Galveston

Resurrection Man #3

by Sean Stewart

Galveston had been baptized twice. Once by water in the fall of 1990. Again by magic during Mardi Gras, 2004. Creatures were born of survivors’ joy and sufferers’ pain: scorpions the size of dogs, the Crying Clown, the Widow who ate her victims. And the island of Galveston would forever be divided—between the real city and a Galveston locked in a constant Carnival, an endless Mardi Gras.

Now it is twenty years later. The Mardi Gras continues. The revellers dance on, the singing never stops, and of the thousands who wander in, only a handful ever return to the real world…

On this particular night, Sloane Gardner wanders in. In part, to see her stepfather, Momus, the leader of the carnival city. In part, to save her mother. “I just can’t stand to see her die,” she says. But her choice of words is unfortunate. Momus, with his twisted sense of humor, makes sure she misses everything. For four days Sloane is swallowed in dance, in song—blinded by Mardi Gras. And what happens to the people on the other side while she is gone can never be changed…

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Magical Realism, Science Fiction Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Urban Fantasy

454 pages, Hardcover

First published February 28, 2000

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Sean Stewart (born June 2, 1965) is a U.S.-Canadian science fiction and fantasy author.

Born in Lubbock, Texas, Sean Stewart moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1968. After stints in Houston, Texas, Vancouver, British Columbia, Irvine, California and Monterey, California, he now lives in Davis, California, with his wife and two daughters.

He received an Honors degree in English from University of Alberta in 1987, following which he spent many years writing novels. He gradually moved from writing novels to interactive fiction, first as lead writer on the Web based Alternate Reality Game The Beast.

He served as a consultant on several computer games, and was on the management team of the 4orty2wo Entertainment experiential marketing and entertainment company, where he was lead writer for Haunted Apiary aka ilovebees and Last Call Poker. His newest novel Cathy's Book seems to represent the melding of his two careers, as it crosses the alternate reality game format with a teen novel. In 2007, he and several 4orty2wo co-founders left that company to start Fourth Wall Studios.

Awards:
* Arthur Ellis Award Best First Novel winner (1993): Passion Play
* World Fantasy Award Best Novel winner (2001): Galveston

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book certainly puts the reader through the wringer.
It's never an easy read on us, but boy, it's a very fascinating trip.

I probably should have started with the first two books in the trilogy but I'm just going through the World Fantasy Award winners and figured I would probably get into this book regardless. And I did. It's not hard to pick up on the fact that strange gods and a perpetual behind-the-veil Mardis Gras were happening on the streets of a post-devastation Galveston in Texas. Indeed, the magical world invading the world has happened several times with varying degrees of recovery.

I felt like I stepped into a rather more local American Gods written by an actual American. And without obvious cliches.

Were the revelers actually the trapped damned folks over different ages? How about the iconic gods?

Even so, the story mostly focuses on a couple of young characters who are put through some seriously messed-up paces, made to stand against the walls of Stewart's story, and they had to stare down into his barrels.

I didn't even LIKE these characters for a good portion of the story. And the whole fixation on poker? I get it! But then, I never really ENJOYED poker, either. And yet... Stewart's story came together and made me feel something pretty powerful. I both love and hate these characters and it's something solid, or solid-sludge, drifting across the pages and transforming in the middle of the storm.

I have to admit I grew to love this novel, but it took TIME to get to this point. What a ride!

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be Sean Stewart's best novel, though I have to admit that it is not quite my favourite. Here we see Stewart displaying full mastery of his prose, his characterization, and his depiction of a fully realized magical world. Be warned though, neither the characters, nor the world presented, are always pleasant to behold.

We follow the story of Josh Cane, a young man with a chip on his shoulder due to the constrained circumstances of his life that are the result of his father's loss of a pivotal game of poker. Add to this the fact that Josh lives in a world after the occurrence of a magical apocalypse wherein everyone has to work hard to survive, not only due to their physical circumstances, but also due to the perilous proximity of the magical Otherworld, and you have the makings of a pretty downbeat story. Stewart himself has described this book as: "...your Basic "Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Everything, Girl becomes her Own Evil Twin, Boy Is Framed For Murder and Sent Along With Sidekick To Be Eaten By Cannibals, and Things Get Worse When The Weather Turns Bad" story." That about sums it up.

Of course there's more to the novel than a simple encapsulation, even one given by the author, can provide. First of all we have, once again, Stewart's excellent characters: Our main character Josh is by turns repulsive and worthy of pity; a man who had expected a life of much greater comfort than the one he ended up with and who is unable to let go of the bitterness he feels as a result of his circumstances. The only person who seems able to stand Josh is his best friend Ham Mather, the gentle giant who loyally accompanies Josh in his exile that is brought about by Josh's infatuation with the third of our heroes: Sloane Gardner, the heir-apparent to both the political and magical leaders of Galveston whose desire to escape from her responsibilities leads to disaster. Standing in the background of the story like a looming spectre is the distorted and eternal carnival otherworld presided over by Momus, a godlike trickster who will give blessings to mortals courageous, or foolhardy, enough to pay the price. As always, be careful what you wish for.

As noted, Josh's story goes from bad to worse and his circumstances, both physical and personal, can become hard to stomach. You think George R. R. Martin can put his characters through the ringer? He could pick up a few tips from Sean Stewart here. There are also no easy resolutions. Stewart always avoids the easy answer or pat conclusion. Our characters do get resolutions of sorts, and they certainly grow and change as people, but nothing is exactly as one might have expected and nothing follows the standard Hollywood paradigm for such things. This is all to the good I say and for all its difficulty, you'd be hard pressed to find a better told story than the one you'll find in _Galveston_.

I wouldn't recommend this as a starting point for Stewart: go to Resurrection Man, or Night Watch for that. Both take place in the same world deluged by magic, though at different points in its history. They are a bit more friendly to their protagonists, though they never quite let them off the hook either. No matter where you start though, you're in for a real treat with Sean Stewart. He's truly an excellent writer of great talent.

Also posted at Shelf Inflicted

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book - the best of 2008 so far.

The basic idea: Galveston, Texas experiences a magical disaster and is cut off from the rest of the world. The city itself is divided into the mundane and real, and the never-ending twilight world of Mardi Gras.

Stewart illustrates his ideas so vividly throughout the novel; I would call his illustrative skill his greatest strength. There's so much going on, and so many facets - poker, apocalypse, Southern Gothic, gentle magic, and the flawed characters. A rich and rewarding read.

[Anya Weber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, what a ponderous and lethargic fantasy novel. I liked the set-up: in the early 21st century, Galveston, Texas is inundated by a flood--but it's a flood of magic, not of water. This magical Flood kills many of the city's inhabitants and also decimates its infrastructure, rendering lots of 20th-century technology useless. So the town has moved on from then as a split community: the "real" Galveston, where various factions of people struggle to make the best of their suddenly-primitive situation, and the "Mardi Gras" Galveston, a magical realm ruled by the god of the Moon.

Digging that concept, and I also enjoyed some of Sean Stewart's language, and the epic-tragedy ambitions of his tale:

That was Galveston all over. All the real, true, steady lights going out, one by one, to be replaced by gaslight, firelight, moonlight. For one bright century men had moved beyond Nature's fickle, shifting illumination, but then the Flood had come and they had fallen from the shadowless, well-lit twentieth century, back to these dark hallways and burning lamps.

But the execution is as sprawling and loose as one of the endless poker games Stewart weaves into the story. Characters' motivations remain opaque throughout: why is the protagonist, Joshua, never able to move beyond his bitterness at his family's lost fortune? Why does Sloane, the privileged heiress, so desperately fear taking charge of the town's government? Stewart throws lots of characters, magic, and local color at his canvas, but not much of it sticks.

A bigger obstacle isn't Stewart's fault--it's that he wrote this book in the late 1990s, before Hurricane Katrina's destruction of New Orleans became one of our most devastating and resonant shared cultural stories. Who can think of a capital-F Flood today without thinking of New Orleans? Because of these issues, despite some vivid moments and a clever opening conceit, the narrative feels misplaced and washed-out.

