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Liavek #3
Wizard's Row
212 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 10, 2018
Shared worlds live and die by their sharing. Three books in, Liavek is continuing to depend on its magic system and on its casual interactions with just two characters for its sharing. Meanwhile, the only two storylines that have been meaningfully interacting have been combined into a single 17-page story by both authors. Add in the loss of Gene Wolfe and Megan Lindholm, and this series is quickly losing steam. Even the addition of Alan Moore results in a story that's more uncomfortable than good due to some fatal structural flaws.
An Act of Mercy (Lindholm & Brust: Kaloo & Dashif). Throughout its short run, Liavek has been absolutely beset with stories about people investing their magic, but "An Act of Mercy" is the first one to make it and its dangers real. It also does a great job of bringing the Kaloo and Dashif stories together and giving a great viewpoint on both characters, all in a shockingly short 17 pages [5/5].
Green is the Color (Ford: Arianai). In a more developed shared-world anthology, "Green is the Color" would have been the spine of an entire book, focusing on the killing of wizards in Liavek. As is, it's still a pretty epic story, though its final motives are a bit muddier than one would like. Generally, the story is strong when Ford focuses on his main characters (Arianai and Quard) but it gets dull due to the constant interruptions of multi-page death scenes of wizards. (It would have been good once or twice, not four or five times, so that I was skimming by the time we hit the last few.) [3+/5]
Paint the Meadows with Delight (Dean: Jehane). Dean rather delightfully continues to reveal the story of the Benedicti family one sibling at a time. Unfortunately, Jehane's story comes up short because of dull plotting. She engages in a few snipe hunts, one of which just reveals to her some of the goings-on of her siblings who have had their own stories before, neither of which can come to a satisfying conclusion. She also doesn't have much agency in all of this, because she's just going from person to person asking for help. The only benefit of this is that we get to meet other characters from Liavek like The Magician and Snake. There's an interesting twist at the end, but it's not really earned [3/5].
The World in the Rock (Dalkey: Aritoli). How much can you do with a six-page story? This has fun characters and a nice bit of introspection, but that's about it [3+/5].
Baker's Dozen (Denton: Mardis). Oh, hey, another story about investing your luck. Though the theme is extremely repetitive by this point, this story has good characters and an interesting dilemma. Then Denton almost kills it all by turning it into a shaggy dog story focused on the last line punchline [3/5].
Cenedwine Brocade (Stevermer: Dala ... or maybe Ambrej?). Ode to a magical artifact. This shallow story has a wobbly point of view and a murky ending [2/5].
The Hypothetical Lizard (Moore: Some people we'll never see again). This is a deeply disturbing story about the (mostly) non-physical ways in which women are abused. It's about keeping them silent and making them do things and destroying their individuality. It's about seeking revenge because they set out on their own. It's also a badly focused story, where Moore gives us 20 pages with his initial protagonist, then sets her aside like so much window dressing when our real protagonist comes on screen, to reuse her later only to provide a stinger of an ending. Perhaps that's another indication of the ways in which women are abused, but there are some things you can't do with a story and keep it a good story. The ending is also deadly dull because you see it obviously coming from at least 10 pages away. Ultimately, Moore seems pretty intent on showing how clever he is. The result is evocative and imaginative, but deeply flawed at a technical level. (One can see both how it was nominated for a WFA and how it lost.) Did I love it? Is there a lizard asleep within the ball? [3/5]
Training Ground (Kress: Cav & Jen). Yet another story of magic investiture. Yes, it's very clever, and yes it creates a great character, but that's a setup for the next story not a success with this one [3+/5]
An Act of Mercy (Lindholm & Brust: Kaloo & Dashif). Throughout its short run, Liavek has been absolutely beset with stories about people investing their magic, but "An Act of Mercy" is the first one to make it and its dangers real. It also does a great job of bringing the Kaloo and Dashif stories together and giving a great viewpoint on both characters, all in a shockingly short 17 pages [5/5].
Green is the Color (Ford: Arianai). In a more developed shared-world anthology, "Green is the Color" would have been the spine of an entire book, focusing on the killing of wizards in Liavek. As is, it's still a pretty epic story, though its final motives are a bit muddier than one would like. Generally, the story is strong when Ford focuses on his main characters (Arianai and Quard) but it gets dull due to the constant interruptions of multi-page death scenes of wizards. (It would have been good once or twice, not four or five times, so that I was skimming by the time we hit the last few.) [3+/5]
Paint the Meadows with Delight (Dean: Jehane). Dean rather delightfully continues to reveal the story of the Benedicti family one sibling at a time. Unfortunately, Jehane's story comes up short because of dull plotting. She engages in a few snipe hunts, one of which just reveals to her some of the goings-on of her siblings who have had their own stories before, neither of which can come to a satisfying conclusion. She also doesn't have much agency in all of this, because she's just going from person to person asking for help. The only benefit of this is that we get to meet other characters from Liavek like The Magician and Snake. There's an interesting twist at the end, but it's not really earned [3/5].
The World in the Rock (Dalkey: Aritoli). How much can you do with a six-page story? This has fun characters and a nice bit of introspection, but that's about it [3+/5].
Baker's Dozen (Denton: Mardis). Oh, hey, another story about investing your luck. Though the theme is extremely repetitive by this point, this story has good characters and an interesting dilemma. Then Denton almost kills it all by turning it into a shaggy dog story focused on the last line punchline [3/5].
Cenedwine Brocade (Stevermer: Dala ... or maybe Ambrej?). Ode to a magical artifact. This shallow story has a wobbly point of view and a murky ending [2/5].
The Hypothetical Lizard (Moore: Some people we'll never see again). This is a deeply disturbing story about the (mostly) non-physical ways in which women are abused. It's about keeping them silent and making them do things and destroying their individuality. It's about seeking revenge because they set out on their own. It's also a badly focused story, where Moore gives us 20 pages with his initial protagonist, then sets her aside like so much window dressing when our real protagonist comes on screen, to reuse her later only to provide a stinger of an ending. Perhaps that's another indication of the ways in which women are abused, but there are some things you can't do with a story and keep it a good story. The ending is also deadly dull because you see it obviously coming from at least 10 pages away. Ultimately, Moore seems pretty intent on showing how clever he is. The result is evocative and imaginative, but deeply flawed at a technical level. (One can see both how it was nominated for a WFA and how it lost.) Did I love it? Is there a lizard asleep within the ball? [3/5]
Training Ground (Kress: Cav & Jen). Yet another story of magic investiture. Yes, it's very clever, and yes it creates a great character, but that's a setup for the next story not a success with this one [3+/5]
May 30, 2024
3.5 stars, stars, Metaphorosis Reviews
Summary
In the city of Liavek, everyone has birth luck, but magicians can bind it during their birthday and use it during the year. Those who fail, die. The third in a shared-world fantasy anthology series.
Review
The title suggests a book primarily about one of Liavek’s most amusing features: the street of wizards that’s sometimes there and sometimes not. And of course, the street does feature in the stories (as does The Magician), but I wouldn’t say that’s really at the center. And this volume does continue the previous installation’s somewhat downward trend. Rather than a dozen stories, here there are just a handful of longer ones – whether because the authors were running out of steam or because they gathered the long pieces that wouldn’t fit in earlier volumes. I found the result more tiring and less enthralling than previous books.
With one exception, the writing is still of a good quality, but the stories feel like they run far longer than they needed to. I didn’t pick up the book each time with the level of enthusiasm I’d expect for Liavek. I found Alan Moore’s entry, “A Hypothetical Lizard”, particularly trying and had to make my way through by brute force.
Overall, the book felt as if the project were running out of steam. Still fun, but no longer quite so exciting. If you’ve enjoyed Liavek so far, get this one too. If you’re new to it, you can read this out of sequence, but you’re better of starting with the first book.
Summary
In the city of Liavek, everyone has birth luck, but magicians can bind it during their birthday and use it during the year. Those who fail, die. The third in a shared-world fantasy anthology series.
Review
The title suggests a book primarily about one of Liavek’s most amusing features: the street of wizards that’s sometimes there and sometimes not. And of course, the street does feature in the stories (as does The Magician), but I wouldn’t say that’s really at the center. And this volume does continue the previous installation’s somewhat downward trend. Rather than a dozen stories, here there are just a handful of longer ones – whether because the authors were running out of steam or because they gathered the long pieces that wouldn’t fit in earlier volumes. I found the result more tiring and less enthralling than previous books.
With one exception, the writing is still of a good quality, but the stories feel like they run far longer than they needed to. I didn’t pick up the book each time with the level of enthusiasm I’d expect for Liavek. I found Alan Moore’s entry, “A Hypothetical Lizard”, particularly trying and had to make my way through by brute force.
Overall, the book felt as if the project were running out of steam. Still fun, but no longer quite so exciting. If you’ve enjoyed Liavek so far, get this one too. If you’re new to it, you can read this out of sequence, but you’re better of starting with the first book.
June 23, 2020
This is a hard one to rate because it's a pretty slim volume dominated by a couple of novellas.
I was thinking when read the first couple of stories that the Liavek world differed from the other shared world urban fantasies in its sense of basic optimism and decency. Rather than being centered on a seedy tavern wit a bad reputation, everyone ends up congregating in an open air shop or restaraunts built around family run communal cooking. The one right bastard in the stories stands out because he is a right bastard, and one on a redemption arc. The 'want to make the world worse for philosphical reasons' villains keep getting thwarted by people working with good intentions. There's no explorations of all the bad things people "would logically" be doing with their magic that are borderline sociopathic.
Then there's this book, where there are two stories of people doing sociopathic things with and around magic. John M Ford's tale works perfectly in the milieu, as the bad guys are bad guys, they are rightly reviled, the protagonist is trying to save lives, and while it may not all end well it does center around the need for community and redemption. The Alan Moore story (one of his relatively rare prose pieces, though it was later adapted to a comic) just doesn't fit. Beautifully written, it's also long, involved, disconnected from any other aspect of the setting, themes of feel, and carried a darkness within it that would fit it into Thieves World much more than here. It's well written and should never have been put in a Liavek collection.
Aside from the tonal dissonance of the Moore piece, this is still a slender addition to Liaveck, and i wish that those pages had gone to something else (Ah, for another Gene Wolfe story in here....)
I was thinking when read the first couple of stories that the Liavek world differed from the other shared world urban fantasies in its sense of basic optimism and decency. Rather than being centered on a seedy tavern wit a bad reputation, everyone ends up congregating in an open air shop or restaraunts built around family run communal cooking. The one right bastard in the stories stands out because he is a right bastard, and one on a redemption arc. The 'want to make the world worse for philosphical reasons' villains keep getting thwarted by people working with good intentions. There's no explorations of all the bad things people "would logically" be doing with their magic that are borderline sociopathic.
Then there's this book, where there are two stories of people doing sociopathic things with and around magic. John M Ford's tale works perfectly in the milieu, as the bad guys are bad guys, they are rightly reviled, the protagonist is trying to save lives, and while it may not all end well it does center around the need for community and redemption. The Alan Moore story (one of his relatively rare prose pieces, though it was later adapted to a comic) just doesn't fit. Beautifully written, it's also long, involved, disconnected from any other aspect of the setting, themes of feel, and carried a darkness within it that would fit it into Thieves World much more than here. It's well written and should never have been put in a Liavek collection.
Aside from the tonal dissonance of the Moore piece, this is still a slender addition to Liaveck, and i wish that those pages had gone to something else (Ah, for another Gene Wolfe story in here....)
August 25, 2020
Recent Reads: Liavek - Wizard's Row. Shared world stories, edited by Shetterly and Bull, exploring the city of Liavek's luck magic. Stories range from whimsical, like Nancy Kress' wizard investing luck in a railroad, to dark, in Alan Moore's disturbing fantasy. Short and sweet.
August 19, 2025
Enjoyable reread after many years.
September 7, 2020
You can read my impressions of the series as a whole here. The best standalone story (IMO) in the series appears here: John M. Ford's "Green Is the Color," a story about the origins of the House of Responsible Life and the twisted uses birth magic can be put to.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews