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First History #2
Ilario: The Stone Golem
The dramatic conclusion to The Lion's Eye! Fleeing a surprise treacherous murder attempt, the former King's Freak and would-be painter Ilario has run to Carthage, the city-state under perpetual darkness, in search of freedom. But strange plots are afoot, and a tenuous, complicated alliance with a bookseller-turned-spy will lead Ilario from the shrouded land into tense negotiations and intrigues in seductive, mercurial Venice, from a fraught return to Iberia to a final confrontation with family . . . and destiny.
361 pages, Paperback
First published August 28, 2007
3 people are currently reading
106 people want to read
About the author
Mary Gentle
44 books204 followersThis author also writes under the pseudonym of Roxanne Morgan
Excerpted from Wikipedia:
Mary Gentle's first published novel was Hawk in Silver (1977), a young-adult fantasy. She came to prominence with the Orthe duology, which consists of Golden Witchbreed (1983) and Ancient Light (1987).
The novels Rats and Gargoyles (1990), The Architecture of Desire (1991), and Left to His Own Devices (1994), together with several short stories, form a loosely linked series (collected in White Crow in 2003). As with Michael Moorcock's series about his anti-heroic Jerry Cornelius, Gentle's sequence retains some basic facts about her two protagonists Valentine (also known as the White Crow) and Casaubon while changing much else about them, including what world they inhabit. Several take place in an alternate-history version of 17th century and later England, where a form of Renaissance Hermetic magic has taken over the role of science. Another, Left To His Own Devices, takes place in a cyberpunk-tinged version of our own near future. The sequence is informed by historically existing ideas about esotericism and alchemy and is rife with obscure allusions to real history and literature.
Grunts! (1992) is a grand guignol parody of mass-market high fantasy novels, with orcs as heroes, murderous halflings, and racist elves.
Excerpted from Wikipedia:
Mary Gentle's first published novel was Hawk in Silver (1977), a young-adult fantasy. She came to prominence with the Orthe duology, which consists of Golden Witchbreed (1983) and Ancient Light (1987).
The novels Rats and Gargoyles (1990), The Architecture of Desire (1991), and Left to His Own Devices (1994), together with several short stories, form a loosely linked series (collected in White Crow in 2003). As with Michael Moorcock's series about his anti-heroic Jerry Cornelius, Gentle's sequence retains some basic facts about her two protagonists Valentine (also known as the White Crow) and Casaubon while changing much else about them, including what world they inhabit. Several take place in an alternate-history version of 17th century and later England, where a form of Renaissance Hermetic magic has taken over the role of science. Another, Left To His Own Devices, takes place in a cyberpunk-tinged version of our own near future. The sequence is informed by historically existing ideas about esotericism and alchemy and is rife with obscure allusions to real history and literature.
Grunts! (1992) is a grand guignol parody of mass-market high fantasy novels, with orcs as heroes, murderous halflings, and racist elves.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 1, 2012
Really, I should have just given this book up for a lost cause as soon as she started trying to describe the strange and foreign "Chin" people through the eyes of a European, alternate history or no.
But no. I had to persevere, and look at all these hours of my life I'll never get back.
This book is a cop-out, from start to finish. The only major revelation I had upon finishing was that this woman clearly needs to learn how to outline her stories before she starts writing. I mean, honestly. The title has nothing to do with the climax for goodness sake.
But, you know what? I'm done wasting my time on this series. Good day to you, and let this be a warning against reading a book where the blurb they chose for the cover clearly indicates that the reviewer responsible for it never read past the first chapter.
... Why didn't I just stop once I realized that?
But no. I had to persevere, and look at all these hours of my life I'll never get back.
This book is a cop-out, from start to finish. The only major revelation I had upon finishing was that this woman clearly needs to learn how to outline her stories before she starts writing. I mean, honestly. The title has nothing to do with the climax for goodness sake.
But, you know what? I'm done wasting my time on this series. Good day to you, and let this be a warning against reading a book where the blurb they chose for the cover clearly indicates that the reviewer responsible for it never read past the first chapter.
... Why didn't I just stop once I realized that?
May 31, 2025
I read the ebook and struggled with the first page. I have never seen an epub so poorly formatted. This is from a major publisher? They never heard of automatic formatting? Resizing helped some, not much. Am I reading a poorly translated book? Don't think so.
This book is an excellent example of the blurb being so much better than the book itself. So much promise, so little delivered.
And noting my reading habits, I put it back on my shelf for a possible future read. My reading habits may have changed by then. Or the incessant use of passive voice won't bother me as much.
This book is an excellent example of the blurb being so much better than the book itself. So much promise, so little delivered.
And noting my reading habits, I put it back on my shelf for a possible future read. My reading habits may have changed by then. Or the incessant use of passive voice won't bother me as much.
September 29, 2010
This novel (and its predecessor) is very much like the painting Ilario wants so much to study: full of bright colors, sometimes surprisingly evocative, but ultimately two-dimensional.
Gentle's technique is not particularly spectacular. Her descriptions are prosaic, her characters are stock, and she uses that cheapest of all tricks to keep the reader reading: ending every chapter on a cliffhanger. But she has a surprising flair for naming things: the Penitence, the Empty Chair, Alexandria-in-Exile, and others struck me with glimpses into her alternate world that felt realer than all the description she inserted.
Gentle's publisher also did her story no real service in splitting the original novel into two parts. The Stone Golem picks up exactly where The Lion's Eye left off, and there is no catch-up for the reader. I spent the first third of the novel trying to remember who all these people were and what on earth they had done in the previous volume. I'm still not convinced I've remembered it all.
I wanted this novel to be better than it was. I root for any writer that tries to explore gender roles and alternate sexualities. But Gentle simply never got the tone right for me: while Ilario's hermaphroditism was front and center in the first volume, it is almost non-existent in the second, as all the characters are already comfortable with it. There is no sex in this volume, and there wasn't any sex in the first volume after the first chapter. *SPOILER ALERT* Ilario's relationship with his/her child could have been quite interesting, except that Onorata was shuffled off mid-way through this volume for a reason I could not wrap my head around at all. *END OF SPOILER* And then the climax of the novel degenerates into a round-table where all of the men in the novel explain to Ilario that he/she is lucky in being too much of a man to be able to be legally classified a woman -- a bit of proselytizing that would have been unnecessary if Gentle had done her job better with describing Ilario's shifting gender roles (and peoples' reaction to him/her in her different states) throughout the novel.
Still, there is much to enjoy about this novel as well. Gentle's depiction of how an artist sees the world was quite interesting (though there was more of that in the first volume than the second); I did like the characters and was engaged to root for them, even though I liked them better when they were offstage than when they were in front of me acting like idiots; and the plot moved along briskly if you enjoy political machinations instead of battle scenes. I confess to being a little appalled by the fact that the characters at every turn choose to withhold information from each other, then bring that information out at the most inopportune times for discussion, but by halfway through the novel I simply submitted to that piece of silliness and was forced to admire the fact that at least they didn't snipe at each other for it. There also was a fair amount of humor that got me past some of the more absurd passages.
Ultimately, I don't know that I can strongly recommend this novel, but it is less annoying than the first volume (where Ilario simply runs headlong into one disaster after another), does attempt to explore some important issues, has quite an interesting alternate history behind it, and isn't a tremendous chore to read.
Gentle's technique is not particularly spectacular. Her descriptions are prosaic, her characters are stock, and she uses that cheapest of all tricks to keep the reader reading: ending every chapter on a cliffhanger. But she has a surprising flair for naming things: the Penitence, the Empty Chair, Alexandria-in-Exile, and others struck me with glimpses into her alternate world that felt realer than all the description she inserted.
Gentle's publisher also did her story no real service in splitting the original novel into two parts. The Stone Golem picks up exactly where The Lion's Eye left off, and there is no catch-up for the reader. I spent the first third of the novel trying to remember who all these people were and what on earth they had done in the previous volume. I'm still not convinced I've remembered it all.
I wanted this novel to be better than it was. I root for any writer that tries to explore gender roles and alternate sexualities. But Gentle simply never got the tone right for me: while Ilario's hermaphroditism was front and center in the first volume, it is almost non-existent in the second, as all the characters are already comfortable with it. There is no sex in this volume, and there wasn't any sex in the first volume after the first chapter. *SPOILER ALERT* Ilario's relationship with his/her child could have been quite interesting, except that Onorata was shuffled off mid-way through this volume for a reason I could not wrap my head around at all. *END OF SPOILER* And then the climax of the novel degenerates into a round-table where all of the men in the novel explain to Ilario that he/she is lucky in being too much of a man to be able to be legally classified a woman -- a bit of proselytizing that would have been unnecessary if Gentle had done her job better with describing Ilario's shifting gender roles (and peoples' reaction to him/her in her different states) throughout the novel.
Still, there is much to enjoy about this novel as well. Gentle's depiction of how an artist sees the world was quite interesting (though there was more of that in the first volume than the second); I did like the characters and was engaged to root for them, even though I liked them better when they were offstage than when they were in front of me acting like idiots; and the plot moved along briskly if you enjoy political machinations instead of battle scenes. I confess to being a little appalled by the fact that the characters at every turn choose to withhold information from each other, then bring that information out at the most inopportune times for discussion, but by halfway through the novel I simply submitted to that piece of silliness and was forced to admire the fact that at least they didn't snipe at each other for it. There also was a fair amount of humor that got me past some of the more absurd passages.
Ultimately, I don't know that I can strongly recommend this novel, but it is less annoying than the first volume (where Ilario simply runs headlong into one disaster after another), does attempt to explore some important issues, has quite an interesting alternate history behind it, and isn't a tremendous chore to read.
October 12, 2016
I admit, that one-star rating is unfair, because while I couldn't finish this novel, it's not exactly the book's fault.
This book is almost unreadable, but not the way you think. It's the second book in a series (WHY DON'T PUBLISHERS MAKE THAT OBVIOUS ON THE COVER?!&*#!!), and if you haven't read the first one, then this one is almost incomprehensible.
The book opens with an attempted murder, and about thirty names get thrown at you within the first ten pages (few of them being different names for the same person; extra spicy confusion!) And lemme tell ya, I don' do so good with a lot of names and no context at all. The author clearly expects you to know who these people are.
It was only shortly before I gave up on page 90 that I learned what the main antagonist's issue with the protagonist even was. Again, the author expects you to remember this, and if you didn't read the prior book, there are no hints to help you fill in the blanks retroactively.
So this might be a great book, if you've read the first one in the series, but don't touch it with a long pole if you haven't, because it won't make enough sense.
One other point: I stuck with this book for those 90 pages because I've seen this author pull off both virtuoso writing and really fun plots, even though I've not yet seen her execute them both in the same novel. I keep hoping I'll find one where she does. However, one of the main weaknesses I've seen in her writing previously was also evident here, in that the characters spend waaaaaaay too much time talking about what they should do. Nearly all the scenes up to page 90 were like this; very little actually has happened, plot-wise.
If the writer needs to do this to figure out what the plot of the book is going to be, then that's fine, but for pity's sake, go back and edit the crap out of those scenes later. But having said that, I have read books by her where the characters also did waaaaaay too much talking at the beginning, yet the rest of the book was still great fun, so maybe I just couldn't make myself stick to this one for long enough.
In summary, you need to have read the first book in the series before you read this one. It's just not a novel you can step into without that background knowledge.
This book is almost unreadable, but not the way you think. It's the second book in a series (WHY DON'T PUBLISHERS MAKE THAT OBVIOUS ON THE COVER?!&*#!!), and if you haven't read the first one, then this one is almost incomprehensible.
The book opens with an attempted murder, and about thirty names get thrown at you within the first ten pages (few of them being different names for the same person; extra spicy confusion!) And lemme tell ya, I don' do so good with a lot of names and no context at all. The author clearly expects you to know who these people are.
It was only shortly before I gave up on page 90 that I learned what the main antagonist's issue with the protagonist even was. Again, the author expects you to remember this, and if you didn't read the prior book, there are no hints to help you fill in the blanks retroactively.
So this might be a great book, if you've read the first one in the series, but don't touch it with a long pole if you haven't, because it won't make enough sense.
One other point: I stuck with this book for those 90 pages because I've seen this author pull off both virtuoso writing and really fun plots, even though I've not yet seen her execute them both in the same novel. I keep hoping I'll find one where she does. However, one of the main weaknesses I've seen in her writing previously was also evident here, in that the characters spend waaaaaaay too much time talking about what they should do. Nearly all the scenes up to page 90 were like this; very little actually has happened, plot-wise.
If the writer needs to do this to figure out what the plot of the book is going to be, then that's fine, but for pity's sake, go back and edit the crap out of those scenes later. But having said that, I have read books by her where the characters also did waaaaaay too much talking at the beginning, yet the rest of the book was still great fun, so maybe I just couldn't make myself stick to this one for long enough.
In summary, you need to have read the first book in the series before you read this one. It's just not a novel you can step into without that background knowledge.
December 2, 2007
I liked this slightly better than the previous book because the side characters made a much stronger showing and there was less traveling about. The travelogue tone still exists, however. I continued to find the protagonist unbelievable and completely irritating. I still had difficulty buying the time and setting of the 'world'.
The plot was stronger because it was far more streamlined.
I tried very hard not to find it offensive when the Chinese entered the story -- being as the main character thought that they all had the appearance of the mentally handicapped and then follows up with descriptions of their flat faces and tiny, slanty eyes. (After all, when writing a story from an Imperialistic character's point of view, certain uncomfortable and downright offensive thoughts about other peoples are certain to come up-- and the Chinese in the story were hardly complimentary of those they'd encountered. Still, I cringed.) They didn't serve much purpose to the story, either, besides a bit of throwaway exoticism.
They pretty much appeared as a small 'mini nation' side trip for the main character to hover about condescendingly. They ferried the main characters about, and then shuffled out of the story again. And even as the exotic mini-travelogue side-trip, they hardly qualified, as Ilario repeatedly waxed nostalgic about how different everything was-- while Gentle rarely ever said just how different they were from everyone else. I had the same problem with every other country or city that Ilario traveled to-- I, who am unfamiliar with the style of architecture and ways of many historical cities and places, never got a sense of just where Ilario was. Gentle treated much of the materials as being general knowledge, and while I had enough of a passing sense to have a general idea of things, I wish that there were far more details.
I get the feeling that both the books could have done with either some heavy beefing up-- or it should have just been a single book with the added help of a hard nosed editor.
The plot was stronger because it was far more streamlined.
I tried very hard not to find it offensive when the Chinese entered the story -- being as the main character thought that they all had the appearance of the mentally handicapped and then follows up with descriptions of their flat faces and tiny, slanty eyes. (After all, when writing a story from an Imperialistic character's point of view, certain uncomfortable and downright offensive thoughts about other peoples are certain to come up-- and the Chinese in the story were hardly complimentary of those they'd encountered. Still, I cringed.) They didn't serve much purpose to the story, either, besides a bit of throwaway exoticism.
They pretty much appeared as a small 'mini nation' side trip for the main character to hover about condescendingly. They ferried the main characters about, and then shuffled out of the story again. And even as the exotic mini-travelogue side-trip, they hardly qualified, as Ilario repeatedly waxed nostalgic about how different everything was-- while Gentle rarely ever said just how different they were from everyone else. I had the same problem with every other country or city that Ilario traveled to-- I, who am unfamiliar with the style of architecture and ways of many historical cities and places, never got a sense of just where Ilario was. Gentle treated much of the materials as being general knowledge, and while I had enough of a passing sense to have a general idea of things, I wish that there were far more details.
I get the feeling that both the books could have done with either some heavy beefing up-- or it should have just been a single book with the added help of a hard nosed editor.
May 21, 2020
In which Ilario gives birth, buys a slave assassin, saves the Pharaoh-Queen from a Carthaginian golem, enlists a Chinese warfleet to restore his/her murderous stepfather to power, and falls in love with an Alexandrian spy.
October 8, 2008
A slightly odd but still mostly satisfying conclusion to Ilario's story. The pace seems to drag a bit in the early chapters, but everything wraps up in a whirlwind of intrigue. Ilario is definitely very different from any fantasy novel I've read in a long time, and I expect that the characters will stick with me for a long time, even after the details of the plot have faded.
But I think what I really want is for Mary Gentle to write more books about badass Alexandrian eunuch spies.
But I think what I really want is for Mary Gentle to write more books about badass Alexandrian eunuch spies.
January 4, 2009
Another book I got for free. It was good but would probably have been better had I read the 1st book previous to this one. It does read a bit like an okay fanfic. It does have the highpoint of having a genuine hermaphrodite as the main character, not something common in fiction.
I think I will read the 1st book some day, just not on my top 100 at the moment.
I think I will read the 1st book some day, just not on my top 100 at the moment.
August 25, 2011
I really liked the language of this story and the diversity of it's characters. I did not, however appreciate the way it ended. I did not expect there to be a happy ending but neither did I expect the way it just kind of blandly concluded with Illario going through life alone abandoned by child and separated by death of those loved dearest
November 14, 2015
3 and a half stars. not her best work, and a number of holes in the narrative, but the alternate history of Europe and the Middle East was quite interesting, and the characters were engaging.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews