What do you think?
Rate this book
Well-Built City Trilogy #1-3
The Well-Built City Trilogy: The Physiognomy, Memoranda, and The Beyond
An epic masterwork about the trials of a man of “science” in a Kafkaesque realm of persecution and paranoia from a World Fantasy Award–winning author.
The Well-Built City is a hellish place of unrelenting nightmare, ruled with cruelty, oppression, and terror by the inscrutable madman Drachton Below. In his multiple-award-winning, New York Times Notable trilogy, Jeffrey Ford creates a dystopia that chronicles the hubris, downfall, and damnation of a highly placed functionary responsible for determining who will live or die according to their facial structure.
The Physiognomy : With his unimpeachable authority to condemn and destroy, the pompous, drug-addicted Cley is one of the most feared civil servants in Drachton Below’s Well-Built City. But when the Master himself dispatches him to a remote mining town to recover a stolen object of unimaginable power, events will cause the physiognomist to doubt his science and the reality of his world.
Memoranda : Exiled in the wilderness, Cley’s newfound peace is shattered when his village is struck with a terrible sleeping sickness. Joining forces with Drachton Below’s demon son, Misrix, the former physiognomist must reenter the now-ruined city to find a cure hidden in the insane labyrinth of the Master’s mind.
The Beyond : On a journey chronicled by the half-demon Misrix, one-time physiognomist Cley travels deep into a mysterious and dangerous Beyond to face untold terrors as he attempts to right an unspeakable wrong.
The Well-Built City is a hellish place of unrelenting nightmare, ruled with cruelty, oppression, and terror by the inscrutable madman Drachton Below. In his multiple-award-winning, New York Times Notable trilogy, Jeffrey Ford creates a dystopia that chronicles the hubris, downfall, and damnation of a highly placed functionary responsible for determining who will live or die according to their facial structure.
The Physiognomy : With his unimpeachable authority to condemn and destroy, the pompous, drug-addicted Cley is one of the most feared civil servants in Drachton Below’s Well-Built City. But when the Master himself dispatches him to a remote mining town to recover a stolen object of unimaginable power, events will cause the physiognomist to doubt his science and the reality of his world.
Memoranda : Exiled in the wilderness, Cley’s newfound peace is shattered when his village is struck with a terrible sleeping sickness. Joining forces with Drachton Below’s demon son, Misrix, the former physiognomist must reenter the now-ruined city to find a cure hidden in the insane labyrinth of the Master’s mind.
The Beyond : On a journey chronicled by the half-demon Misrix, one-time physiognomist Cley travels deep into a mysterious and dangerous Beyond to face untold terrors as he attempts to right an unspeakable wrong.
713 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2007
35 people are currently reading
117 people want to read
About the author
Jeffrey Ford
239 books508 followersJeffrey Ford is an American writer in the Fantastic genre tradition, although his works have spanned genres including Fantasy, Science Fiction and Mystery. His work is characterized by a sweeping imaginative power, humor, literary allusion, and a fascination with tales told within tales. He is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he studied with the novelist John Gardner.
He lives in southern New Jersey and teaches writing and literature at Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County. He has also taught at the summer Clarion Workshop for science fiction and fantasy writers in Michigan. He has contributed stories, essays and interviews to various magazines and e-magazines including MSS, Puerto Del Sol, Northwest Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Argosy, Event Horizon, Infinity Plus, Black Gate and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
He published his first story, "The Casket", in Gardner's literary magazine MSS in 1981 and his first full-length novel, Vanitas, in 1988.
He lives in southern New Jersey and teaches writing and literature at Brookdale Community College in Monmouth County. He has also taught at the summer Clarion Workshop for science fiction and fantasy writers in Michigan. He has contributed stories, essays and interviews to various magazines and e-magazines including MSS, Puerto Del Sol, Northwest Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Argosy, Event Horizon, Infinity Plus, Black Gate and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
He published his first story, "The Casket", in Gardner's literary magazine MSS in 1981 and his first full-length novel, Vanitas, in 1988.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 3, 2020
For the review of this, check the reviews of the three books separately. In a word, great!
May 6, 2022
This is an exceptional trilogy demonstrating the transformative power of guilt and the lengths one will go their whole life to seek redemption. It is a story between Cley, the Physiognomist, somebody who can see the fate of a person all in their face, similar to a phrenologist, and Arla, who, in the first book, is a short-lived apprentice to Cley. He falls hard for her; she is both a genius of physiognomy and beautiful (which is demonstrated by her face). Cley, however, dependent on his trade like he is on the drug Beauty (an extremely addictive drug that makes perceptions beautiful), is eventually overtaken by beauty (not the drug) and irremediably scars Arla.
This is the first turn for Cley, towards humanity. The literary element of teacher-apprentice is explored to this turn as beauty and intelligence coupled in the apprentice, in dangerous combination to the teacher, who is really only beautiful in the form of intelligence, quite sharp, but enveloped by Arla's coupled awareness, causes the relationship to flip. The scar Cley inflicts is hidden by a green veil, a veil that repeatedly occurs throughout the whole trilogy. Arla eventually gives, or punishes, Cley the veil, being itself a question: Is Arla giving the veil to Cley as a protective charm, or punishing him with a reminder of his ignorance? Is Cley to remain guilty or not? This question persists throughout the trilogy, expertly sustained by Mr. Ford.
