<![CDATA[Physiognomy]]>

false <![CDATA[Physiognomy]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1169310737m/39746.jpg 39746 9 In the Well-Built City, Cley is the perfect judge and jury, the infallible arbiter of life and death, for he is trained in the art/science of physiognomy. To the physiognomist, body shape and facial features reveal every aspect of personality, expose every secret, and even predict the future. When Drachton Below, Master of the Well-Built City, sends his premier physiognomist into the primitive outlands to uncover the thief of an unperishing fruit that may grant immortality, Cley discovers love and the truth about physiognomy. His discoveries unleash horrific destruction and plunge him into Hell--and neither he nor the Master can foresee their revolutionary fate of their world. A New York Times Notable Book and the winner of the 1998 World Fantasy Award, The Physiognomy may be read with equal success as either fantasy or SF, but it does not much resemble the fiction of either genre. This novel's closest relatives are In the Well-Built City, Dante's Divine Comedy, Kafka's black allegories, and Caleb Carr's crime thriller The Alienist. The brilliant and sardonic Physiognomist Cley is SF/F's most entertainingly arrogant narrator since Richard Garfinkle's Celestial Matters. You won't believe that this strange, ambitious, and sui generis work is Jeffrey Ford's first novel. --Cynthia Ward 2042283 1997 Physiognomy total:98|5:33|4:30|3:20|2:9|1:6| 98 369 187 21 5 1 false false Sat Jan 10 17:03:41 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 14 11:43:00 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false true Fri Apr 20 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Sat May 03 20:07:55 -0700 2008 Sat May 03 20:08:12 -0700 2008 The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe. This is one of the best books I've read in a while. The voice of the novel is Physiognomist First Class Cley. He works for a Hitler-like master named Drachton Below. Cley's job involves judging the character of others by reading...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 03:20:10 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 03:32:50 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Feb 26 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Aug 06 14:03:29 -0700 2007 Tue Feb 26 08:03:14 -0800 2008
Also, like his short stories, this novel helps explain why Jeffrey Ford's name gets thrown around in lists of New Weird writers, and justifies my desire to read ever...more...]]> 0 0 false false Mon Jun 08 08:51:34 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 08 08:51:34 -0700 2009 Powells: "Although told within the context of a fantasy world, The Well-Built City Trilogy has its correlatives in our own. We are responsible to our true selves and everything we do, for ill or good, we carry with us until the very end. We can either try to manipulate and control our mind-crea...more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Dec 24 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 15 02:24:50 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 03 03:16:08 -0800 2009
It is important from a genre evolution point o...more...]]> 2 0 true false Sat Nov 15 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 13 19:02:31 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 15 16:22:56 -0800 2008 1
However--the author seems so intent on making his allegory that he forgets to make the characters...characters...instead of devices. The main character is ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Aug 28 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Tue Mar 04 17:24:50 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 04 17:27:50 -0800 2008
Cley (the Physiognomist who goes from antihero to ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 25 12:29:01 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 12 10:08:55 -0700 2007
The protagonist is Cley, a high official in a totalitarian empire whose jo...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Apr 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 05 16:35:54 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 05 16:36:55 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Fri Sep 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 18 00:10:24 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 18 00:11:59 -0700 2009 5 1 false false Sun Aug 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 08 08:26:53 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 19:17:31 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Sep 18 09:47:27 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 18 09:50:10 -0700 2008
Its a strange tale, written with a deft hand but over all a story of redemetion. ]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 22 14:15:42 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 22 14:16:22 -0700 2008 1 0 false false Fri Aug 08 15:29:51 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 08 15:37:44 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Sun Sep 27 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 31 21:34:18 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 28 17:59:21 -0700 2009 Read in (almost) one sitting.]]> 5 0 false false Fri Aug 08 16:19:09 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 13 17:45:53 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Wed Jun 18 03:28:23 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 18 03:28:23 -0700 2008 http://nomiddlename.blogspot.com/2008/03...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Mar 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 18 13:54:17 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 18 13:55:03 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Sat Jul 26 20:50:18 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 26 20:51:26 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=39746