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The Etched City

by K.J. Bishop (Goodreads Author)

3.65 of 5 stars 3.65 · rating details · 998 ratings · 111 reviews

Gwynn and Raule are rebels on the run, with little in common except being on the losing side of a hard-fought war. Gwynn is a gunslinger from the north, a loner, a survivor . . . a killer. Raule is a wandering surgeon, a healer who still believes in just--and lost--causes. Bound by a desire to escape the ghosts of the past, together they flee to the teeming city of Ashamoi...more

Paperback, 382 pages

Published November 23rd 2004 by Spectra (first published 2003)

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Apr 06, 2009 Jacob rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-own, 2008-2009, sci-fi-fantasy-etc

April 2009

Gwynn, a mercenary gunslinger, and Raule, a doctor, both of them outlaws from the losing side of a bad war, escape their decaying homeland for the city of Ashamoil, where they discover blurred realities and monstrous births in the hospitals, taverns, and private rooms of the city's people.

I almost read The Etched City four years ago: saw an advertisement for it in Realms of Fantasy magazine, checked it out from the library, and almost read it...until I noticed the blurb on the cover w...more

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Jul 24, 2012 Dan Schwent rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: new-weird, plan-on-rereading-one-day, 2012, cool-covers

Etched City is the story of gunslinger Gwynn and doctor Raule. Together, they flee the wasteland of the Copper Country and make their way to the city of Ashamoil. Raule starts treating the poor of Ashamoil, occasionally delivering crocodilian babies, while Gwynn gets a job as a guard for a slave trader and has a heated affair with an artist.

The Etched City is definitely atmosphere over action but when the action comes, it's hard and fast. Bishop knows how to build tension as well as create a rea...more Etched City is the story of gunslinger Gwynn and doctor Raule. Together, they flee the wasteland of the Copper Country and make their way to the city of Ashamoil. Raule starts treating the poor of Ashamoil, occasionally delivering crocodilian babies, while Gwynn gets a job as a guard for a slave trader and has a heated affair with an artist.

The Etched City is definitely atmosphere over action but when the action comes, it's hard and fast. Bishop knows how to build tension as well as create a realized fantasy city. While Ashamoil isn't as detailed as New Crobuzon or Ambergris, it's still great. The style is a mannerly kind of new weird.

Amazon recommended this one, based on my ratings for The Dark Tower series and Perdido Street Station. It did not disappoint. My only complaint was that it could have been much longer.

Observations from the July 2012 re-read:
1. Bishop makes the desert of the Copper Country interesting, giving it aspects of Australian and Middle Eastern desert culture while still making it feel like a Western.
2. Gwynn has a lot more dimension than I remember. He's a deadly mercenary of dubious morality but also kind of a dandy. I'd forgotten he played the piano.
3. Raule is tough!
4. BIshop's writing has a kind of poetry to it in places. Her use of similes and metaphors was something I'd totally forgotten about since my initial read.
5. Yeah, Beth's a little batshit
6. Deformed reptilian babies are creepy
7. Gwynn doing some huffing and then riding around looking for Beth while having a conversation with his horse reminds me of the shroom scene from Young Guns.
8. The gunfight on Memorial Bridge between the Society of the Horn Fan and the tax collectors is right up there with the OK Corral scene in Tombstone.
9. Gwynn having to kill Marriot was a powerful scene.
10. The man with a lotus flower growing out of his navel
11. Hart and his magical axe are pretty impressive.
12. While it looks simply like an odd fantasy story, it's really a story of love and obsession.
13. The twists at the end were well done and not expected.

In conclusion, this book is just as good the second time. I'm ready for K.J. Bishop to write another novel.(less)

30 likes · like · see review

Dec 31, 2011 Zach rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

You know, I just read another story of Bishop's in THE WEIRD and it struck me that I am dying for her to release another book and I'm not sure why I gave this one four stars instead of five so I am retroactively bumping it up.

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It took M. John Harrison years and a good number of novels and stories to create a secondary fantasy world and then get disgusted with the idea of a secondary fantasy world and subvert and deconstruct the whole thing by reducing the characters to ghosts and surreal p...more

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May 09, 2012 Daniel Roy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, favorite

Books are quite often like a meal. Some books I read I labor through like a meal of broccoli and liver, hoping there's something good for desert. Other books I gulp down avidly, like a starved man given tiramisu. But The Etched City is in a rarer and better breed still: it's the kind of novel you read like a fine wine.

After a few pages of reading K.J. Bishop's first novel, I was already lamenting the fact that each page I read was bringing me closer to the last one. I read the book in small dose...more Books are quite often like a meal. Some books I read I labor through like a meal of broccoli and liver, hoping there's something good for desert. Other books I gulp down avidly, like a starved man given tiramisu. But The Etched City is in a rarer and better breed still: it's the kind of novel you read like a fine wine.

After a few pages of reading K.J. Bishop's first novel, I was already lamenting the fact that each page I read was bringing me closer to the last one. I read the book in small doses, drinking the words from the page, savoring the prose and the images, making sure not to ruin it by going too fast. Yes, it's that darn good.

The Etched City is Ashamoil, an imaginary city poised at the edge of a vast desert called the Copper Country. Like China Miéville's New Crobuzon, Bishop's Ashamoil is a character of its own, and arguably the main character of the story. However, further comparison between Ashamoil and new Crobuzon are unwarranted. Ashamoil is dreamy, subtly undefined, like an opium vision; etched, as the title wonderfully suggests. It seems to exist in one of Neil Gaiman's 'soft spaces', these areas where realities melt down and coalesce, from The Sandman.

Enter two drastically different protagonists from the Copper Country: Gwynn, a gunslinger who quickly becomes attracted to the city's less savory elements, and Raule, a battlefield doctor who tries to maintain her morality despite the city's incredible erosion of her principles. The two of them came to the city together, trying to rebuild their lives after a failed revolution has branded them as traitors in the Copper Country.

From that point, any semblance of plot takes a backseat to the dreamy quality of the city's life. Bishop takes good care to tone down the fantastic elements of her city, and actually maintains a strong sense of skepticism, or realism, throughout her story. This is one of the book's most astonishing elements, as fantasy worlds tend to put the reader in a context where they accept strangeness ipso facto. Here, it feels like weirdness and true fantasy are just around the corner, but never fully visible. This incredible restraint is one of the major reasons why I dislike likening The Etched City to Perdido Street Station; whereas Miéville packs his landscape to the gills with breathless wonders and fantastic elements, Bishop exercizes restraint to such a level that the bits of fantasy that make it through are all the more potent.

The core of the book is such an exercize: many times, it seems like something incredible is about to happen, and the fantastic elements are absolutely tantalizing. But rather than plunge in them, Bishop pulls them back from the stage, teasing the reader, then bringing forward the next mind-boggling morsel. Some of these morsels, such as the birth of the crocodile god's infant, or the story of the men desiring the red hair, left me breathless, and actually forced me to put the book down and savor the current chapter before I could pick it up again. To say this book haunted me is an understatement; it haunts me still.

If it sounds like I absolutely adore this book, well, it's because I do. It's not for everyone, though. As a matter of fact, it shares more with so-called 'high literature' than it does with traditional fantasy, especially in terms of plot construction and pacing. Some readers, used to more action-focused plots, might grow frustrated with the fact the story floats forward, instead of racing ahead to the ending. Yes, there is a plot hidden in there, but to tell you the truth, when it comes around, I found myself wishing it didn't and simply left the protagonists continue living their daily lives in relative peace for thousands more pages.

If these warnings don't deter you, then by all means do yourself the favor of picking up this one. Its depth, restraint and imagination make it one of the modern masterpieces of a crowded genre, and demonstrate once more than fantasy can be for grown-ups, too.(less)

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Sep 28, 2008 Cecily rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ah, I'll seem star-happy, but I think this is one of those books everyone should read. It is made of layers on layers of shiny.

Also, a man and a woman who *remain friends* throughout the book without any kind of sexual tension! Dude.
And a sword called Not My Funeral.

4 likes · like · see review

Apr 03, 2008 Dfordoom rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf-fantasy

Australian author K. J. Bishop’s first novel, The Etched City, reminds me somewhat of M. John Harrison’s Viriconium stories. There’s the same sense of a world that has decayed, and there’s the same lack of moral certainty or moral absolutes. It also has some of the melancholy of Harrison’s work. It tells the story of two former revolutionaries, one a gunfighter and one a doctor. They are drawn to the city of Ashamoil. Raule gets a job in a charity hospital, and she observes what seems to be an e...more

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Mar 13, 2013 aPriL MEOWS often with scratching rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: alt-universe, do-not-know-if-i-like-it-or-hate-it, fantasy, literary, metafiction

