While I am a devotee of the Paradys books, I read this one last and found it to be the least satisfying in the series. The stories are not bad--I don't think Tanith Lee has ever written anything bad--but, other than their setting in Paradys and their common subject material of the dead, the living, and all the things in between, they have little connection to one another. Some of them would be rather poor indeed without Tanith Lee's beautiful writing to hold them together. (Of course, the fact that she makes them work does say something about her skill as a writer...) In defense of "The Book of the Dead" I should say that I did enjoy reading the stories, and particularly the last one in the book, "The Moon Is A Mask," a tale quite beautiful and tragic: a lonely young woman named Elsa Garbe comes into possession of a feathered mask that allows her, by night, to take the form of an owllike creature and venture forth across the City where she feeds on blood, like a vampire, and finds a relationship of a sort with a man named Alan; his inevitable betrayal sends her to her revenge and her death. Also, mention of this book crops up in the fourth Paradys book, "The Book of the Mad," where this book's authorship is attributed to the artist Leocadia. I found that very cute. There are other connections to the other three books: a descendant of Andre St. Jean of "The Book of the Damned," a man named Philippe who might be Philippe also of "The Book of the Damned," etc...To sum it all up, "The Book of the Dead" may be hardly as good as any of the other three, but it is enjoyable and deserves its own reading. If you long for the black and white companionship of the dead, read and enjoy!

This was the first book of Tanith Lee I read. Immediately, I was striken by the magic of the language and the plot. The eight stories in this volume are excellent examples of Tanith Lee's talent. All the stories are situated in a forgotten French city somewhere in the 17th-century. Led by a mysterious guide, an anonymous I-person visits the ancient graveyard of Paradys. The guide points out eight graves and tells the story that goes with them. The result is a collection of thrilling stories about a vagina with teeth; a quest for a secret valley; a voodoo-dripping horror story; a typical Lee vampire; a plague-woman; the real dream of a girl; a woman called Morcara; and a female artist who posesses a glass dagger. Although the erotic element in these stories is nihil, they each have that undefinable taste of the unreal that Tanith Lee can summon so well. As always, she manages to make me shiver, just by describing the city. There are, however, things I really miss. The extra dimension behind the thrill, for example. After I had read more of her novels, I re-read 'The Book of the Dead' and I was expecting that extra dimension, but was a bit disappointed. This is not Tanith Lee at her best, but it is a very good try.

True to the color motifs of the Paradys Tetralogy, "The Book of the Dead" (third in the series, although I read it last) is subtitled "Le Livre Blanc et Noir" and takes place, for the most part, in the possessed, twilight city of Paradys, the Paris of a darkened alternate world. Other than the common setting and a few literary twists here and there, there is not much to link "The Book of the Dead" to its fellows. (Although I did like the hint that Leocadia, protagonist of "The Book of the Mad," was the author of this volume...) With two exceptions, "The Nightmare's Tale" and "The Moon Is A Mask," the eight stories collected in this book are weird and ghoulish, but hardly up to the dark and fascinating standards of the rest of the Tetralogy.

For the sake of the two aforementioned exceptions, I will recommend "The Book of the Dead." These were stories that remained with me after the pages had closed; they had some of that blend of fascination and repulsion, darkness, tragedy, and resolution that so characterizes Paradys. "The Nightmare's Tale" takes place perhaps twenty years after the Paradys equivalent of the French Revolution, when young Jean de St. Jean (possibly a sideways relative of Andre St. Jean, the poet of "The Book of the Damned") learns that the man who sent his parents to the guillotine is still alive and living on the Caribbean island of Black Haissa. Sailing across the ocean in search of revenge, Jean de St. Jean discovers that there is much more to the business of vengeance than he expected, especially when it comes to the price. Though the atmosphere is not the city setting of Paradys, the mystery shrouding Haissa is expertly evoked, Jean de St. Jean made sympathetic even as he gambles his life on an obsessive revenge, and a real sense of the night rises up from the pages. In "The Moon Is A Mask" the storyline returns to Paradys, perhaps around the turn of the century, where an impoverished girl named Elsa Garba comes into possession of a mask of black feathers. By night, the mask allows her to transform into a vampyric owl-harpy, in which form she ranges over the City until dawn; in time a mender named Alain becomes her lover, but their relationship can only end in death. Here Lee's talent is in full force, describing the almost suicidal pleasure that Alain and Elsa derive from each other, Elsa's night flights over the roofs and towers of Paradys, detail and imagery building allusively onto each other until the final, unsettling ending.

The rest of the stories are, if not conventional, hardly as good as anything set in Paradys deserves; their sole saving grace, averting the dreadful condemnation of "mediocre," is Tanith Lee's detailed and evocative writing. Only (and you must remember that this is my opnion, not certain fact; please feel free to read the book!) "The Nightmare's Tale" and "The Moon Is A Mask" hold any real atmosphere or depth. Two stories out of eight, a figure that reduces to one-fourth-the fraction that exactly describes my dislike for the Paradys Tetralogy: three books excellent, one...not. Rest assured: I would hardly say that this book is poor reading-even substandard Tanith Lee is far better than the pinnacles of other authors I could name-but in the wake of such masterpieces as "The Book of the Damned" and "The Book of the Beast," it is a slim and wan offering. Tanith Lee is dazzling. So could "The Book of the Dead" have been.

One thing can be said about Tanith Lee, she knows how to create sympathetic, interesting characters that you want to find out more about, and sustain your interest in the book. She also has a tendency to write twist endings (in this case, a double-twist ending)that are either contrived or downright infuriating (and this one is both). "Electric Forest" is a short novel telling the furturistic story of deformed Magdala Cled. She is offered by sadistic millionaire playboy scientist Claudio Loro to become beautiful. He does this via a process called "consciousness transfer": Magdala's body is kept alive in a "glazium" capsule, while her consciousness is transferred to a simulate body of a beautiful woman. When Magdala discovers that the body she is inhabiting is based on the genetic pattern of a real woman, she tries to discover who she is, and why Claudio would want her to impersonate this stranger. The balance of the story plays like a science-fiction espionage story, and is not bad, but the low rating is due to the infuriating epilogue (I would have been happier had it been dropped) and the lack of the overall quality I've come to expect from Tanith Lee.

While spending her entire life on Indigo (a planet in the Earth Conclave) as a repulsive outcast because of her deformed appearance, Magdala Cled is startled, yet intrigued, when a rich, attractive scientist named Claudio Loro approaches her with the promise to transform her into someone beautiful by relocating her consciousness into a new body. Magdala agrees, but at the same time, she can't help but wonder what exactly his intentions are.

Although I love Tanith Lee's writing, "Electric Forest" isn't my favorite book by her. Granted, it is short (approximately 150 pages), but the technical jargon in the pre-screening and post-screening chapters baffled me. These two beginning and ending sections weren't really necessary to the story, in my opinion, and only seemed to muddle the plot. Still, I would recommend this book to sci fi fans, for a quick read.

Many times Tanith reminds me of Philip K. Dick, not so much in style but in output and lack of recognition. Amidst an array of pretty good works there are flashes of pure brilliance but you wonder why she hasn't become as popular or as famous as lesser lights.

This book is one of the pretty good ones. A science fiction thriller set in a planet where everyone is genetically engineered to be "perfect" the one outcast is a daughter of a whore with every deformity available. When the mysterious Claudio shows up to offer her a new body via consciousness transferance she jumps on the chance. Only Claudio isn't telling her everything and he's a sadist to boot. As she tries to comprehend why Claudio gave her the new body and Claudio's overall agenda you move with her through dizzying plot twists.

There are about 3 different plot twists at the end and they come pretty fast. For me they make the book enjoyable and intriguing. This was not Tanith Lee's greatest work and there are several places where it feels like we are waiting for something to happen. However, it is a short book and great for an enjoyable afternoon.

DARKNESS, I is the third in a series of books revolving around the family of Scarabae: powerful, ancient and occasionally vampirish. In this story, Rachaela's second daughter, Anna, is kidnapped by one of it's earliest progenitors, Cain. It mixes gothic horror with both Egyptian and Biblical mythology.
I found it a letdown from the first two installments (DARK DANCE and PERSONAL DARKNESS), which I loved. This volume is painfully slow, and nothing much happens. I hate to admit it but I found much of it actually boring. I do recommend the previous novels, however...and it seems that another one is possible.

"Tennebrae sum.
I am the darkness. Darkness, I"

"Darkness, I" is the third continuing story of the Scarabae. The child murderess, Ruth, has been killed and now her mother, Rachaela, is pregnant with another daughter, Anna, named for one of the Scarabae women Ruth had killed in Dark Dance. Anna is similar to her dead older sister--she, too, ages quickly and is just as bright and intelligent as Ruth, yet her temperament is not as violent.

And as before, with her first pregnancy, Rachaela is extremely detached from her child, growing jealous every day of Anna's kinship with Althene, Rachaela's longtime lover and "father" of Anna. Rachaela knows the Scarabae are very incestuous, and she believes she'll be overlooked by Althene for her daughter.

This everyday Scarabae family drama ends, however, when Anna is kidnapped, along with several other children, and brought to an ice pyramid as "guests" for Cain, an outcast vampire of the Scarabae family. Althene, as well as Malach (who is seeking the reincarnated Ruth), search for Anna, while, in the meantime, she is gradually transformed into Cain's child bride, Ankhet.

Until I read "Darkness, I", I thought this series was perfect. However, "Darkness, I" makes a drastic change to the storyline, one that's not very consistent or expected after reading the previous two books. Maybe if Cain or the Egyptian vampire myths had been mentioned before, I wouldn't have had such a hard time accepting this plot.

Despite my slight disappointment in "Darkness, I", I would love to see another sequel published, especially considering how this book ended. But I hope it's more like "Dark Dance" (#1) or "Personal Darkness" (#2). "Darkness, I" is a fair effort to the Blood Opera Sequence, but it's not a very good conclusion to this series.

I love Tanith Lee. I've read almost all of her books over the years and although she has had a clinker or two in the past, "Saint Fire" is an unexpected clinker...

"Faces Under Water", the first book in this series, was very good. The story, the characters and the writing all made it a great read. I expected the second book to follow the pattern but it didn't.

"Saint Fire" almost seems like a rewrite of some older story or a half-hearted attempt to continue the Venus series. This story sure didn't move along. There was far, far too much "religious-ness" which, in parts was necessary but in other parts was over kill. The heroine -- Volpa/Beatifica, was typical Lee: a frail, quiet, pale girl with gold eyes (do all Lee's heroine's have gold eyes?) who has a Power. She isn't particularily interesting and you just can't get to like her. Which is also typical Lee... Oftentimes you find that you end up more interested in a secondary character than the main ones. But even here, none of the characters roused any sympathy or interest. The "knight of God", Cristiano, was cold and strange. The Magister, Danielus, was manipulative and weak. The plot itself was weak, too. Out of the blue, "infidels" from another country come screaming across the sea to attack the "good guys". Why? There was no good reason for a war except the obvious -- the heroine can call up fire at will. The ships of the enemy are made of wood. Hmmmm.

Well, anyway, I really looked forward to this book and was very disapointed. It dragged and staggled along to a very un-exciting, un-interesting finish. And was confusing in between. If a no-name author had tried to get this published, no editor in the world would have agreed. Because Tanith Lee is a Name, the editors evidentially don't bother to read her stuff over. I can only hope that if there is are books 3 and 4, they are better than this.

