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Title: The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker ISBN: 0-7653-0818-5 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 23 August, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 (17 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Amiable, slightly rambling, entertainment. Good fun!
Comment: Kage Baker is mostly known for her Company series, about immortals and time travel. But she has begun to publish a few non-Company stories. The Anvil of the World is one such, an engaging fantasy novel consisting of one previously published shorter work and two additional stories of similar length, all closely linked.
In the opener, a mysterious man named Smith, who had come to Troon to escape the wrath of the family of someone he had killed (his previous job was assassin), is assigned to lead a caravan from the agricultural city Troon to the seaside town of Salesh. The caravan consists of a number of variously suspicious folks, including the sickly Lord Ermenwyr and his extremely lovely nurse; the highly competent cook Mrs. Smith; a courier named Parradan Smith; another family named Smith; and a Yendri herbalist, as well as a teenaged girl named Burnbright. These folks (and others met on the way) come from a variety of basically humanoid (and interfertile) races.
This first story simply tells of the caravan's journey to Salesh. To be sure, the journey is not without incident -- the caravan is attacked on a couple of occasions, including once at an inn where Smith himself is nearly killed; most of the passengers prove not to be what they seem; Smith finds himself entrusted with an unexpected additional delivery. By the end we have a better idea of the social and political issues of this world, and we more or less know who all the players really are.
The second segment is a murder mystery of sorts. Smith and his fellow caravan workers, at the end of the first section, found it wise to leave the caravan business and open an inn, under the patronage of Lord Ermenwyr. A guest at the inn is murdered during a Festival, and Smith is charged by the investigating constable with finding the murderer. Smith's investigations lead him to make some unexpected discoveries about the past life of certain of his associates. He also finds the murderer -- I thought a nicely set up surprise.
In the third section, a real estate company is proposing to build a development at a site sacred to the Yendri. This causes considerable interspecies tensions, and indeed it seems that a race war may be unavoidable. And Lord Ermenwyr shanghais Smith into a mission to help his sister -- coincidentally taking them close to the controversial development. The resolution this time involves secrets about Smith's own past, which I thought were revealed fairly cleverly. It also involves dealing with the relationships between all the races, and considerable exploration of the history and myth underlying this fantasy world.
All in all, this is quite an enjoyable novel. It's fairly witty throughout, and cleverly imagined, if most of the setting consists of ringing changes on familiar fantasy environments. The moral is humanistic and affecting. The structure, as hinted, is a bit episodic -- it really is more three separate but linked stories than one unified novel. It's an entertainment, with just a hint of a serious core to it. Amiable, a bit rambling, not a major work but good fun.
Rating: 4
Summary: Anvil of the World - Blast from the Past
Comment: THE ANVIL OF THE WORLD came as a cool autumn breeze at the end of a summer that has had more than its share of worthy, but somewhat downbeat material (I cite VENISS UNDERGROUND and THE LIGHT AGES, for example). Ms. Baker's obvious and stated tribute to L. Sprague de Camp is a welcome, and (perhaps) deceptively light read. The book has the tone of a VIAGENS story by de Camp (de Camp at his best), complete with pointed and only slightly oblique social commentary. The setting, however, is more reminiscent of Jack Vance world and culture building, and occasionally Ms. Baker's descriptions wander into Vance's baroque territory, especially when presenting the culinary masterpieces of Mrs. Smith or the festival costumes of Salesh by the Sea or Troon. The story, like all of Baker's work so far, is wonderfully cinematic. I only had two quibbles that kept this delightful book from 5 stars. The first is purely a matter of format. The book should have been presented as a collection of three related novellas, the wonderful "Caravan from Troon" and its two only slightly lesser companions (although I am not sure if they ever appeared independently). The second quibble is the sometimes cloying dialog between the semi-demonic children of the Lord of the Mountain. That they are petulant (and dangerous) children is well portrayed, but sometimes the dialog is just a little much (which also hearkens back to de Camp, even at his best). Thank God for the laconic Smith as a counterbalance. In spite of these small complaints, THE ANVIL OF THE WORLD is a highlight of my summer reading and I will look forward to more excursions into Smith's world between Company exposes.
Rating: 4
Summary: A wonderfully warped sense of humor
Comment: This is the first fantasy novel by Kage Baker, who is better known for her Company novels. It's a bit disjointed (it's based on three shorter novellas), but it shows much of Baker's characteristic deadpan, tongue-in-cheek humor.
One of the best things about "The Anvil of the World" is Baker's truly original take on world-building. The world in which Baker sets her story is not the typical sword and sorcery realm, nor is it the domain of urban fantasy. Instead, it's the Wild West and the Renaissance combined with a little unfettered Industrialism and an eco-conscious indigenous population. Add a retired assassin, a gourmet cook who's been around, a demon lord and his nursemaid, and a few religious terrorists, and you have the makings of a fun novel. I'll not go into the plot, since other reviewers have done that. Besides, any book that begins by describing a "golden city" that's so dusty that all its inhabitants suffer "from chronic emphysema," wheezing is "considered refined, and the social event of the year [is] the Festival of Respiratory Masks" is to be savored as much for its humor as its story.
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Title: The Empress of Mars by Kage Baker ISBN: 1892389851 Publisher: Nightshade Book Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers by Kage Baker ISBN: 1930846118 Publisher: Golden Gryphon Pr Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Paladin of Souls: A Novel by Lois McMaster Bujold ISBN: 0380979020 Publisher: Eos Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Sunshine by Robin McKinley ISBN: 0425191788 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases by Jeff Vandermeer, Tim Lebbon, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Michael Moorcock, Kage Baker, Mark Roberts, Stepan Chapman ISBN: 1892389541 Publisher: Nightshade Book Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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