If one was to argue this was a pointless exercise in story-telling, there would be plenty of evidence from the book to make such an argument, as it covers familiar ground in such a vague, spiritless journey. There is no clear Who, What, When, Where and Why - at least, not anything truly fleshed out except in vague dream-like descriptions. It seems to take place somewhere on Earth, maybe the Eurasian continent, but the mash-up of science, weapons and technology either puts it outside of our timel...more If one was to argue this was a pointless exercise in story-telling, there would be plenty of evidence from the book to make such an argument, as it covers familiar ground in such a vague, spiritless journey. There is no clear Who, What, When, Where and Why - at least, not anything truly fleshed out except in vague dream-like descriptions. It seems to take place somewhere on Earth, maybe the Eurasian continent, but the mash-up of science, weapons and technology either puts it outside of our timeline/universe or in some future post-apocalypse period. People generally use swords and horses, and some guns. There are aristocrats, slaves, mediums, priests, artists, gunslingers, mobsters, military men, mathematicians and astronomers, as well as magic, which is off-stage for the most part except for certain crucial turns of fortune. New discoveries mentioned are electric lights and lobotomy surgery. However, everything is ultimately sad and temporary, and struggles for power and survival accomplish nothing to show for all of the effort.

It's beautifully written, nonetheless.

The book's plot could be a script for a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, in particular, a cloned version of 'For a Few Dollars More' with philosophical and religious arguments made explicit (religion as an explanatory wisdom fails, but appears to provide a medium for magical forces to act). Art is proposed as a creative, motivating force, particularly in the character of Beth Constanzin (sadly, however, even the beauty and strength of Art goes sour and turns monstrous over time). Healing is a small dubious victory. Entropy is the true winner and by the book's end proved the only permanent known force whatever men do. All that Man desires blows away, and Ideas, despite being reinvented, vigorously argued and explored, are proved inconsequential in the face of unexplained powers made eminent and mysteriously immanent in the universe.

It opens in a desert, with two survivors of a war - a healer, Raule and a gunslinger, Gwynn, escaping retribution by the winners of the war. Much later, years have past, and the two are now living in a river town called Ashamoil on the cusp of falling apart. A variety of characters are introduced, violence leads to the just and unjust destruction of lives, love and hope, and an ending mirroring the beginning.

The writing is wonderfully moody and atmospheric, covering many metafictional ideas, and inventive of new imagery. While the book has violence and movement, the characters are listless and hopeless. The growing incidents of baby monsters seems to be ill for the future

At least someone wins in the spaghetti westerns.(less)

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Jun 27, 2007 Ross Lockhart rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked up The Etched City because it was name-dropped in the jacket copy of Jay Lake’s Trial of Flowers, along with texts by China Miéville and Jeff VanderMeer. Like Lake, Miéville, and VanderMeer, Bishop's novel is Fantasy, but a branch of Fantasy that owes more to the Surrealist, Magical Realist, and Noir literary movements than to the swords and sorcery of epic fantasists like J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard. Although it does occasionally get bogged down, particularly near the novel's m...more I picked up The Etched City because it was name-dropped in the jacket copy of Jay Lake’s Trial of Flowers, along with texts by China Miéville and Jeff VanderMeer. Like Lake, Miéville, and VanderMeer, Bishop's novel is Fantasy, but a branch of Fantasy that owes more to the Surrealist, Magical Realist, and Noir literary movements than to the swords and sorcery of epic fantasists like J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard. Although it does occasionally get bogged down, particularly near the novel's middle (as first novels are wont to do), The Etched City features captivating storytelling, memorable characters, and outstanding set pieces (including a battle on a statue-covered bridge that manages to affect a tone both epic and personal). Unlike Lake, Miéville, and VanderMeer, however, whose City Imperishable, New Crobuzon, and Ambergris actively become characters within their novels’ narratives (in the mode of M. John Harrison’s Viriconium), Bishop’s lush and teeming Ashamoil, while evocative and picturesque, never quite rises to the occasion, remaining a setting that is well-imagined, yet never quite real.

Bishop’s leading characters, the gunslinging soldier for hire Gwynn and his female counterpart, the outlaw surgeon Raule, are compelling, charismatic, and believable. While the duo technically share protagonist duties, peacock-coat clad Gwynn quickly moves to the narrative's center, becoming a peacock himself, taking the more active, adventurous role as Raule spends most of her time on the sidelines, observing, philosophizing, speculating, and tending to the wounded. Although Gwynn cuts a flamboyant figure with an affectation of glam-rock panache, for a novel that name-drops Aubrey Beardsley and J.K. Huysmans in its jacket copy, The Etched City depicts a surprisingly heteronormative world, with a touch of tacked-on exotic orientalism included to make the city seem decadent. Frankly, Lake and Miéville both do decadence better. Still, I would call The Etched City an easy recommendation, an enjoyable and thoughtful bit of fantastic escapism with plenty to offer. (less)

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Jan 14, 2013 Nesa Sivagnanam rated it 5 of 5 stars

I had and still have not read anything other than this book by Bishop. As far as I am aware this is her first and only novel to date. I bought this one out of a catalogue of used books and ended up with an uncorrected proof copy.

It's a strange book. Very weird and surreal. It reminded me a little of China Mieville's and Susan Hill's books. I read the book in one sitting and enjoyed it very much. very little actually happens in the book but the characters are beautifully developed and the environ...more I had and still have not read anything other than this book by Bishop. As far as I am aware this is her first and only novel to date. I bought this one out of a catalogue of used books and ended up with an uncorrected proof copy.

It's a strange book. Very weird and surreal. It reminded me a little of China Mieville's and Susan Hill's books. I read the book in one sitting and enjoyed it very much. very little actually happens in the book but the characters are beautifully developed and the environment they live in very vividly described. The book is almost like living.

Ashamoil, the etched city, survives in a crumbling world of degenerated civilisations in which rival warlords oversee businesses based on gun-running and slaving against a background of vast deserts and impenetrable tropical forests. Ancient canals, inhabited by giant snakes, run through jungles where tigers laze on the stones of forgotten temples. Seers, occultists, mediums and shamans exploit the fears and superstitions of Ashamoil's many inhabitants. Dreams and reality are indistinguishable.

Her people pursue strange dreams and carry awkward burdens. They are often not sure of their own reality. Characters wonder if the rest of the world is created from their own imaginations or whether they are the invention of some other individual: she thinks, therefore I am.

Gwynn and Raule might have been lovers. They have served in a failed idealistic revolution and, outlawed, taken work as mercenaries. When they reach Ashamoil, Raule attaches herself as a doctor to a hospital helping the city's victims. Gwynn joins the entourage of Ashamoil's most powerful warlord. Like some Mafioso, his life involves long periods of whiling away his time with his fellow "cavaliers", drinking, gaming and whoring, with intermittent calls to sudden, violent action. A sensitive pianist, cynical, pitiless and good at his brutal job, he retains that attractive quality found in the traditional hardboiled heroes.

Gwynn has one obsession he comes to pursue: the engraver Bethine Constanzin, with whom he falls, perhaps, in love. Her drawings and etchings are described in some detail. Could this sphinx-like woman be the city's creator? The clues Bishop offers to Beth's identity create a dozen potential stories, but it is up to us to follow them through outside the book. Ashamoil, according to these clues, is a city made by art. Is Beth human at all? Is she asking the sphinx's traditional trick questions, or are we inventing the questions for ourselves?

The last part of The Etched City features various reverses for Raule when she is asked to nurse the warlord's son, wounded by Gwynn's friend, whom in turn Gwynn is ordered to murder. There are reverses, too, for Gwynn and his masters. One of their victims begins to take an astonishing revenge. Flowers blossom in the wounds of dead cavaliers. Beth's work assumes ever stranger forms. The living and the dead become indistinguishable. (less)

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Jan 02, 2013 Serene rated it 1 of 5 stars

Probably wouldn't recommend. I had this off another fantasy rec list, and I was severely disappointed by the perfunctory, listless world building, meandering plot, and lifeless characters. I think the synopsis is rather generous... Raule barely sustains a presence at all, and when Gwynn and Raule go their own ways, Gwynn takes over so much of the story's focus with so little interesting character development that she becomes invisible. The evolving dynamic they had was more or less thrown away,...more

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Dec 08, 2012 Tim Hicks rated it 5 of 5 stars

First novel? Wow. This book starts off so casually, just two lone wolves meeting up and figuring out what comes next. They start new lives in a perfectly ordinary city, as in so many stories. There's the mob boss, here's a corrupt official, here are the desperately poor.

Then it gets interesting, a little bit at a time. This character is an interesting fraud. Oh, wait, he's not a fraud. In fact, he's ... holy cow! And this .... ah. Ewww. This is not a perfectly ordinary city. Not at all.

And our...more

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Jun 29, 2012 Chris rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

I wouldn't consider myself a slow reader, but this book took me nearly two years to read - and I only finished it because I'm stubborn and I paid for it. It's not that the book wasn't well written, but it lacked a lot of good story telling. The prose were certainly literary, but it came off as long winded and boring. There was a lack of overall plot. Do things happen? Yes, but that doesn't make a cohesive story. But the most glaring problem with this book is the characters. The two main characte...more

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Jan 19, 2012 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: gothic-horror, fantasy

This book took me a while to get into.

It starts out as a somewhat typical western, albeit set in a fictional realm. This is why it took me so long to get into; I hate westerns.

However, having read rave reviews about the book from blogs that highly recommend some of my favorites, I decided to stick it out. It is, after all, only a 300 page book. I can whip through 300 pages in no time. I mean, I read the last Song of Ice & Fire book in 2 days and it is a tome.

WRONG. This book is thick, and if...more

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Dec 19, 2011 Kim Ryser rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011booksread

A blurb on the cover informs me that this book is "fantasy as high literature." Or "high fantasy as literature," I can't remember which. I think the book has to be judged separately as fantasy and a literary novel. As a fantasy, it's a failure. The world-building was vague, perfunctory, and confusing. There was no plot. As a pretentious literary novel, in which unpleasant people collide with each other and talk about the nature of reality, I guess it's a success. I happen to really dislike that...more

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May 25, 2011 Nick Tramdack rated it 5 of 5 stars

A key work of the New Weird. Sure the plot isn't terribly tight, but the aesthetic is awesome. Anything combining Japanese modernist techniques, fin-de-siecle decadence, and gunslinging action is all right by me.

I did find the Lautreamont shout-out ("the evening flight of cranes") a trifle unnecessary.

Notes:

-Look at this dialogue marking that combines with narration: what 'they' are is the idea that will complete the first 2 lines.
Complying, he asked, "What is it?"
Looking through the stronger...more A key work of the New Weird. Sure the plot isn't terribly tight, but the aesthetic is awesome. Anything combining Japanese modernist techniques, fin-de-siecle decadence, and gunslinging action is all right by me.

I did find the Lautreamont shout-out ("the evening flight of cranes") a trifle unnecessary.

Notes:

-Look at this dialogue marking that combines with narration: what 'they' are is the idea that will complete the first 2 lines.
Complying, he asked, "What is it?"
Looking through the stronger lens, Raule was able to ascertain what the dots were.
"Trouble," she said.
-33: "A place of rest and safety, governed by benificent influences, where the desire for violence died: she went so far as to imagine such a haven beyond the wall, and could not discard the fantasy, despite the vigorous objections of her intellect."
-49: an extremely difficult move that Bishop pulls off: "The first tune Gwynn had played came back to her. And while the slow melody repeated in her head, something shifted inside her, as though a key had at last been fitted to a waiting lock. The door of regret opened, and she found that on the other side was desire. It was a thing like a shard of glass, clear and painfully sharp. She felt it physically, so that she had to stop and breathe deeply. She knew what she wanted, and why it meant she had to leave the Copper Country and travel far away..."
-79: "Looking at him, Raule could only keep thinking that because of her efforts he had taken three days to die instead of just one."
-89f: Gwynn's argument with the Rev is totally hot.
-126: "Gwynn excused himself and returned to his bedroom. An ensemble came readily to mind. He wasn't entirely ignorant of esoteric symbolism."
132: A random death. A quiet kid gets an amazing, decadent bon mot: "Time is the only predator not ultimately on the side of life, don't you think?" said Marcon, in a serious and cold voice.
138: On the sphinx: "By speaking to its victims it appeared to seek relief from solitude - for solitary it had to be, having no equals - a trait which suggested that if the monster possessed the same self-knowledge that it offered as a prize for answering its riddles, such knowledge wasn't enough to keep ennui away. It could perhaps be considered the heraldic totem of the chattering classes."
159: "Do you imagine that I'm a soft creature, ruled by emotion?"
"Perish the thought, madam. I've dared to hope that you're ruled by your appetites."
186: awesome setting move: "And we should also include all the vectors of disease, which science now tells us are tiny animals."
235: "The sense of delight was still there inside him. Having likened it to a flower when he first felt it, his thoughts now inclined to the analogy of a seed..." - look at that precise voice.
266: a great scene: "They blinked at each other through the rain, the forces of the moment constraining them both to stay there, waiting to think of an adequate word or a safe gesture, as if by some such minute triumph of courtesy everything could be changed."
321: "On this occasion, he understood, the quest for carnal entertainment was only part of a larger, more complex pageant, one that could not sit within the compass of human passions."(less)

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Apr 01, 2013 Katie M. rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: high-fantasy

Given the wealth of glowing reviews on the cover, I went in hoping to like this book, but I couldn't. The main problem was that I couldn't connect with any of the characters. I can deal with morally grey characters and anti-heroes sometimes, but Gwynn is outright despicable. I spent most of the book wanting to be out of his company. Raule is more sympathetic, but never really pulled me in.

The plot has sections where it's gripping, but mostly it meanders way too much. I don't refer to the surreal...more

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Dec 05, 2012 Marty rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a strange novel - I've heard it referred to as Steampunk, sci-fi, fantasy. Really, I think fantasy is a better description for it than anything else. It's the story of Gwynn, a gun-slinger and Raule, a doctor, former rebels who fought on the losing side of a revolution in the Copper Country. Both find new lives in the city of Ashamoil. Gwynn becomes a strong arm/assassin for a notorious slaver and Raule opens a hospital for the poor.

The novel becomes ever more strange: who or what is B...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Ghostsoup1313 rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: I would not recommend this book

Recommended to Ghostsoup1313 by: Someone online

There is no doubt that the author of The Etched City has created an interesting world. Or that the author is an excellent descriptive writer. But this book lacks any coherent story. The main characters are, for the most part, passive and don't seem to have any specific goals. There is no antagonist, no conflict and no action and reaction on the part of the characters. They simply exist. And have long pointless conversations.

This book reads more like a travel guide with description of the setting...more

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Apr 06, 2011 aboxofcereal rated it 4 of 5 stars

K.J. Bishop's The Etched City fits into the fantasy genre due to its elements of the fantastic (of course!) and emphasis on world building, but has more in common with other modern fantasists like China Mieville, Jeff Vandermeer, and other authors who are included in the New Weird circle than traditional fantasists. And it is a delicious novel. It is about metamorphosis and the gravity some individuals possess that can slowly draw another into their orbit, exerting a force which reshapes them in...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Fai rated it 1 of 5 stars

If I were to put 1 or 2 solitary chili flakes into your ice cream, would that be a genre-defying move, causing the ice cream to now be part of a sub genre of ice cream? NO!

I read this book as it was on the "New Weird" reading list, and I assumed it would be on par or close to Perdido Street Station (in terms of new ideas, technology, etc.), which is the 1st book I read on that list, and amazing.

The back of The Etched City has a Publisher's Weekly quote reading, "Combine equal parts of Stephen K...more

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Feb 24, 2011 Miquel Codony rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Etched City és una novel·la claustrofòbica que m’ho ha posat difícil però que he acabat amb un balanç positiu. Plena de personatges desesperançats i amb un pathos trist i cruel, el llibre es recolza fortament en les al·legories per a descriure la vida i la filosofia d’una sèrie de personatges amb una permanent recança sense objectiu clar. Tot i ser un llibre de tipus fantàstic, diria que no té voluntat de gènere, o com a mínim ignora (més que trascendir o reinventar) les seves convencions. En aq...more Etched City és una novel·la claustrofòbica que m’ho ha posat difícil però que he acabat amb un balanç positiu. Plena de personatges desesperançats i amb un pathos trist i cruel, el llibre es recolza fortament en les al·legories per a descriure la vida i la filosofia d’una sèrie de personatges amb una permanent recança sense objectiu clar. Tot i ser un llibre de tipus fantàstic, diria que no té voluntat de gènere, o com a mínim ignora (més que trascendir o reinventar) les seves convencions. En aquest sentit és més proper a Borges o al Freaks de Tod Browning que a Tolkien. El ritme de la història és el d’una aventura filosòfica, amb predisposició psicològica i intenció provocadora. Entès això, si s’accepta, la novel·la funciona com un rellotge arrítmic que tanmateix dona l’hora (i sempre és mitjanit). El que proposa la història és una demolició de les barreres que separen la realitat de l’absurditat, un viatge al subconscient a través d’una progressió que passa per una etapa onírica i s’endinsa de ple en el més pur malson.