[Sunil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't realized that the book takes place in the same universe as his previous books Resurrection Man and Night Watch, which I hadn't read. The books are about different characters in different places at different times, but they all deal with the same central conceit: magic in the real world. For Galveston, the key event is the Flood of 2004, when magic suddenly seeped into the world entire. In the resulting cataclysm, Galveston Island was cut off from a civilization now bereft of technology. And now, there are two Galvestons: the real Galveston and—superimposed on top of it—the magic Galveston, which is in perpetual Mardi Gras and ruled by the god Momus. A couple members of the community work to keep the two worlds separate.

Now, this all sounds very fanciful, but Stewart treats it as normal, which is very cool and interesting and somewhat disorienting. Especially because he never comes out and explains all the rules, so you have to sort of learn them in context, but even then, something weird will happen and you just have to go with it even though you never would have expected it based on what you thought you knew about how the magic worked in this book. This allows his imagination to run wild, basically.

The magic is not the point, though. I don't know why I have to keep coming to this realization, but it still continues to take me by surprise. The magic is just a vehicle, just a setting. The real story is about the characters and the community. Some of the reviews mention the "unlikable" protagonists of Josh Cane and Sloane Gardner, one a poor apothecary and the other a rich girl. And it's not so much that they're unlikable. It's that Stewart doesn't sugarcoat them in any way. He lets their flaws be just that: flaws. And it's sort of uncomfortable to read because they're very human flaws, and you see them in yourself. But the honest representation of these characters makes you even more invested in their growth, which is what the book is really about, the way they grow and learn about themselves and their place in the community. The plot—the events, the things that happen—doesn't follow a clear, defined arc, so you never really know where the story is going, but you care about how the events affect Josh and Sloane. And Ham, Josh's best/only friend. Stewart surprised me by avoiding clichés and instead treating his characters like real people with complicated emotions. Like I said, flawed characters. Flawed like we all are.

As a bonus, you get some tips on poker strategy (poker is used as a plot device and a metaphor throughout the book) and survival medicine (Josh has to make do with what he has now that the real medicine has run out). It's a really good book, and I think it's probably quite different from most fantasy novels.

[Melanti · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a wonderful book.

Part of me saying this is that the book is local. That's unusual for Houston. While some novels may be set in Houston, it's a nebulous Houston that can be substituted for any moderately large city out there, except that they have people wearing cowboy hats and boots, so it's obvious the authors have never been here for any length of time.

This book, though, is absolutely anchored here. It mentions local landmarks often. And while the book is understandable without them, just saying the name invokes instant images for me.

To me, Bolivar Island invokes images of hurricane Ike, Gilchrist and that lone yellow house left in a swath of rubble. Appropriate.

Mention the Balinese Room, I get images of its storied history, police raids, remodeled nightclubs and finally the broken pier that is all that Ike left behind. And Odessa used this for her house?! An entire, huge nightclub? I know the Balinese Room was under renovation/reconstruction when Stewart lived in Houston. I wonder how much had been rebuilt when he saw it.

Gouts of flame coming from Texas City refineries? I used to drive 225 all the time, passing through Pasadena and Deer Park. A bit north of Galveston, but I know exactly the image he's trying to invoke.

Turning from Seawall Blvd to Broadway? Been there!

There's more to it than just enjoying something local, though. You have complex, wonderfully flawed characters. Though those characters come to realize their flaws by the end, and are working on them, the flaws are too deep be fixed in the span of a few short weeks.

Then you have the magic: lovely chaotic Mardi Gras, cities and gods coming to life and walking their streets, bizarre, wonderful, strange occurrences seen as commonplace in the darkness. But contrasted to that, you have a post-industrial society: no medicine, no cars, no factories, shoes made from old car tires - just people living off of whatever they can scavenge from artifacts made before the magic came, and no real hope of any change for the better while they cling to the past.

It's an interesting contrast between the absolute solidity of the "real" Galveston, and the shifting, nebulous Galveston of Mardi Gras.

I'm definitely going to hunt down the other two books set in this world and read them as well.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm starting to love Sean Stewart's work--it's heartfelt and human, even as it deals in magic, mystery, speculation, and madness. Being from Texas, I especially love the works that are set here (Galveston, Perfect Circle, Mockingbird), but I've just started reading one of his Canadian novels (The Night Watch) and so far enjoying it almost as much, although the locations and cultural references aren't as familiar. Galveston may be my favorite so far, though--it's a sad novel, in many ways, but also one that's full of hope and courage. I found myself quoting lines from it during a very challenging period of my own life, so it really resonated with me. Stewart isn't always technically very focused--some of his stories tend to jumps around and leave out certain bits that I feel should be narrated more fully--but he makes up for this with brilliant moments of quiet insight and reflection that make you forget about mere plot. He also handles the presence of magic and fantasy elements with an almost casual grace--as if all of this was perfectly natural and familiar, rather than something that stops us in our tracks. I think one of his running themes is the idea that we've simply forgotten that magic is all around us, an everyday occurrence, and so we're surprised when it comes along and treats us like an old friend (or, in some cases, an old enemy). It's like a long-lost relative who just shows up one day and plops down on your couch as if he's always lived there. But the real essence of most of his novels is our ability to endure even radical and destructive change or loss. Like the island of Galveston, which seems to constantly be facing annihilation in one form or another, we somehow survive and rebuild and keep going.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2004, waves of magic engulf the world and pull it into madness. In Galveston, Texas, two women hold back the flood of magic. With the help of the Mardi Gras Krewes and Momus, a trickster god, Jane and Odessa quarantine the magic into a never-ending carnival; anyone who demonstrates magic is killed or sent there. A generation later, Jane is dying and her only child, Sloane, bargains with Momus so she won't have to watch her mother die. But of course, there is a loophole--and Sloane is caught up in it.

This is an intense book. Classism and privilege are hugely important. Cut off from the outside world, Galveston is on the verge of slipping into the dark ages. I felt drained after I read this, and spent the next two or three days in a terrible mood. If it were less emotionally damaging, I would easily rate this as 4 stars--as it is, I'm still sick when I think of some scenes.

[Tor Gar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Parecía que podía tener un pase pero no.
La novela es excesiva en descripciones y aún así no consiguen crear atmósfera a lo que hay que sumar, por esas descripciones, un ritmo lento que provoca que el libro se haga largo. Le sobran muchas páginas.Parece que intenta apoyarse en los personajes pero estos no resultan interesantes. En ningún momento he sentido algo por alguno.

Además el final aún siendo bastante coherente en la historia contada es inconsistente con el planteamiento de algunos personajes. Igual no tanto el planteamiento como los mecanismos que usa el autor para definirlos ya que varios se basan en su relación con otro (se evalúan a sí mismos comparándose con otros) para de repente dejar de compararse sin más explicación que el personaje evolucionó “porque sí”. O lo del personaje que se “inventa” al final para que todo cuadre. Resumiendo no me ha gustado.

[Neyly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantasy: World Fantasy Award for Best Novel (2001)

From the author: “This is your Basic ‘Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Everything, Girl becomes her Own Evil Twin, Boy Is Framed For Murder and Sent Along With Sidekick To Be Eaten By Cannibals, and Things Get Worse When The Weather Turns Bad’ story.”

Okay, that sounds a bit intense and, truth be told, it all happens - as does so much else.

I had no idea what to expect when I picked up Galveston. The title caught my eye, as I've been to Galveston many times: so has author Sean Stewart evidently. Stewart captures the streets, landmarks, citizenry of Galveston. He then drops all into an alternate history where two Galvestons exist uneasily side by side. Magic flooded the world, leaving the city of Galveston part never-ending Mardi Gras (nor can you leave once there) and part post-apocalyptic living.

Stewart crafts a story that's as hard to put down as it is for revelers to leave the never-ending Mardi Gras. I may not know how the book ended up in my hands but am oh-so-glad it did.

Recommend: Yes. (But know that cannibals do make an appearance and "things get worse when the weather turns bad." By the way, bad weather = hurricane.)

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sloane, Josh and Ham are the next generation of leaders of Wild Galveston. Here, Galveston had the destructive flood of 1900, then suffered a Flood of Magic in 2004, when their parents, parents’ friends and Krewes took care of Galveston. Josh’s mother was a pharmacist, but after the world changed, they became apothecaries, who made their own medications and healed people. But they couldn’t make the insulin his mom needed.

I’m very glad I read this. I wish I read it while I was in Galveston, but I bought the $2 Kindle version in Spanish, not one of my languages. Then I paid another $10 to buy it English. I would have paid a lot less if I’d bought it used. But it was worth it! If you like this sort of novel, I think you'll like this!

