'Magritte's Secret Agent' and 'The Gorgon' were my favorites and they were really good. 'Monkey's Stagger' is in essence just a really long bad pun (other parts are funny) and 'Because Our Skins are Finer' was just plain bad. Tanith Lee is one of my favorite authors but this stuff was just average and as my title says disappointing after reading some of her other books. Of course this is just my opinion (but that's what we're here for isn't it?)

A couple stories didn't move me. But the rest DID. The short stories range from quirky to chilling to poignantly beautiful, with scenes set in our world & others.

Even my little brother got all dewy-eyed & reverent when I made him read one of the stories. That says a lot.

Tanith Lee does it again in this collection of anecdotes. From the starting story "The Gorgon" to the ending story "La Reine Blanche" you are hooked. These short stories tell of interesting and fantastic but believable characters that hold you to the end. From the mute "Sirriamnis" to the grizzled old apothecary in "Draco,Draco", the heavenly appearence of the beautiful aliens in "Quatt-sup" to the gorgeous autistic man in "Magritte's Secret Agent", Lee shines in the stories written in first-person viewpoint like personal diaries. Definite reccomended reading.

I first read this eye-opener when I was fifteen. I agree this is a little difficult to get into, but after eight years and several Science Fiction / Fantasy authors (including Anne Rice) this is still my all-time favourite book to get lost in. Well worth the reading!

I ran across this book in an old book store and bought it mainly because the cover art was so interesting. I could not put this book down. I had never read anything so vivid and colorful. This is why I am a Tanith Lee fan. Sabella is an intriguing charactor and the environment that she lives in is just as intriguing. If you are looking for something fresh and different. If you love to let your imagination run WILD........ READ THIS ONE!!! It wont dissapoint you.

Sabella is an extremely seductive story, & for awhile was my favorite (now I'm undecided.). Sabella's bloodlust is very much like... well, lust... & I found this story to be a desperate journey as well as a gorgeous adventure.

Tanith Lee displays her usual inventiveness in Gold Unicorn; the result is a very satisfactory sequel to Black Unicorn.

While not, in my mind, quite as enjoyable as the first one, Gold Unicorn nonetheless remains a well-crafted fantasy in a creative and unusual world. Darker than its predecessor, Gold Unicorn explores Tanaquil's struggles between loyalty to her half-sister Lizra, now the dreaded conquerer, and her own belief that the ideal world her sister strives for cannot be achieved by war. Added are several complications-- a massive mechanical gold unicorn Lizra has ordered Tanaquil to fix for her war campaign, the mischievous peeve, stinging mousps (a magician's creation formed of mice and wasps), Honj, the enigmatic consort of Lizra...and a hell world to parallel the perfect world Tanaquil saw in the last book.

Obviously some people won't appreciate this book, but to those who enjoy Tanith Lee's particular style, Gold Unicorn is the perfect way to spend an afternoon.

Really, the sequel is very, very good. There are still more interesting, complex characters, a strong plotline, and all kinds of surprises, twists, and magic, magic, magic. Tanaquil is her old complex self, as wonderful and strong and clever and dry as she was in the first book, Black Unicorn. Her familiar, the peeve, is also going strong, and I particularly liked it in the sequel.

At first, it may look to some readers like the book is just another formulatic epic-battle-type fantasy, but Tanith Lee takes all the old, used-up cliches of this sort of fantasy and reweaves them, turns them upside-down, completley rejeuvenates them.

This is a wonderful book, and a worthy sequel. I would have liked it perhaps if Tanaquil had just gone on adventures by herself (and the peeve) and there had been no war element, but this sequel is still good the way it is.

Altogether, I wasn't disappointed. Fun book! Well worth reading!

Great light read! Though not as good as the black unicorn, the gold unicorn is still a enchanting read.

Set in a fantasy version of the 18th-century Venice Carnival (a setting I really liked), "Faces Under Water" follows Furian Furiano (very original name ;) as he comes across a mask floating in a canal. This discovery leads him into the company of dark alchemists, the Guild of Mask Makers--and ultimately into the arms of Eurydiche, a woman whose mask is her actual face--a well-woven twist to the authentic Carnival atmosphere.