Malgrat la seva grisor, la novel·la està plena de vitalitat, però és la vitalitat fúnebre de l’ecosistema que genera un cadàver en descomposició. Molt ben escrita, amb un control magistral de l’atmosfera i plena de personatges memorables, impulsada per la potent i sinistra imaginació de la K.J. Bishop, aquesta novel·la fa un difícil acte d’equilibrisme que li permet, amb penoses excepcions, evitar precipitar-se de dret en l’absurd i convertir-se en un mer acte d’onanisme mental. Jo he trigat ben bé mig llibre a formar-me una primera impressió més o menys vàlida, però no puc negar que m’ha produït una fascinació (més o menys insana) desde les primeres pàgines. Sembla que la K.J. Bishop és una escriptora a tenir en compte i què té una veu pròpia. Li reconec el mèrit. Crec què The Etched City és una molt bona novel·la però dir “m’agrada” no seria del tot exacte. D’altra banda, dir “no m’agrada” seria mentida. Crec que el principal problema que tinc amb aquest llibre és que té un punt de perversitat que m’ha fet experimentar sensacions desagradables, però ho ha fet amb una precissió gairebé quirúrgica o, dit d’una altra manera, aquesta era exactament la seva intenció. Considerat en conjunt i malgrat tenir alguns problemes, és un llibre amb una rara potència, capaç de conmoure i de provocar sentiments extrems. Com un malson del que es vol despertar, és un llibre que empeny a acabar-lo i, tanmateix, el capgirament de la darrera pàgina deixa una estranya sensació de buit. Em sembla una lectura recomanable no exempta de riscos.
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May 09, 2011 Angela R. rated it 5 of 5 stars

What a beautiful book! This is not a book to read with half your mind on watching your kids, or to quickly skim through in a crowded subway station. This book demands your full attention as it is not a quick or an easy read. I read a lot of fantasy and after reading the first chapter I can usually tell you exactly what's going to happen in the rest of the story, so I can skim quickly over the rest of the book. But this book was different. I can't actually say that there was even a plot in the tr...more

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Apr 29, 2010 H. Anne Stoj rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: steampunk

Usually I don't pay much attention to blurbs on the backs of books. I read them, but I don't think about them very much. On the back of the edition I have there's a comparison to Stephen King's Gunslinger series and China Mieville's novels. I can't think of a better merge than that if I was telling someone else about the novel. It certainly brought me back to the Gunslinger in some ways, to Mieville in others, but also I think I would include Catherynne M. Valente (leaning more toward Palimpsest...more Usually I don't pay much attention to blurbs on the backs of books. I read them, but I don't think about them very much. On the back of the edition I have there's a comparison to Stephen King's Gunslinger series and China Mieville's novels. I can't think of a better merge than that if I was telling someone else about the novel. It certainly brought me back to the Gunslinger in some ways, to Mieville in others, but also I think I would include Catherynne M. Valente (leaning more toward Palimpsest than the Orphan's Tales, though Beth's words brought to mind Yume No Hun).

Bishop created a really wonderful world set in a strange sort of Victorian motif and that of the Old West, though with camels being a bit more common than horses while in the desert. (I'd imagine it is steampunk, save with less machines.) Her descriptions were absolutely fascinating with word choices, from the desert to river to the city's architecture. What I found particularly brilliant where the descriptions of Beth's artwork as it became more and more morbid.

I was a bit surprised that Raule was used for more of an introduction to Gwynn. While her story is followed, it struck me more as a framing. Someone that was Gwynn's opposite in her desire to find her moral compass again, as he certainly didn't have much of one and wasn't particularly maudlin about that lack. The Rev was extremely long winded in the ideas of salvation, but what made the salvation theme rather ironic was his desire to use Gwynn in order to become right with his god. So that's not exactly salvation in some traditional religious ideas. And Beth, so interesting and more than a little confusing as to what she actually was throughout the novel. Dream, real, mythic...I didn't find a clear answer for that other than she was all three.

It's probably a novel that I'll have to read again, simply to enjoy it all over, but also to plunge a little deeper into the ideas and philosophies presented. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting it to be.

Auto-da-fe is probably the most ironically named cigarette I'd ever come across anywhere. (less)

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May 19, 2011 Dirk rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a strange book. It starts off almost like a Western, with a pistolman shooting three others over a game of cards, but then he pulls out a sword and cuts off their heads.

The two main protagonists are the shootist and a doctor, both fugitives who were on the wrong side of a war. They end up in a city where the doctor works at a clinic for the poor and the shootist becomes a ‘cavalier’ for a local criminal organization.