After thoroughly enjoying 'Faces Under Water' the first book in this series...I was rubbing my hands together waiting for this one to hit the shelves. I was not as thrilled with this one as the first...I enjoyed the main character, Volpa in 'Saint Fire' ..but some of the minor characters I kept mixing up (the names are similar) and I was at times bored with the "war is emminent" plot, which I know is necessary - but I would've preferred more in depth interaction with the charecters (maybe some more diologue).. But, basically I enjoyed it - and I recommend it. I just liked it a bit less than Venus book 1.

Tanith Lee is my favorite writer, but every once in a while she publishes some monstrously tedious book like this one. This book is really The Birthgrave with a male for the main character, chronicling the adventures of an angry foundling of mixed descent who discovers he is really the rightful king o' the land. I just hate it when she redoes the same old story again.

This is one of Lee's earlier works, less experimental than many of her later books but a great read. This is good old-fashioned storytelling at its finest, in which the goal of the writer is to keep readers glued to the page, and Storm Lord does. The hero Raldnor is born the rightful heir to the Storm Lord's throne. (In this novel the youngest, not the oldest, son is legal heir because of a belief that a son still in the womb at the time of the Storm Lord's death will be born with the reincarnated soul of the old Storm Lord.) But because his mother is a woman of a despised and subjugated race, she is put out of the way by the old Storm Lord's wife who wants her own infant son to ascend the throne. Raldnor is believed dead and grows up knowing only that he is a half-breed, with the dark skin and eyes of his father and his mother's tell-tale blonde hair. He dyes his hair black and takes service as one of the Storm Lord's soldiers. When he rises to become his half-brother's trusted right-hand man (and his only real friend), his identity is discovered and the rest of the book unfolds in a complex pattern of fate, treachery, passion, and revenge. Tanith Lee's sense of irony elevates Storm Lord well above the usual run of sword-and-sorcery; most of them don't contain anything like the emotional intensity found here. I wish this book hadn't gone out of print! But trust me, it's worth tracking down.

It follows the story of the son of the witch-goddess of the prequel, given the name Tuvek by his adoptive parents: chieftain Ettook and city-born Tathra. His story (at this point, in any case) is not as engrossing as his mothers, though, as we already know his history. Most of this book is buildup, waiting for him to discover what we already know, that he is the son of warlord/king Vazkor and his bride, the witch-goddess Uastis. Tuvek discovers that his father is not so revered in the city over which he once reigned and brought to ruin. The people of the city believe him to be his father reincarnated, and imprison him. The balance of the book concerns Tuvek/Vazkor escaping his pursuers, discovering his powers, and vowing vengeance on his mother for killing his father and abandoning him. Tuvek comes across as a bit of a prick, raping and killing his way through the tribal krarls and ruined cities. Not as good as the other books in this series, in fact, I recommend skipping it and going directly to "Quest for the White Witch" (the story is synopsized in the beginning of that book).

I had high hopes for this book before I read it, because I knew it was a sequel to Storm Lord and Anackire, two stand-alone fantasy novels that made me a Tanith Lee fan forever. Unfortunately it's nowhere near as good and I got the impression Lee wasn't sure herself where she was going with this one. All the previous characters are long dead. The new main character is a descendant of the Storm Lord's wicked half-brother, who goes through various traumas and disasters including his fatal fixation on a pale enigmatic woman who is apparently the white serpent of the title. The plot events seem disconnected from each other somehow and in the end the hero meets a depressing and puzzling fate. The viewpoint skips disconcertingly from character to character, but not in a way that enhances suspense, and the emotional and mythic intensity of Anackire is lacking. At no point did I really understand why any of the characters were doing what they did. Unlike some of Lee's stranger works, such as Book of the Damned, where the writing is clearly intended to be surreal as a vivid dream, White Serpent just comes off as vague and unfocused. Unless you're such a hardcore Tanith Lee fan that you want to own everything she's written for the sake of completeness, don't bother tracking this one down; it's not worth it.