Although it's been a long time since I've read this book (I had to browse through it again to remember most of the story in order to write this review), I do recall "Faces" was rather slow-paced, particularly in the beginning half, and not as exciting or intriguing as Lee's Paradys series, which this series appears to imitate. Based on this book alone, I doubt I'll like her new Venus series. There are three additional books to it--"Saint Fire," "A Bed of Earth," and "Venus Preserved"--but I'll probably stick with her Paradys series instead, one I'd recommend over this series.

Two admirable plot summaries have already been provided, as well as a breathtaking literary analysis of this book; my review will be somewhat shorter but hopefully half as decent. I enjoyed "Faces Under Water." To date, there is nothing of Tanith Lee's work that I have not enjoyed; however, during and after my reading of "Faces Under Water," I decided that this book, while certainly much better than most of what's out there, and even good by Tanith Lee standards, should not go terribly high on the list of her masterpieces. Having said that, keep in mind that I liked this book, because I am going to complain.

Part of the problem for me was the distance maintained from the characters, something I have never had trouble with before. Characters in the Paradys Tetralogy are viewed from the outside, often inscrutable at first glance, but after a while you can get inside their heads and understand their thoughts. Furian Furiano, though he becomes more approachable as the novel progresses, starts out as remote and indecipherable as his lover Eurydiche, she whose very face is a mask (a rare genetic disorder known as "faschia pietra" or "stone face"). Even though he is in effect the narrator of the story, albeit from a third-person angle, I often felt as though I were watching him, with no clue as to his emotions, his feelings, nothing that would give me any rapport or sympathy with him. By the end of the book this problem has been amended; I only wish it had been remedied by the first chapter.

A second problem lay in the pacing of the novel. The first half, or first portion, moves slowly, with hints and details dropped here and there: the drowned musician, the mask found floating in the canal and the aura of sorcery that reeks from it, Eurydiche's stone face and the inhuman brilliance of her eyes, her father and the Guild of Mask-Makers...they build the world up in small, elegant fragments, but do little to advance the story. Of course, in the reading of Tanith Lee a great deal of pleasure is derived from her unique writing style, which seems to use words as allusions to other words-or perhaps "as illusions" is more apt-and draws singular details together as opposed to broad strokes for the reader's mind to fill in at leisure. Anyway...my, am I off track...the second half of the novel, after Lee has hidden the plot behind an impenetrable mask of words, reveals everything with great rapidity. Perhaps that is intentional-after all the concealment, the sudden removal of the mask-but it jars a little with the prior pacing.

All of that aside, I would like to reaffirm that "Faces Under Water" should be read, that I look forward to the second in what looks like the Venus Tetralogy (I love the Paradys novels and so I doubt that even this new quartet, set in what seems like the same world, will displace them from my heart), and that even so-so Tanith Lee is really quite good. Venus is not Paradys, but it is evoked through a brilliant screen of words and colors (I love Tanith Lee's use of color and words for color...really, who else says "the color of tarnished orichalc" in ordinary conversation?) and seems a fitting home for the mask-faced Eurydiche and the somewhat inscrutable Furian with whom, by the end of the book, I was having no trouble sympathizing. Of course, I don't as a rule go poling around in canals, looking for drowned bodies, but that's a trifling matter...

Besides, I might find a mask.

When Furian Furiano, a moody and temperamental young man with a painful past, comes across an exquisite mask of Apollo in his daily polings through the canals of Venus, the Venice of a shadowy alternate world, he has no idea what this chance find will bring him: a desperate love, initiation into an ancient and reclusive craft, and a closer encounter with death than he ever wished. In the hidden places of Venus, something is stirring and waking, something kept skillfully hidden until Furian's clumsy searches bring it to light...and not Furian, not his beautiful lover Eurydiche, perhaps not even Venus herself will be safe if its power is not stopped.

