The Birthgrave in Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy"

Jul 23, 2015 S.E. Lindberg rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed-by-se

The Birthgrave – An Adult ‘Coming of Age’ Novel – Dark, Haunting Adventure

Haunting Release: The Birthgrave is a coming of age novel of (and by) a female goddess. Tanith Lee’s debut novel is adult oriented, dark fantasy. This one is epic, dosed with poetic horror and battle, and features lots of risky writing (entertaining). The 2015 reprint comes with a haunting introduction written in January, just months before her May death coinciding with the paperback release in the US.

The female narrator q ...more

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Jun 27, 2020 Karl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: tanith_lee-own, daw_own

DAW Collectors #154

Cover Artist: George Barr

Name: Kaiine, Tanith Lee, Birthplace: London, England, UK, (19 September 1947 -- 24 May 2015)

Alternate Names: Judas Garbah, Esther Garber.

Tanith Lee's character's ted to be complex and emotional.

This is Tanith Lee's even her first novel. The story begins in an active volcano. She appears to be a young woman with a weird, deformed face, but it quickly becomes apparent that while the protagonist is inexperienced and female, she may not be young and pr ...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Joseph rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Not a perfect book, but a mighty impressive first novel (or first adult novel; I think Tanith Lee had published some YA books prior to this). Our narrator (who remains nameless until the very end of the book, and whose name would be quite the spoiler) wakes, amnesiac, in a chamber in a soon-to-erupt volcano; she speaks with (and is cursed by) a Dark Power and flees just before the eruption (possibly caused by her flight?). She goes masked, having been cursed with great ugliness, but is also hers ...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Derek rated it liked it · review of another edition

The voice of the narrator--unnamed but for those given by others--carries a weird calm and intensity, a detachment that speaks of underlying trauma or depression. She seems an observer in her own story, as she is slotted into roles and pushed into actions by the stereotypically dynamic and assertive male characters who would be the usual protagonists. She frequently disagrees with her own actions or second-guesses decisions, as though she wars with her own mind or does not know her own desires. The voice of the narrator--unnamed but for those given by others--carries a weird calm and intensity, a detachment that speaks of underlying trauma or depression. She seems an observer in her own story, as she is slotted into roles and pushed into actions by the stereotypically dynamic and assertive male characters who would be the usual protagonists. She frequently disagrees with her own actions or second-guesses decisions, as though she wars with her own mind or does not know her own desires. Meanwhile the men see her as concubine, goddess, warrior, or slave, but always as a tool to their own advancement...and yet she always outlives their machinations. There is a sense throughout that her passivity is deceptive, and she is somehow influencing events.

(view spoiler)

The Lost One civilization, dead of a mysterious and sudden plague, cast a long shadow across the world. Their architecture and beliefs, even their biology, have been woven into the various cultures of the former slave races. Facts have been interpreted according to their limited understanding and twisted by their resentment. In some cases, the upper classes emulate traits of their former masters, or have a tendency for their cruelty or violence.

The Lost Ones are conceptually Melnibonéan, sort of elfin in the Unseelie sense, inhuman and otherworldly and brutal and beautiful all at once. Their wreckage is everywhere, and their existence and demise is palpable throughout the work, with the reader left to untangle fact and fiction from the distorted strands, and this was my joy in reading the work. ...more

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