Most of the book is from the pov of the shootist character. About two th...more

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Oct 25, 2010 Scott Yelton rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What an amazing first novel for K.J. Bishop. Some of the philosophical ponderings were absolutely stunning - makes me want to read it again (I've had one specific conversation running through my head all day). Only downfall is that some of the character development was lacking. Gwynn was highlighted extremely well, and he was a bad guy that I absolutely loved to love. But I still can't figure out the point of having Raule as a main character? Other than to help Gwynn escape the desert, and save...more

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May 30, 2012 Ryandake rated it 3 of 5 stars

hmmm, this book is kind of a puzzler.

it's very well-written. our two sort of dichotomous heroes, Gwynne the lowlife and Raule of the high road, complement each other well, if sometimes a little too neatly. there is a plot, and themes, and great descriptions and poetical writing both good and over-the-top. it's even got a couple of intellectual puzzles and a few symbolic ones. oh, plus theology and mysticism.

what more could a person ask for?

it's even funny here and there.

but somehow it leaves me...more hmmm, this book is kind of a puzzler.

it's very well-written. our two sort of dichotomous heroes, Gwynne the lowlife and Raule of the high road, complement each other well, if sometimes a little too neatly. there is a plot, and themes, and great descriptions and poetical writing both good and over-the-top. it's even got a couple of intellectual puzzles and a few symbolic ones. oh, plus theology and mysticism.

what more could a person ask for?

it's even funny here and there.

but somehow it leaves me lukewarm on all fronts: the fates of its characters; the meanings of art/life/the ineffable; good and evil.

i think i would have found it more interesting if it had had less Gwynne in it. he's the attractive character, in a sense: a gunslinger for hire, a man whose conscience flickers like a failing fluorescent tube, almost supernaturally unkillable but some how, for all that, not exactly a bad man. he's a bad boy, to be sure, but for all of his murdering he's not entirely an evil boy. he's the id come to life, with some manners and a peacock coat, and if you were sure you weren't on his list, he might be fun to invite for dinner.

his opposite number, Raule, is the superego: she attempts to work off the karmic debt she knows she has accrued, but which she cannot feel--she's forever in search of the conscience Gwynne has so lightly discarded. but for me, her journey is the more interesting one--how does one returned from a state of benumbed-ness to a life lived consciously (not merely conscientiously) and, it is to be hoped, shot through with occasional rays of joy? but she is not the author's interest, and her part of the tale occupies relatively little of it.

more's the pity. i should have liked to see her thoughts on the matter.

and so... we have the Bad Boy journey, for the most part. perhaps if i dug through this book and examined its various symbolisms with a cold reptilian eye, i would see some quite astonishing geometries there. but the book leaves me feeling like a) it's a schoolmaster, demanding an analysis, and not in a fun way; and b) like a whiny child, i don't wanna.

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Aug 14, 2007 Peggy rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of Jeff VanderMeer or China Mieville

Wow. No, really. Just…Wow. I had heard good things about Bishop’s book, but nothing I had heard or read prepared me for the book itself. Rich detail, fabulous characters, and a very compelling story come together in just the right way to create a dark and subtle magic.

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Jan 28, 2009 Miquela rated it 4 of 5 stars

I hesitated between a 3 and 4 stars on this one. While Ms. Bishop's writing is absolutely lovely, her atmosphere able to suck you in and drown you with its corrupt lusciousness, and her imagination delightful, I wanted more out of the story.

Because I think this is a fault that lies with me, the reader, I gave the book four stars. If you are not looking for a book with a more traditional storyline (ie build-up, increasing stakes, and a climax that leaves you content [not with ahhhh, happy-ever-af...more

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Dec 11, 2012 J. Wootton rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've no idea how or when this book came to be on my shelf (if it's yours, and you want it back, do let me know).

An odd fantasy, all aesthetics and atmospherics, murky and intriguing with literary depth. A stroll through a bazaar of the bizarre, unable to be anticipated, yet never becoming too clever or chaotic for its own good, following some law neither reader nor protagonists - nor, I suspect, author - can more than vaguely sense. The world is mad, the drugs are lucid, the city a kind of non-i...more

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Dec 03, 2011 Isabel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

They were bizarre pictures, fantasies like the image of the sphinx and basilisk, but stranger. In most a similar mood of narrative or theatre was present, but the sceneries were entirely imagined: queer, outlandishly opulent gardens, grottoes, pavilions, courts and chambers, in which whimsy and savagery were closely partnered in a thick amalgam of details. All the actors in these baroque fairylands were prodigies: not legendary creatures, these ones, but beings straight - or crookedly - out of p...more

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Quotes from The Etched City

“Somewhere there are gardens where peacocks sing like nightingales, somewhere there are caravans of separated lovers traveling to meet each other; there are ruby fires on distant mountains, and blue comets that come in spring like sapphires in the black sky. If this is not so, meet me in the shameful yard, and we will plant a gallows tree, and swing like sad pendulums, never once touching.” — 11 people liked it

“In the end, having no compass for his desires, he yielded to his nature.” — 4 people liked it

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