finding of a strange diary. The diary containing the account of one Louis de Jenier, a famous female impersonator, the journalist learns of his strange discovery of a sapphire earring, and the ghost which haunts his apartment. More than a simple haunting, de Jenier’s diary eventually twists itself into the journalist’s life, the ghost transcending the frame of just one person’s life.

In The Book of the Damned, Lee’s exquisite prose guides the reader through stories sensual for the detail of setting as much as character and plot. Erotic without whips and leather, visceral without ostentation, and moving fluidly without skipping the particulars, the book is a gorgeous specimen of writing. But that the consequence and import of the characters’ stories are likewise not empty is where the book finds full value.

In the end, The Book of the Damned is a darkly enchanting trilogy of stories linked by the grotesquely Gothic streets of Paradys and the manner in which gender, spun by the setting, comes back around to influence identity and agency. The twist in spelling twisting not only gender, the city itself becomes ugly opulence, something as much beautiful as sinister—the duels, surrealness, madness, and visions perfectly delimited phantasmagoria. Superb book.

(The word ‘series’ mentioned at the outset, it should be noted that in no way does the ending of the book require purchase of the next. The quality of Lee’s writing may induce such action, however.)
still unread
The writing is fine but the subject isn't of interest to me. It came up under science fiction but it isn't science it is fantasy.
Wow!! Good Book
This, & the rest of the series, is gripping. You never know what will happen next. Pure Tanith Lee.