[Yve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I brought my copy of this book to the beach with me, and it got stolen along with my keys and socks. Figures.

[José Vázquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Más cercana a la novela de costumbres, casi el reverso de la moneda del realismo mágico latinoamericano (situaciones realistas en un mundo mágico), Galveston es posiblemente la mejor novela postapocalíptica fantástica que he leído, sobre todo porque no recuerdo otra. Partiendo de una premisa relativamente manida (La magia vuelve al mundo), Galveston trata la historia de una ciudad que se resiste como puede a caer en la barbarie mágica. Una ciudad dividida entre la parte humana, donde las cosas comienzan a parecerse cada vez más al siglo XIX que al XXI, y el Carnaval, donde habitan los galvestonianos que han sido poco a poco corrompidos por la magia. Esta última parte asoma tímidamente y promete más de lo que cumple. En cierto sentido es una pena, porque se le podría haber sacado quizá más jugo, pero cada uno elige hacer su novela como quiere.

El punto fuerte de Galveston es el tratamiento de los personajes. Empezando por los dos principales: Joshua Cane, el boticario expulsado de la alta sociedad que no puede quitarse de la cabeza que merece algo más por derecho de cuna, y Sloane Gardner, heredera de la Gran Duquesa de la ciudad que intenta escapar como puede del destino que al que su linaje le obliga. La relación de esta última con el Carnaval comienza a cambiar la vida de ambos en un momento en el que Galveston parece que volverá a cambiar para siempre una vez más.

Quizá para algunos (no tanto para mí) se trate de un libro más o menos "lento". Los personajes son más reactivos que proactivos, tratan como pueden de jugar las cartas (metáfora recurrente a lo largo de la novela) que el destino les ha dado. Salvo algún momento aislado (la "excursión" por la península de los caníbales es lo primero que viene a la cabeza) es más una historia de "niña rica, niño pobre" y sus circunstancias en un fondo casi del mítico Sur de Estados Unidos antes de la Guerra de Secesión (metáfora que se hace evidente en un punto dado del libro). No es, pues, la clase de novela de espadazos y batallas llenas de hechiceros, todo lo contrario. Lo cual es una forma bastante interesante de ensanchar los horizontes que para algunos debe tener el género fantástico y no fiarlo todo al incesto y la violencia como algo rompedor y novedoso. Pero eso es otro tema y debería ser tratado en otro lugar por personas más capaces.

Lo más triste del libro es la traducción, una más de las que nos tenía acostumbrados La Fechoría. No es tanto que haya gazapos sin freno (que alguno hay) como que las frases chirrían bastante más de lo que deberían. Una pena porque parece que la prosa de Sean Stewart en su idioma original es bastante más pulida.

[Chris Branch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rated this book 8/10 back when I first read it in '04, and I remembered it being fantastic and intense, but somehow couldn't remember the ending. So, after a re-read, my rating stands (translated to Goodreads' more limited 4/5), but I can see why I didn't remember the ending. Up until about three quarters of the way through, I was prepared to give it a 9 or a 10. Most of the book is indeed fantastic, in the sense of being a great read as well as a near perfect example of contemporary fantasy. Yes, it reminded me a lot of my fave, Tim Powers, and not just because of the poker. The plot takes interesting turns that are unexpected and yet fitting. The characters are gritty and not entirely likeable, but that doesn't mean they aren't relatable. And I think that's what makes it so intense - there is a reality to the emotional power that's rare in this kind of story. As for the ending, well, I just wish Stewart had taken it in a slightly different direction. It's just not very memorable - a kind of a slow letdown following what's come before, with matters resolved in what seemed to me a half-hearted way, and the pun is intentional in the case of Sloane. There are a couple of brief flashes of the book's former brilliance at the very end, but it just doesn't end as powerfully as I would have preferred.

