The Secret Book of Paradys

Secret Books of Paradys #1-4

by Tanith Lee

Paradys―the city―was a place of decadence and decay, of luxury and lasciviousness, and, after the revolution, a graveyard peopled by the insane and the dead…and by those who preyed on both. The strange and the tormented dwell in Paradys―prowling its dark streets and twisted alleyways, passing the endless hours in the city's elegant mansions and smoke-tarnished inns, wandering in moldering graveyards and the stark surrounding countryside. For the land here is bound by a timeless, soul-chilling magic, and that power has cast its spell over all who have ever lived in this foreboding and dangerous place. All who came to Paradys were forever touched by its dread magic. The City was not one place but three, bound together by a labyrinth of ice yet separated, perhaps by time, perhaps by some long-forgotten enchantment, into Paradise, Paradis and Paradys―each cursed in an entirely different way... Witness the city of Paradys’ life and history through the eyes of its provocative and perverse citizens―a darkly fascinating odyssey as only World Fantasy Award winner Tanith Lee could imagine it.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, Short Stories, Gothic, Science Fiction Fantasy, Halloween

720 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of 77 novels, 14 collections, and almost 300 short stories. She also wrote four radio plays broadcast by the BBC and two scripts for the UK, science fiction, cult television series "Blake's 7."
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.

Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.

Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.

Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.

Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.

Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.

Reviews

[Erik Pitman · Rating 5 out of 5]

"How fast does a man run when the Devil is after him?"

Best opening line of a book ever

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I kind of wish I were writing these up as four separate volumes, because the books are quite different from each other although they're all set in vaguely the same place (a transformed version of Paris) and parallel time continuity: The Book of the Damned is three unconnected novellas, two of which are excellent while one is mediocre; The Book of the Beast contains two intertwined novellas, both of which are okay but unexceptional; The Book of the Dead is short stories, the best of which are terrific; and The Book of the Mad is one novel set in three universes, and overall my favorite of the bunch. Everything that defines Lee as a writer - the great and the not-so-great - is found in these volumes somewhere, and the transcendent outweighs the ordinary, so I recommend this highly though it's a roller coaster ride.

[A.J. Culpepper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dark, terrifying and beautiful is the best way to descirbe the world, the atmosphere Tanith Lee creates. It can be fairly difficult to follow at times, but it's always well worth following through to the end.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am very conflicted about this book. On the one hand, the stories in it mostly consist of horrible people doing horrible things to each other, and suffering for it. Occasionally someone who is not horrible has horrible things done to them that they don't deserve, and sometimes they turn horrible because of it, or they just suffer and die. These stories are dark, dark, dark. There are some exceptions, but most of what goes on in these stories is terrible.

But the writing is so good, I couldn't put the book down. Even though I didn't like what I was reading, the way that it is written is so compelling that I had to finish the stories. The writing is almost like a spell in that regard, making me finish a book that, if written by a lesser author, I wouldn't have lasted even a third of the way through.

Bottom line, a book of stories of terrible things happening to (mostly) terrible people, written amazingly.

[Mira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m a bit surprised I’d never heard of these before picking up Book of the Damned at the library by chance. They are a haze of gothic insanity, the sort of things that might hav been written while drinking absinthe if the drink really had the hallucinatory qualities ascribed to it by urban legend. The fictional French city of Paradys is host to a bizarre rogues’ gallery of vampires, fiends, Satanists, ghosts and vengeful mortals, all decadent, depraved and oddly philosophical. The series isn’t for everyone (there is frequent graphic depiction of rape and mutilation, and I’m still not entirely certain what happened to the unfortunate Andre St. Jean,) but it’s well worth a look for fans of beautiful corruption.

I’m also very happy to have found a book where (SPOILERS!) after being saved by a Wise Jewish Sage and his Beautiful Daughter, the hero actually- gasp!- converts to Judaism. I don’t know why I have’t seen that before.

[Chelsea · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a really strange book... I'm not sure if I'm just not sophisticated enough to appreciate it, but it was just weird. The first half was a total drag and from there it started to pick up. The last half was pretty good, but it was a LONG haul to get there.

[D.D. Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a dark tone of dread and fear running through this series. It is this tone that most characterized the city of Paradys; that nightmare city of immorality and evil, a city that is lawless, ruthless, mad, and where people can use and abuse each other however they like, where people found stabbed to death in the streets is a common occurrence and where occultists whisper their dark secrets in the shadows and where people are highly promiscuous, having sex with whoever they feel. This city where there is no community to bind one individual to the next and where the political institution that exercise control over society are absent, where as a result anarchy rules the day. It is this that I know the ironically titled series to be.

The first book of the series, The Book of the Damned is made up of three incredibly weird novellas all linked together by the same theme of change, particularly as it pertains to the malleability of gender. It is mind bending and surrealist, easily the darkest of the lot, and filled with biblical symbology, allusions, and eroticism. Each of the novellas also has a color associated with it and the color used has many references to it within the story that helps to create a specific atmosphere that is surprisingly effective. Tanith Lee uses this technique throughout this series but it’s most explicit in the Book of the Damned. My favorite story in the entire series was the novella Malice in Saffron; it was a very brutal and powerful story.

The second book, the Book of the Beast is more like traditional horror with the horror of some bygone era – the evil originating from ancient Egypt or possibly Mesopotamia– traveling up the ages by way of the male lineage of a cursed Roman family; this one was creepy and sent shivers crawling up my spine, excellent use of suspense. This one was my second very story and it had me on the edge of my seat the entire way.

Then the third book was a mess of short stories that seemed only tenuously connected to the city of Paradys and the series as a whole, completely lacking the dreadful tone of earlier books and the full throttle bunch of an eventful climax; in some cases I enjoyed the buildup of the story but they didn’t deliver enough to make themselves memorable, only a promise ruined. Indeed, I don’t know what Tanith Lee was thinking by making this third book a part of the series in the first place because seriously the series would have better off without it and could have been one a five star series if not for this damned book! The useless thing! Tanith Lee not in form! Writing so lazy, so unusual for her and such a grave disappointment!

Then the fourth book, ah the eventful fourth book – the Book of the Mad was perhaps the most intricate and innovative of the books. In this one the layers and meaning of the city of Paradys that have accrued over the entire reading of the series take new turns that illuminate meanings and concepts that give the reader a fuller although not complete understanding of the city of Paradys and of the series as a whole. The premise for the story sounds silly when you read about it, but it turned out to be quite brilliant like the first two books in the series, although in a different way.

But what is the “whole” supposed to be mean? This after all isn’t a coherent series as the word implies; this isn’t a series with one theme or storyline to connect it all but with multiple themes crisscrossing over each other and with no clear time frame of where events happen in the history of Paradys, as there is nothing linear about this series; indeed, as is most explicitly demonstrated in the last book, with events of the past affecting events of the future and vice versa, the series is cyclical in nature, which definitely makes for a difficult read. Too bad there aren’t more novels out there with cyclical plots.

As you can guess this series is highly ambiguous (and ambitious). We don’t even know much about the city of Paradys itself except that it is in France and probably an alternative Paris and that it was originally a Roman settlement based around a silver mine and that eventually it developed into a major city. Despite this pseudo-historical detail the series doesn’t discuss much in terms of historical references outside of a few events and we don’t get much in the way of an outside world. Indeed, the city seems to float disembodied, disconnected from the outside world and thus it truly is a nightmare that exists only in its own reality apart from everything else. As a result it is like a weird “unreality,” where you can never be sure of what is true and what is right and where the very concept of reality is not solidified but something changeable and bendable by turns; in other words it is a place where the weird can thrive and bloom unrepentant and unimpeded, where the dark desires of the soul take over all sense of decorum and of the rational world. No wonder so many of the characters in this series do fucked up things! So if you don’t like fiction that’s unabashedly avant-garde and really crazy wacky weird and that is filled with impending doom on the scale of an apocalypse and that is so gothic you can feel the darkness oozing off the ink of the pages and narrators who are depredated and horrible human beings then you should pass this up but if you’re a reader like me who says, “the weirder the better,” then you seriously can’t score better than this. This is a great series – aside from the third book – that disserves to be read by the intelligent reader and not relegated to the underground vaults of the library to collect dust and so remain in obscurity.