Like Lee's novels of Paradys, which seems to belong to the same world as Venus, "Faces Under Water" deals with a wide range of emotions and environments, from the darkness and the decadence to the unexpected joys and pains-all of which Furian's troubled life encompasses. Central to his thoughts and the story is the idea of the mask: what lies behind it? Can one even know what is really there? Furian's lover Eurydiche is perhaps a personification of this question; born with a rare disorder that keeps her mute and her face as still as stone, she cannot affirm her love to Furian in any way that he can concretely accept. In the same way that Furian can never be sure what Eurydiche is thinking behind her beautiful mask, he cannot fathom the plot that is forming around him until it reveals itself to him at last. The Mask Makers' Guild...a mysterious tribe known as the Orichalci that dwell in the southern Amarias (seventeeth-century Venus' name for the Americas)...questions of life and death...unlikely pieces joining together, they form an impenetrable screen around Furian, weaving darkness until he cannot find his way out alone. Yet dark as Venus' world may be, it is not entirely without its lights. Humor and odd bits of truth are provided by Furian's friend/mentor/irritant Dianus Shaachen, an aging doctor who dabbles in alchemy and other mystical arts, dotes on his pet magpie, loves to be cryptic, and may actually know something of use to Furian. Furian's own interactions with his fellow characters show him to be more than a figure moved about a stage-by turns wry, sarcastic, and vulnerable, afraid to admit love, unable to deny it, he is achingly, familiarly human. And Eurydiche and Furian's love, whatever its nature, may the one thing that can heal both these wounded people. Such things are necessary-for how can you know what you have gone through if there is nowhere to pause and look back...and how can darkness have meaning without the light?

This book in my opinion is terrific! I loved the first one and loved this one. Including the third. I really can't wait 'till the fourth comes out. I think that this book is exciting and thrilling,along with some suspensful and romantic moments. If i were to sugest it to anyone I would be falling over my self with details about the book.

This book is really good. Claidi has been taken away from her beloved Argul right before the wedding. She is taken to a place called the Rise and makes some unexpected discoveries. Those discoveries i will not reveal thats why you need to read this book. By the end of the story she makes her way back to Argul and it ends there while she is in the sky drawing closer to her bethrothed and beloved Argul. After this book comes the third in its series(Wolf Queen). I really suggest you read it and find out what happens.

I'm 14 years old. (today is my b-day, in fact! ^_^) This is the all-time greatest book I have ever read. I can't help but love the charachters... five stars isn't enough! I can't express to you how awesome this book is... I discovered these books on my own, but I think they'd be the perfect present for almost any teenage girl who loves fantasy, romance, and an all around great book! I can't imagine how anyone would find this book boring. But first you'll need to get WOLF TOWER. The first book in the series.

This book hooked me and kept me reading until the end. Although it was well written, intelligent and insightful I found the ending to be a real downer. It was just too depressing for my tastes.

"Heart-Beast" is one of the few Tanith Lee books published under Dell's short-lived, yet terribly missed, Abyss horror imprint. ("Dark Dance" was another, a book I liked a lot better than this one.) It's about a man named Daniel Vehmund who comes into possession of a powerful diamond that metamorphosizes him into a werewolf during the full moon. It also leads him back to England where his life is intertwined with that of a young country woman's, Laura Wheelwright.

By anyone else, "Heart-Beast" could very well have turned into a "cheap thrills" werewolf story--not that that's a bad thing; I've read some really good lupine slashers--but coming from Tanith Lee, you know the plot's going to be well thought out and twisted. "Heart-Beast" is all that, but the book does drag in more than a few places. Although it's not worthy of a "5" (I had a hard time remembering the story; albeit I was in high school when I read it, I read several other Lee books then too, and most of them were memorable and worthy of five stars), it's not too terrible to deserve a "3" or lower.

In summary: good for Tanith Lee fans, but it's not one of her finest horror novels.

With this one book I am hooked on the personality known as Tanith Lee and will probably search the world looking for everything else she has written, although that might be hard since she has written a lot which makes me feel foolish for missing her so long. This is a lyrical fairy tale about a man who isn't exactly a werewolf, but fits the bill to an extant and a woman trapped in a marriage who is his true love. This is one of those few books that reads fast but leaves you wanting more

"Drinking Sapphire Wine" isn't as good as the first book in this series, basically because the protagonist is stranded in the middle of nowhere with nothing going on except creating a new Garden of Eve while trying to keep out straying desert creatures (similar to the ones in the Unicorn series) and Jang at the same time. I think this sequel really put a damper on the whole storyline. That's mainly why I gave it a 2 / 5 score.

I would certainly recommend the first book ("Don't Bite the Sun") over this one. But if you liked this book, then I would recommend the combined edition of these two novellas: "Biting the Sun".

If you're looking for a really good sci fi novel, though, then I would highly recommend "The Silver Metal Lover" by the same author, which is one of the best books I have ever read.

It's one of the best sci-fi books i've read, dealing with the human problems of who and what you are, and most of all, the meaning of life and it's purpose. It's also a sad story (and of course, coming from Lee, romantic).

This is one of Lee's shortest novels, but perhaps the most original, which is saying a lot. Instead of mythic fantasy, this one's set in the distant future. The exploration of human feelings and development is brilliant. It does remind me of Moorcock's /End of Time/ series, another favorite of mine.

This is certainly the most readable of her novels, which sometimes take more mental work to keep up with the elaborate descriptions of her rich worlds. They still exist here, but are conveyed more accessibly.

Having read about twenty of Tanith Lee's novel, I have to say that this is definitely the worst. The idea of a Romeo & Juliet story played differently in a parallel universe is charming, but probably only merits a short-story or novella length work. 400 pages of tiresome infighting between the houses of swaggering Italian stallions causes the eyelids to droop. The characters of substance are peripheral, and we're expected to care about the traumas that befall the vain & vacuous. Not even her lovely prose, extensive colorful vocabulary, and the occasional interesting passages can save this novel from being an utter bore.

During the Renaissance of an Italy that never existed in our world, two young lovers in the city-state of Verensa met across lines of familial feuding and arcane powers to shape a story that everybody knows by heart . . . almost. The young man in question is beautiful, restless, burning Romulan Montargo. His contant friend and companion: the mocking, moody Flavian Estemba, called (for his quicksilver temperament) Mercurio. And the maiden, as beautiful, ardent, and directionless as Romulan himself, is named Iuletta Chenti-but all Verensa has a nickname for the Chenti family, after its heraldic emblem of a great cat, and calls them the Gattapuletti. There will be star-crossed love, duels of honor, feuding Houses and various deaths . . . and none of it will happen exactly as readers of "Romeo and Juliet" expect. Tanith Lee follows the very bare outline of the Romeo and Juliet story, but within that framework her characters are full of fascinating twists. Some of the similarities are a bit arcane-it only makes sense for Iuletta's cousin to be named Leopardo if one remembers that Tybalt is the name of a cat-while others, such as Romulan's parting words to Iuletta ("To part will be sweet, since we do so only to meet again") have a very familiar ring, but all of it is just different enough to keep the reader enthralled within the well-known pattern of Romulan and Iuletta and their bright, ardent, hopeless love. All right. Some of it is *very* different. But it's equally as good. Tanith Lee's colorful prose is enough to make almost anything readable, and she's working with high-quality material here. Such retellings work very well for fairy tales and myths, turning the story to illuminate angles never before seen. Why not with Shakespeare? Tanith Lee makes the attempt in "Sung in Shadow" and surprisingly enough, it really works.

On first glance, the reader may think "WHY should I read something that's just a retelling of the Romeo and Juliet story?". Why should you? Firstly, Tanith Lee writes beautifully. Secondly, this book is filled with subtleties -- weird cultural shifts that aren't quite what one would expect from Renaissance Italy; mysterious, unspoken relationships between characters. It may well take you more than one reading to really appreciate this book, but it's worth it.

I don't mean to be hard on Tanith Lee, but this book just wasn't all that enjoyable for me. The book "Vivia" did not seem to have that carefully crafted, beautiful text of Lee's previous work. In fact, it seemed to me that she wrote the book without enough thought in the content of the book. "Black Unicorn" took my breath away, both in the plot and character developement as well as the climactic ending. But "Vivia" seemed to lack that magic. The characters reluctantly move from chapter to chapter, containing no great dimension or interest. On top of that, this book desperately needs an editor. In short, if you want a good Tanith Lee book in the spirit of "Black Unicorn" and the "Claidi Journals," this is not the one to get.

A haunting tale told in a calm, hypnotic voice.

The story is of the darkly beautiful Vivia, daughter of a feared and powerful warlord. A strange and deadly plague decimates the survivors of a bloody war, and Vivia, seeking to escape death, hides in the secret grotto deep under her father's castle. There, in the silent darkness, a presence seduces her and changes her, ensuring that Vivia's striking beauty and youth be a part of her forever. (I hesitate to say "vampire," since this was a somewhat nontraditional vampire story.)

Left alone to discover her powers on her own, Vivia hides again, and this time is found by the warrior prince, Zulgaris. An alchemist as well, Zulgaris is first drawn to Vivia's beauty but soon realizes that she harbors powers that he himself wants to make use of.

Vivia, for all of her experiences and abilities, mutely accepts everything that is done to her. Still unsure of exactly what her powers consist of (although she knows she has magic), she allows herself to be mistreated and experimented upon. The death she so feared during the plague is the death that now will never touch her. She can escape death, but not the cruelties of life. She must learn to take control of her own destiny.

*

Definitely not a tale for the timid. There is a lot of violence, and rape occurs throughout the novel. The language in some parts contains more vulgarity than is probably necessary. Tanith Lee's voice is ethereal and tells Vivia's story vividly. Tanith Lee impressively brings forth Vivia, who is detached from life and indifferent to life, although she scorns death. Vivia is not a likable character; she is cold, cruel, aloof, silent, and while not "weak," she meekly allows people to mistreat her. It was hard to accept that a person with such raw magical power (or anyone, for that matter) would simply allow herself to be so abused, and abused she is. Vivia the character, despite all that happens to her, elicits no sympathy. It's the haunting way that this story is told that redeems the book. The ending is vague and leaves room for a sequel.

For those who are Tanith Lee fans, and for those who like violent dark fantasy.

Vivia is among the most unsettling of Tanith Lee's novels, which is saying quite a lot if you've read her. It's a richly textured vampire novel set within a gruesome medieval realm that includes alternate versions of Vlad the Impaler (who gets impaled himself) and the Christian religion. Although Vivia herself is aloof and perhaps not even likeable, she was highly sympathetic because the problems she deals with (fear of death, alienation from others) are universal. I know several people like her, who seem to inexplicably submit at times to what life offers them. In tone, Vivia is highly reminiscent of Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Also, Tanith Lee's prose is in particularly high style, almost elliptical, sometimes, admittedly, even hard to understand, but refreshing from all other fantasy novels. I think Lee was hinting at her own style in the descriptive painting scenes towards the end of the novel. I highly recommend it; I loved reading it. And the ending, for me, was very satisfying- true to Vivia's character.

The novel was engrossing and it caught and held my attention. But the book lacked a good heroine since Esther didn't actually do anything amazing. She was just a little adventurous and appealing to all Invaders.

"Days of Grass" is a shorter novel, but it packs a real punch. The storyline is dark, with enough twists and turns to keep your eyes glued to the page. The first half of the book is excellent. I found Esther a very headstrong and original character, and I think Tanith does a perfect job of making her characters as different and strange as possible. Her writing style is fantastic.

The second half of the book is a bit slower through the turns, as it is the darker half of the book. While the ending was most definetly shocking, I found it a bit of a dissapointment, because I felt more should have happened... yet I would most definetly recommend this book to any reader of Tanith Lee or other readers that prefer darker fantasies or sci-fi.

No spiritual experience like the Flat Earth, but I was won over by Esther's determination & vulnerability. A reminder of our humanity.