Overall, I do recommend the book, and I think it's Stewart's best - of the others I've read, I'll probably revisit Mockingbird at some point, since I also rated that one 8/10 back in '06, and I have a similar memory of it.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fine work of magical realism is set in a fictional near future Galveston, TX. In this version of the world, magic started to seep into the world, and, in 2004, overflowed in and event referred to as The Flood. Ghosts became commonplace and palpable, some people mutated into fantastical beasts, some people gained magical powers, and all sort of miracles and metaphysical phenomena began manifesting. The authorities of Galveston have been able to hold the magic at bay for a couple of decades, an endeavor which has created an even deeper divide between the rich and the poor. Things are coming to a crisis point. In the midst of this are Sloane Gardner, conflicted daughter of the unofficial mayor Jane Gardner, and the apothecary Josh Cane, whose family started out in relative wealth and then fell into serious poverty.
Stewart's world is a very interesting place, and his characters are very well-portrayed - they are complete people who are both sympathetic and exasperating. He does a great job of exploring themes of luck, dealing with what you have, and learning to accept responsibility without self-abnegation in the name of duty. I only had two complaints: I think Stewart made a misstep in the resolution of the romantic tensions between characters, and I wish he had dealt more directly and deeply with the way in which the authorities attempt to completely hold back and sequester the magic may have had a negative effect on Galveston.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly original, gritty fantasy. In the year 2004, there was a Flood -- not of water, but of magic, which has destroyed most of civilization and left twisted magical beings in its wake. The Flood hit Galveston, TX in the middle of the Mardi Gras celebration, but thanks to the work of the witch woman Odessa, the island survived. Now, half the island struggles to survive with failing technology and ever-decreasing supplies of modern medicine, eking subsistence out of the sea. In the other half of the island, it is perpetual Mardi Gras, perpetually 2004, and there is cold beer and music and magic, but once you enter Mardi Gras, you can never leave. When Sloane Gardner enters Mardi Gras to make a deal with its master and protector, Momus, it transpires that she is one of the few who can pass freely between the two worlds, and this will mean great changes for Galveston...

The world of Galveston is populated with fascinating characters, all of them flawed. This isn't a feel-good novel; people are cynical, and petty, and cruel. But there is still a sense of hope and wonder. Great stuff.

[Redsteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is set in a post-apocalyptic Galveston where the rational world of modern civilization was thrown down by a massive surge of magic in 2004. This is NOT an attractive magical universe. The citizens of the island survive between what they can grow (and fish) locally, trade for with their close neighbors, and what items that they can scavenge, repair, or modify from the pre-apocalypse world. Even the rich and powerful have a life that is fairly squalid by the standards of a modern America. While the industrial/scientific world no longer exists, the world of magic is something to be avoided or placated rather than used; and anyone who shows signs of magical talent or becomes the focus of magic beings is “sent to the krewes”, exiled to the dark Carnival of the cruel god Momus, never to return to human society. This is a grim but entertaining book that, at the bottom, addresses what it means to be human.

[Kristi Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent novel, I liked it much more than the Night Watch. Play the hand you're dealt. The poker bits reminded me a bit like that Tim Powers. Is poker inherently fantastical?

There's something very great and disturbing in the way that magic is presented as wonderful, strange and bizarrely beautiful, everything magic was ever meant or thought to be, and yet, and because of that, horrifying and completely inimical to the modern human.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Galveston started a bit slow but I am glad I stuck with it. It was very original, creative and intelligent. Sean Stewart gives an interesting spin on magic and makes profound statements on the effects of natural disasters on human behavior. His characters are wonderfully complex and well-realized. I highly recommend this book.

[Jomafe- · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is absolutely wonderful.

[Penner · Rating 1 out of 5]

So magic has leaked out into the real world and must be held at bay by a few unlikely heroes: So what? As most of us understand magic (in its typical representation in fantasy fiction), it's a tool that can be used for good or ill by those who know how to wield it, like any tool. Stewart assumes instead that magic is like a plague that warps and eventually destroys everything in its path, and would like us to assume so as well.

Fine. What about the rest of the world? We're told Galveston's magic was contained in an endless Mardi Gras so the rest of the population could live on in a banal relative peace, but what about Austin? Dallas? New York? We're told that manufactured goods can no longer be imported from the "outside world," yet Galveston enjoys electricity, plumbing, air conditioning, gas, and most of the other ensigns of civilization. So what was it that happened to the factories, exactly?

Stylistically, the book is uneven. As has been mentioned here, the characters are eminently unlikeable and uninteresting. One gets the impression that this is Stewart's point (in attempting to weave magic into "reality"), but there is a reason we read fantasy: Because it is NOT like real life and brings us to fantastic magical places. I spent the entire book wanting to get back to Mardi Gras where the magic was allowed to run rampant. The plot is hesitant and unclear, the themes are murky, and the ending is more like an amputation. All of this is shrink-wrapped in a heady self-congratulatory style that suggests we're reading something important and innovative. It's made the more pretentious by the reality that it's just a soap opera with a few feathers and snake scales sewn on for effect.

[Ryan Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm of two minds on this one, but someone has to pitch this stuff to HBO.

One of Sean Stewart's biggest strengths is creating magical worlds, and then populating them with grounded, human characters. There are heartbreaking arcs here, characters go through hard, bone-broking changes and come out the otherside believably transformed.

Also, to its credit, this is a GANGBUSTERS premise. An allegory for the plight of island life as resource-poor poverty vs rich, dangerous magic is a good one. It's to the books detriment that they do so little with this idea, as we spend a very small amount of time in the magical world of Mardi Gras, and the time we do spend doesn't feel nearly whimsical or dangerous enough.

And hope you like poker, because HOO BOY, huge stretches of this book are devoted to the finer points of card sharping, one of the many elements that cause this book to slog for certain stretches.

On the whole, the book is worth the investment, as the character work and world-building are handled well, but just know that some pacing issues kind if hinder what could be a masterpiece.

[Juan Sanmiguel · Rating 2 out of 5]

The city of Galveston becomes half magic and half normal. Two people try to figure out their place in this world. Sloan Gardner is the heir to control Galveston but can she or should she. Joshua Cane is a healer to the lower strata of Galveston yet is not part of that community. Both of them need to find how they fit in. Sloan goes to mystical side of Galveston and gets lost in the Mardi Gras atmosphere. Joshua is blamed for her disappearance and is exiled but comes back to help after a hurricane. There is a lot going on. Families trying to hold on to power. Class struggles. Instead of using the feudal structure, seen in a lot of fantasies, this one uses the Southern class structures. Its OK but at the end I wanted a more clear ending. It did not seem that Sloan or Joshua were comfortable in their roles.

[Marion Hill · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF.

I reached page 300 and ran out of steam. Sean Stewart is a talented writer and is good with writing characters. I really liked the Sloane character in relation to her family and the city of Galveston. However, I thought this novel was flabby and could have been tighter. I was more interested in the city of Galveston in relation to the flood and Mardi Gras and how the citizens reacted to those events than the post apocalytpic vibe that was a good part of the novel. However, I'm going to give Stewart another try with his novel, Perfect Circle.

[Stephen Poltz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started out slow. Then I discovered it was the third book in a trilogy. So then it made some sense that I was having some trouble getting into this universe because it was assuming some knowledge. However, once I got into it and understood the mythology and background, I read it voraciously. It’s quite a page turner, set in a post-apocalyptic near future on the island of Galveston, Texas, where there’s a city within a city full of magic, gods, and monsters. It’s sort of a microcosmic version of American Gods crossed with the weirdness of a Clive Barker novel. This book won the 2001 World Fantasy Award.

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[Kristine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this one. I liked that it was set in a location I'm a little bit familiar with, and how the magic was both light and dark. But the characters were unlikeable and unrelatable, and it took a LOT of the book for me to start getting into it. Overall pretty middle of the road for me.

[Annette]

Momus: "'No sense in being sober at last call.' ... His touch was lonely drunks and suicides."

Miss Bettie (a ghost): "'One of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity.'" She goes on to criticize Andrew Carnegie, so of course I'd like to discuss this concept with her..... !

[Marsha Valance · Rating 5 out of 5]

An angel raised among mortals, reluctant to use his powers but ultimately compelled to fulfill his fate, must save the city of Galveston from a curse of eternal Mardi Gras. Locus Award Nominee for Best Novel (2001), World Fantasy Award for Best Novel (2001), Sunburst Award for Canadian Novel (2001).

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was quite a bit different, and I really liked that about it, though it was a bit hard to figure out how things worked in the beginning. Nonetheless, the magic flood is an interesting concept, and I enjoyed the story quite a bit. Not a keeper, but worth reading.

[Martial Trevett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magic has taken the world in New Orleans