[Lila]

current page: 181 - I am... so confused with this book right now. It is a bizarre work, and definitely in a different vein from Lee's other works (namely, the Claidi cycle). Brilliant words, though; I love her parlance, but man - I don't have a clue what is going on. o.o Bizarre.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read as one big book, this is a fabulously dark & poetic chronicle of the good & evil in a multidimensional land called Paradys.

[Joe Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

How did I not know about this author? I will be seeking out much more of her work for sure.

[NativeDCer]

DNF - not my style. Casual sexual violence & self-loathing.

[Adam Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Secret Books of Paradys are actually made of four books, the first being The Book of the Damned. This is a collection of four novellas, featuring characters being pulled inexorably into some horror of other.

The first, Stained with Crimson is essentially a vampire story. A man is given a broach and wishes to give it back to a noble lady. She is not interested in him but his friend, and his friend quickly succumbs to an obvious case of being sucked to death by vampire. However, when the protagonist sleeps and shares blood with her, she is quickly reported dead. A duel follows with her brother in which the protagonist is killed, and then wakes up as a woman. Realising that the brother vampire is his love having changed sex, he hunts him down and they have sex again, changing the vampire back into a woman. When vampire woman kills our protagonist, she wakes up again as a man - the implication is that they will now spend eternity hunting each other, having sex, swapping sex and killing each other.

What drove me crazy, was the mechanic that meant his friend died after the vampirism but he forced the vampire to change sex and later did himself. There seemed to be no reason for this to happen and I racked my brains over it without result. The aim to create a heightened, poetic discourse also made the book easy to parody. When we are told that a woman has a ‘cowl of hair and coals of eyes’, or that ‘timelessly, time advanced’, the lush-o-meter entered into the silly territory.

The second novella in the first book, Malice in Saffron, is more straightforward but nastier. A young woman is raped by her father and escapes into town to get help from her brother. When he doesn’t, she finds herself in a convent by day as a well-behaved nun, but sneaks out at night as the sadistic male leader of a gang of thieves. There first job is to rape and beat up her brother and she uses her position to get revenge as well as score good prizes. Her male side develops into an independent figure, embodying all the evil she sees in men.

Weirdly, the convent may be worshipping Lucifer as a beautiful angel - it’s never made clear if this is happening, and if it is, whether the nuns know it or not. There’s also a suggestion that the window they worship to was put in by her brother’s boss, who is sneaking all sorts of satanic iconography into churches.

When a plague hits, she becomes a selfless nurse as her female self, leaving the male self behind. She even finds her poor injured brother and nurses him to health by chopping off her arm and feeding it to him when he is weak. Then she goes and prays to the window is taken.. somewhere, presumably by Lucifer.

It’s funny, because the religious elements in this story raise questions about how different Paradys is to our world. There are far more murders and rapes (I hope) and a thinner line between a world of beasties and eldritch horror than ours, but they have Christianity (albeit in churches with names that sound strange to us). Later on, it’s revealed they also have a similar history, including Egyptians and Romans - though Haiti has a different name. I think in the similarity of Paradys and our world, especially religiously, there’s the influence of the gothic. Those works (such as The Monk) are so reliant on Catholicism and older forms of Christianity, that they can’t be completely laid aside in this world.

The last novella in the first book is Empires of Azure. It styles itself as a 1920s noir mystery and is all about a possibly haunted house and its strange occupant. This occupant is a drag show performer who is remarkable for being more than just an imitation of womanhood but to embody it when on stage. This performer is most likely gender-fluid and that fluidity has made them the perfect vessel for the ghost of a hermaphrodite Egyptian priest/ess. It was the most directly written and probably my favourite of the three.

What makes the three novellas notable, is the way each story features an element of sex or/and gender switching. From the sex-swap vampires, to the shadow male persona to the gender-fluid performer, the character’s sexual permeability either draw an eldritch beast to them, or are a result of contact with an eldritch beast. The other three books are concerned with sex and gender but those interests aren’t as explicit in them. They raise questions about how much we fear finding out that gender is more porous and less contained than we realise - in a world where the demon world is also less sealed off than it is here.

The second book, The Book of a Beast is more like a novel, though it’s probably better described as two nesting novellas.

The first is about a student from the countryside who stays in a dilapidated manor in the city. There’s no one there but two aged servants and a possible ghost. One day he goes to a brothel and mentions to the prostitute where he’s staying, her response is to kill herself with an acidic douche - something is up. He pursues the ghost, who is actually alive, a young woman married into the family years before. She tells him about how her husband turned into a harpy-beast when they had sex (something he was trying to avoid, but she drugged him). She then drugs the student and, as they having sex, she ages and putrefies. He now has the harpy-beast in him and must avoid sex.

The middle is all about a member of the Roman garrison of Paradys when it was first founded. He makes a deal and unleashes the harpy-curse into his bloodline. Then we return to the student and his attempts at exorcism.

This novel had the first hint of humour in this world. The beginning, when the student explores the obviously haunted house, Lee is having a lot of fun with the tropes of haunted houses. It then veers away from that gothic beginning, settling more into the Decadent elements to be expected in Paradys. It also has a lengthy Roman section, which weirdly reminded me a little of Naomi Mitchison’s Behold the Man, a story about Jesus’s crucifixion. There was a similar attitude from the soldiers about following different Gods for practical purposes, as a result of the Roman’s Pax Deorum.

The third book, The Book of the Dead is a collection of short stories. It again has a more playful tone than the previous books, taking the form of a tour through a graveyard. It’s a little like one of those anthology horror films and the crypt keeper is less formal than previous narrative voices. It’s also a nice conceit that each story happens at a later date than the last, taking us through the City’s history.

Being short, the stories often have a little twist or punch at the end, often ending on an irony. This book has vagina dentata, a cursed room and a woman with a little homunculus that kills people. There was a voodoo story told in a fictional Haiti called Ha1issa - which raised more questions about what places were the same and which were not.

A particular favourite story was Lost in the World, a pastiche of Arthur Conan-Doyle’s tale, in which a Professor Challenger figure is laughed out of academia for believing in a lost world ruled by a giant. He sets off alone and finds it, but sees no giant. As he is picked up by a huge flying beast to be murdered and fed to chicks, he realises the marble buildings in the distance were the bones of a massive, dead giant. He smiles as he goes to meet his doom.

Though the stories seem slight compared to the previous books, I connected much better to this book as Lee is having more fun with her creation. The best gothic works are those that acknowledge and enjoy the silliness as much as they revel in the drama - it’s that which makes The Monk so good. I had felt that the straight goth-face was too plastered on to crack a smile and it was great to see it.

While I’d enjoyed the previous books of Paradys well enough, it was the fourth one, The Book of the Mad I really enjoyed.

It takes place in the Paradys the reader has got to know and two alternative versions, Paradise and Paradis. Both these versions seem to be in the future of Paradys, which is portrayed in the late nineteenth century. Paradise is a hell-hole, drinking the river gets you drunk and society seems to have absolutely collapsed. Paradise seems a much nice place, with clean air, helpful technology and a functional society. The book takes a chapter in each place in turn, telling a story that comes together in a very strange way.

In Paradys, a fifteen-year-old girl has been cosseted her whole life, being saved for the marriage market. She is called a baby, still plays with dollies and is constantly reminded how she looks nine or ten. On a visit to the theatre she falls in lust with an actor and when she goes to visit him, he thinks she’s a prostitute and rapes her (biggest problem with all these books, the constant rape). He is himself later sodomised to death with a beer bottle.

The trauma of this event drives the girl mad and she is put in an asylum. It’s the very worst kind of asylum as can be imagined in any gothic or sensation novel, with sadistic keepers and beastly conditions. One of the ‘treatments’ is actually something they used in Bedlam. The recipient was put in a large swing and spun until sick - the idea was that the vomit would settle the humours of the patient, and patients were often a lot more compliant after it.

The patients find a bottle of Penguin Gin, which the keepers are always swilling. They create a mythical land called Penguinia, where everyone is happy and the snow is warm. Then one day, the asylum floods with a tidal wave of gin, which kills all the keepers, and a giant kaiju penguin ushers them into this magical world where they are healed and happy.

This unlikely event is created by the action in the other two worlds. In Paradis, the nice future, the reader meets Leocadia. She’s a pampered, rich artist who feels superior to those around her. She’s the opposite of the main character in Paradys, she’s independent and powerful, and not very nice really.

Her cousin is after her inheritance and trying to stir up stories about how mad she is. One day, after being rude and snotty in a restaurant, Leocadia comes home to find her lover murdered. Then she does snap and is taken to a mental hospital. This hospital is next to the old asylum, where a tide mark still shows a mysterious flood which destroyed the place. The mental hospital is comfortable and she’s given all the comforts from home, even her chilled vodka breakfast. As the reader sees it through her eyes, everything about the place seems menacing and the doctors inscrutable and dangerous.

One day, her canvases have been taken away so she decides to paint a huge mural based on the bottle of gin she found whilst exploring the ruined asylum. It’s her painting that creates a magic spell that unleashes the giant penguin that saves the people in the old asylum. It also helps her recovery and within six months she is ready to go home and live a happy life.

In Paradise, the hell-hole world, a brother and sister are distinguished by the fact they are not in an incestuous relationship. For some reason, never really established, they have to kill someone every few days. Their uncle has left them his house, which includes a giant ice maze that gives them access to Paradis. They are the ones who hid Leocadia’s paintings and killed her lover, thus putting her into the position to paint a giant penguin and unleash one in the past. They are then crushed by a giant penguin ice sculpture.

The penguin itself is one of the many eldritch beings in the worlds of these stories and is concerned with healing. All the events in the worlds have happened to heal the mental patients in the most peculiar and elaborate plan ever.

I really liked this book, it fulfilled everything the Paradys books had potential to be. It used the hints of actual gothic literature, the Lovecraftian beasties - even the intentional shock elements found in the other stories and made something fun and even quite moving. I’m not much inclined to visit the goth/fantasy genre very often, and I wouldn’t read the first three books of Paradys again but I’d happily re-read this one. I wondered a few times whilst reading these books if the effort was really worth it but I was very happy to find myself at a giant mind-healing penguin.

[B. T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reminiscent of the best pulps. Somewhat retro but lovely for all of that.

[Loreley · Rating 4 out of 5]

პირველი წიგნი ძალიან მომეწონა, მეორეც, მესამე ისე რა. მეოთხე წიგნი გასაგიჟებელი იყო *_* (pun intended :D)

[fletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read a writer like Tanith Lee. Truly gothic horror, perfect for fans of Rimbaud and Ligotti

[Carol Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

I struggled with the first book, The Book of the Damned, but I really enjoyed The Book of the Beast, The Book of the Dead, and The Book of the Mad. A great read for October and Halloween.

[Ана Хелс · Rating 5 out of 5]

Магическо, обсебващо, терминиращо целия ти досегашен опит с книжната реч. Плътно до задушаване, цветно до ослепяване, магнетично до разбиване на всички физични , психични и метахолични закони. Объркани герои, безумни ситуации, неочаквани завършеци, непреодолими начала. Кошмар и летен сън в едно, целувка, смърт, усещане за полет. Магия. Просто е. И не може да се каже по-сложно. Невероятен език, танцуващ, напрягащ, задоволяващ, и не може да бъде друг. Комплицирани, нереални светове, уж на ръба на възможностите на човешкото. Мир изпълнен само с подсъзнания, играещи си на критично съществувание. Сънища оцелели в ера на безсъние, птици без криле и крясъци в лишена от звуци среда. Оставя те безмълвен, меко казано объркан и толкова нетърпелив за още от същата странна химична болка. Думите оставят някаква неудовлетвореност, пълна с чар и с никакви обещания. Няма хепи енд, няма и хепи бегининг. Хепито го бодват други. Танит е част от безмълвния по-черен от мрака абсолют на пуснат на свобода суб-аз, който съгражда разрушения и извърта световете до ръба на вероятността. И въпреки обливането с твърди до мекост първични емоции, все още ми е трудно да затворя очи без да продължавам да виждам есенцията на тъмнината. Нека бъдем малко по-конкретни, че реалността ме чака в коридора , недоволна, че не зачитам грижливо създадения от нея живот.



Книгата на прокълнатите е началото. Три новели в пурпур, шафран и лазур, за неща, които по-скоро ще усетите, отколкото разберете. Хаосът ви гледа право в междуочието от страниците на Ли, и вие го усещате, о, как ще го усетите. Вампири, които не пият кръв, но носят есенцията на прекратената безсмъртност и транссексуалното прераждане. Чисти невежи девойки превръщащи се в божествени демони под опеката на черни ангели в църкви, грижливо възпяващи падналите като истинските властници. Чудовища населяващи времето и измеренията в пълноценни поне два милиона форми, търсещи тела и животи чрез думите. Един рубинен пръстен, един топазен медальон, една сребърна обица. Предмети явяващи се пътища между възможностите, раздиращи гигантски процепи между реалностите и играещи си на безумие с времето и метафизиката. И героите, отнесени с широко отворени очи от мъглата напоена с древно проклятие на абсурдния вариант на Париж – един истински, живеещ, тръпнещ и най -вече напълно полудял див град, наречен Парадис. Ню Кробузон пасти да яде, честно.



Книгата на звяра те премята в друга вариация на несъществуващото. Нов експеримент във форма и думи, по-цялостен роман, тръпнещ между неизмерими времеви пластове и територии, разказващ историята за по -древни от съществуванието демони, прокрадващи се в най-личното човешко място – в утробата и семето, оставящи след себе си бързо разложими трупове и чудовищни птицебогове – убийци, унищожими само с огън и древни юдейски магии. Проклятието засяга невинните – една алюзия на Сад и неговата Жюстин, където животът наказва свирепо чистите и обичащите искрено, смазва подчиняващите се на морала и възпитанието. И тук светът се натрошава на дребни парченца под нозете на войнстващи божества, живеещи само в изумрудени или аметистени очи, блестящи , вземащи и даващи съдници на човешки души. И първия и единствен опит за смутолевен, заслужено добър изход, макар и с надвиснал на милиметри неотменим съдбовен меч, чакащ търпеливо да премаже своите жертви с жестокостта на неодушевените изпълнители на неясни повели.



Книгата на мъртвите е бездиханна и придихателна , непрекъснато динамична, прехвърлящата те от гроб на гроб, без секунда почивка, без миг невнимание, без логика, повеля или поука. Просто мъртъвци с десетки, разказващи своите абсурдни истории, скрити и измити от града, отнесени с реката , поети от въздуха, целунати от земята. Осем великолепни истории, някои иронични, други обезсърчителни, трети неясни, но силни и зашеметяващи те. Героите са повече от странно-вдъхновяващи – девойка -демон с вагина дентата, древни вуду магьосници от далечни черни острови, богиня бухал с вампирска страст и безбрежна любов към луната, пътуващ през процепите на същестуванията магьосник, художничка изтъкана от зависимост към меланхолията, пътешественик намерил изгубения свят на напотърсилите поданици древни богове, най-абсурдната двойка близначки -отровителки, стогодишен търсещ отмъщение призрак на подранила във времето си жена. Безгранично търсещо всеки страх, и всяка фобия , намиращо теб и личната ти мъка , задълбавайки в нея напоено с депресия отровно жило.



Книгата на лудите е импресия, посветена на самата Ли – нормалността тук отстъпва по всички фронтове, оставяща с писъци вариацията на сън наяве на съзнанието на еклектична самоубиваща се артистка, възраждащо се към смъртта момиче, попаднало в чисто Сад ситуация без никакъв реален изход, и зловещи близнаци с покрити от лепкава лудост садистични съзнания, реинкарнации на авторката, изповед на поне няколко от вътрешните и гласове и всесилни демони , затягащи своята хватка около Парадис, и отнемащи Рая от светлата страна, давайки го на непонятния мрак. Пътувания през времеви пластове, реалности и невъзможности, и страшно много злокобни пингвини. Преливанията от живот в живот, прескачащи правилата на континиуумите, смъртта и най-вече живота те водят във вихър, от който измъкване фактически няма. И оставяйки книгата задъхано благодариш, че си се спасил в твърдата почва на скучната сивота, където въздухът все още се диша от правилните отверстия, и светът не си е отишъл съвсем на кино, за да гледа пронизващите кошмари на един еклектичен Годар.

Книгите на Ли не са за всеки. Лабилният , но все пак любопитен читател е повече от нужно да се запаси с торби валиум, антидепресанти и много алкохол за поемане на мировата мъка, струяща от всяка помислена и неизписана дума между редовете. Мазохистичните четци ще се окъпят във водопад от изящни душевни мъчения, които ще замъглят представата им за възможна болка и ще отнемат усещането на еуфорична безболковост, правейки невъзможно всяко друго състояние извън нажеженото до крайна агония съзнание. Истински готически романи, казвайки всичко забранено и всичко спотаено, всичко, което всеки с ума си би решил да погребе дълбоко и напълно някъде далече. Но тук за ум не говорим. Само за подсъзнание в абсурдистки размери. Ето какво сънуват звездите на боговете, когато имат кошмари.

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's pretty evident, reading Lee's Paradys stories all in one volume, that she started running out of ideas for the sequence about midway through here and had to increasingly resort to cheap shock value. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...

[nephifiend · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely incredible collection. Tanith Lee's writing is so lush, so decadent, and I admire the way that she can blend darker, icky themes with the fantastical. "The Book of the Beast" was my favorite, but each Book was excellent (the ending of "The Book of the Mad" had me in tears). This is going to be a reading highlight of the year for me, certainly

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tanith Lee does it again.

I couldn’t put it down or guess the direction of the story.
What a long, strange, cohesive story.
Loved it.

[Traci · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn’t finish. I’m treating this like a group of short stories and novellas, and not enough of them are holding my interest. A few were decent, but it’s time to move on.

[Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me. Lots of talking and thinking about what to do or what happened but not a lot of things actually happening.

[Isabel (kittiwake) · Rating 4 out of 5]

High, high above, just before the top of the tower had broken, hung the wound of a mighty sword, a window petalled by glass ... magenta and maroon, crimson and carmine, blood, scarlet, madder and pomegranate – it bled, this glass, every petal, and as it fell down towards the east, the sunrise, it paled through every flushed nuance of roses.

A while ago, I asked for recommendations of books set in alternate versions of cities other than London, and someone recommended the Secret Books of Paradys. A couple of years later, I finally got round to borrowed an enormous omnibus edition of The Secret Books of Paradys from the library, intending to take it back to the library after reading the first two books and borrow it again later to read the other two books, as I tend to get bored with series if I read the books too close together. But by the time I finished the second book there was no sign of boredom or my interest flagging, so I decided to carry on and I’m glad I did, as this is a fantastic and fantastical series, and I enjoyed each book better than the last.

Paradys is an alternate version of Paris, and the stories are set at various times in its history from the last days of the Roman Empire to the 20th century.

The Book of the Damned contains three novellas set in Paradys, an alternate version of Paris, the first in the eighteenth and/or early nineteenth century, the second in the Middle Ages, and the last at the turn of the twentieth century with flashbacks to the time when the city was ruled by the Romans. The stories are linked by windows with coloured glass, jewellery in matching colours (a ruby ring, a topaz cross and an earring decorated with a sapphire spider), and characters who present as both male and female.

The Book of the Beast is the story of a family cursed by demonic possession linked to an ancient amulet, from the time the amulet is given to a Roman centurion stationed at Paradys until the curse passes to a student who is lodging in the family’s mansion after the death of the centurion’s last descendants.

The Book of the Dead contains individual short stories short stories about death, linked by someone walking through graveyards and past solitary graves and telling stories about the occupants of various marble tombs and graves.

The Book of the Mad contains three novellas set Paradys and the equivalent cities in two other worlds. The stories of a girl sent mad by love who is sent to a nineteenth century asylum, an artist imprisoned in a much more salubrious mental hospital by greedy relatives who want to steal her inheritance, and a homicidal brother and sister in a decaying city, are linked by the siblings uncle, who found a way to move between the worlds and made them his heirs in two worlds.

[Caton Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work is all over the place. Most of it is composed of short stories/novellas- the final book interweaves multiple characters/settings/timelines. Tanith Lee was really ahead of her time, and wildly imaginative. There are lurid insights into passion and abandonment most authors cannot touch, yet the Cycle ends on a hopeful note of healing and justice. The characters- and there are many- are drawn in deft strokes, recognizable as the people one sees every day.

"Empires in Azure" hit a sour note with a literary device that takes the female principle as inferior/subservient to the male, though this view could plausibly be laid on the narrator, rather than the story or author. "Malice in Saffron" is the standout piece from this collection. The main character, Jehanine, faces the abject abandonment by family and society that any Othered person might fear as a consequence of disobedience to those more powerful, or simply bad luck. With all roads seemingly closed to her, she turns to evil deeds- with imagination and gusto. The story of her descent and redemption is beautiful as it unfolds, with layering of fantasy/magical realism rendering her progress more compelling, satisfying, and beautiful to behold.

[Josie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim at the library the other day. I've only ever read The Black Unicorn by Tanith Lee before, so I really wasn't sure what to expect other than lushly drawn worlds and unusual characters. On both those points I was definitely not disappointed in the slightest! What did surprise me, however, was just how dark and gothic the Paradys books really were. I was pleased with the two(?) happy endings of the tales in her stories; the rest really were tragic, in almost the classic sense of the word. Of the four books, I liked The Book of the Beast and The Book of the Mad best, although that in retrospect isn't a surprise. If you are, like me, a fan of stories that seem disconnected at first, but in the end intertwine, those two Books fill that predilection nicely. The one complaint I have is that I really didn't see much of the City being three cities (as the back blurb suggested) except in the last Book, where it...well, it wasn't exactly that either. This really is not much of a complaint, though. All in all (and in ALL, this is a long tome!) this was a pleasurably unsettling read.

[Jim]

I like The Tanith Lee I've read. Some of her best stories rather resemble Angela Carters reimagined fairy tales. I'll have to read this sometime soon.

Finally Read This! All of it is excellent, and it's best is Glorious! Some of the Short Stories in The Book of the Dead are fabulous! Nothing in the previous stories prepared me for the Arabesque Eccentricity of the Book of the Mad! Visionary!

[Harry Sheppard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say this was sometimes a tough read. But interesting and deep enough to keep me going all the way through. Currently I am thinking of reading it again as this book left me thinking and dreaming of the dark world Tanith Lee created.

[Julie Salyards · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories are haunting even when they are perplexing - sometimes I wasn't sure I liked what I was reading, but I felt compelled to read on nonetheless. The stories were irresistible, yet there were times when I was searching for meaning.

[Amaryllis · Rating 3 out of 5]

her stuff is always unusual

[Will Whatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good plots, with gender/sex transformation/twists as always with Lee.