The question persists even until the death and old age of Arla and Cley, when we the readers are finally satisfied after seeing a love spanning great times and distances, that first began with Cley's guilt and Arla's horror. We see the teacher-apprentice relationship still flipped all the way to the end, where Arla seems to be actively teaching Cley through non-human objects and events, especially in the third book, where we're introduced to the Beyond as a thinking conscious wilderness. Cley's final trial is in this wilderness.
This is a masterful trilogy carefully telling us how a form of intelligence, here, Physiognomy, though it may purportedly predict a beautiful life, is not beautiful in itself, and injections of beauty will bring no one closer to Beauty. Cley-as-teacher is short-lived, but Arla-as-teacher is long and silent. We hardly hear of her after the first book. Yet, she is Beauty as Consciousness, taking root in Cley as the trilogy moves.
Intelligence without Beauty is nothing, no, it is ugly, but so long as he listens carefully to what is guiding him, he becomes Beautiful.
This is the first turn for Cley, towards humanity. The literary element of teacher-apprentice is explored to this turn as beauty and intelligence coupled in the apprentice, in dangerous combination to the teacher, who is really only beautiful in the form of intelligence, quite sharp, but enveloped by Arla's coupled awareness, causes the relationship to flip. The scar Cley inflicts is hidden by a green veil, a veil that repeatedly occurs throughout the whole trilogy. Arla eventually gives, or punishes, Cley the veil, being itself a question: Is Arla giving the veil to Cley as a protective charm, or punishing him with a reminder of his ignorance? Is Cley to remain guilty or not? This question persists throughout the trilogy, expertly sustained by Mr. Ford.
The question persists even until the death and old age of Arla and Cley, when we the readers are finally satisfied after seeing a love spanning great times and distances, that first began with Cley's guilt and Arla's horror. We see the teacher-apprentice relationship still flipped all the way to the end, where Arla seems to be actively teaching Cley through non-human objects and events, especially in the third book, where we're introduced to the Beyond as a thinking conscious wilderness. Cley's final trial is in this wilderness.
This is a masterful trilogy carefully telling us how a form of intelligence, here, Physiognomy, though it may purportedly predict a beautiful life, is not beautiful in itself, and injections of beauty will bring no one closer to Beauty. Cley-as-teacher is short-lived, but Arla-as-teacher is long and silent. We hardly hear of her after the first book. Yet, she is Beauty as Consciousness, taking root in Cley as the trilogy moves.
Intelligence without Beauty is nothing, no, it is ugly, but so long as he listens carefully to what is guiding him, he becomes Beautiful.
February 27, 2022
Sometimes the creation of a sub-genre just gives writers free rein to do anything they want, ignoring quality writing, depth, continuity, character development, etc. Such is the case with this trilogy, a supposed entry in the "New Weird" subgenre of fantasy/sf.
Over 700 pages (three novels), Ford (an otherwise justifiably lauded writer), introduces weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Characters don't grow; they lurch from one personality to another. Landscapes don't emerge, they thrust themselves at you. Creatures don't have backstories, they just are or aren't. All of this results in nothing at all Kafka-esque (as it is often described), but rather a poorly written cross between Xanth, Gormenghast, and A Boy and His Dog.
It took me about 10 hours to read the trilogy, and it's time I would dearly love back.
So why 2 stars rather than 1? Because the plotting was just interesting enough to give me hope...hope that was then cruelly wrenched away.... On top of that, I had just finished reading The Brothers Karamazov before embarking on this Fordian-trip. Truly "from the sublime to the ridiculous....."
Over 700 pages (three novels), Ford (an otherwise justifiably lauded writer), introduces weirdness for the sake of weirdness. Characters don't grow; they lurch from one personality to another. Landscapes don't emerge, they thrust themselves at you. Creatures don't have backstories, they just are or aren't. All of this results in nothing at all Kafka-esque (as it is often described), but rather a poorly written cross between Xanth, Gormenghast, and A Boy and His Dog.
It took me about 10 hours to read the trilogy, and it's time I would dearly love back.
So why 2 stars rather than 1? Because the plotting was just interesting enough to give me hope...hope that was then cruelly wrenched away.... On top of that, I had just finished reading The Brothers Karamazov before embarking on this Fordian-trip. Truly "from the sublime to the ridiculous....."
December 11, 2018
Best sci-fi fantasy ever!
I, on average, read six books weekly. I discovered Ford after reading The Girl in the Glass. My favorite genre is sci-fi fantasy, so I was delighted to find that he had also penned a trilogy. In my opinion the Well Built City is the best I've ever read. And that includes Arthur C Clarke, Marian Zimmer Bradley among others. It's good guys....read on!
I, on average, read six books weekly. I discovered Ford after reading The Girl in the Glass. My favorite genre is sci-fi fantasy, so I was delighted to find that he had also penned a trilogy. In my opinion the Well Built City is the best I've ever read. And that includes Arthur C Clarke, Marian Zimmer Bradley among others. It's good guys....read on!
Read
August 31, 2016Extremely Interesting Trilogy. Each Novel is different then the other two.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews