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halfamoon2008-02-05 02:22 am
woodburner.livejournal.com) wrote in halfamoon2008-02-05 02:22 am
Entry tags:
Literary fantasy by a female author ftw!
I was trying to fathom what I could write or make to post to this community, but then it occurred to me that I did have one very appropriate ficlet already written, and along with that, I could rec the book it was for!
If you have not read The Etched City by KJ Bishop, well, you should. It's a beautifully told phantasmagoria of shifting dreamscapes populated by deeply human (and very morally ambiguous) characters. The prose might best be described as "gleefully ornate" - the author's love of language shines through every carefully chosen word.
From the publisher:
The main character - the gunslinger Gwynn - is male, but interestingly, a male raised in a matriarchal society. The women in the story are as strong - perhaps stronger - and as interesting as the men are: Raule, the disillusioned surgeon, who runs her little hospital with an iron fist, and Beth, the mysterious artist who captivates Gwynn's imagination, and who is as fearless and unfathomable as they come.
This is a book in which reality and dreaming are impossible to keep separate; in which a prostitute gives birth to a child with the body of a crocodile; in which a debauched priest can work only useless miracles; in which flowers sprout from the crushed skulls of the dead; in which the dead are sewn together to make new life.
This book will probably appeal to lovers of a good mind-fscking - for instance, fans of M. John Harrison's Viriconium series, and the works of authors such as Jeff Vandermeer and Haruki Murakami.
---
This ficlet was written on request from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
crystalwrenn. It will, unfortunately, make little sense to anyone who hasn't read the book, but hey! Hopefully I've at least convinced one or two people to pick up a copy.
Prompt: "Beth, the crocodillian baby and its slave protitute mother."
Words: 231
Warnings: None
It had the body of a crocodile and the head of a man, and a lotus blossom grew out from its belly like a parasite. Its face was noble and stately, a face that expected devotion as merely its due.
She had intended the thing for her bestiary, but she could think of no name to give it. Looking at her sketch, she imagined its leathery hide printed in vivid emerald ink, its face olive-skinned and blue-eyed, framed in hair of darkest sable. She asked it what its name was. It stared back silently and would not tell her.
So next she drew out its parentage: a river god with the body of a man and the head of a crocodile, and a proud Lusan whore. The mother was very young, hardly more than a child, but the world had aged her prematurely and her face was lined and haggard. Her eyes, however, were clear, her gaze hard and cold as steel. These were the eyes of a queen.
She imagined the girl's dusky body made all of river silt, shifting and flowing as the currents passed through her, and wondered whether she would be proud of the strange fruit that had dropped from her womb, or horrified.
In the end Beth found no name for the creature, and, losing interest, discarded it; but she kept the sketches of the whore.
---
Also, feel free to snatch this icon:
It's Beth in the guise of a sphinx, from the cover of the Prime edition of the book, designed by KJ Bishop.
If you have not read The Etched City by KJ Bishop, well, you should. It's a beautifully told phantasmagoria of shifting dreamscapes populated by deeply human (and very morally ambiguous) characters. The prose might best be described as "gleefully ornate" - the author's love of language shines through every carefully chosen word.
From the publisher:
Gwynn and Raule are rebels on the run, with little in common except being on the losing side of a hard-fought war. Gwynn is a gunslinger from the north, a loner, a survivor . . . a killer. Raule is a wandering surgeon, a healer who still believes in just--and lost--causes. Bound by a desire to escape the ghosts of the past, together they flee to the teeming city of Ashamoil, where Raule plies her trade among the desperate and destitute, and Gwynn becomes bodyguard and assassin for the household of a corrupt magnate. There, in the saving and taking of lives, they find themselves immersed in a world where art infects life, dream and waking fuse, and splendid and frightening miracles begin to bloom . . .
The main character - the gunslinger Gwynn - is male, but interestingly, a male raised in a matriarchal society. The women in the story are as strong - perhaps stronger - and as interesting as the men are: Raule, the disillusioned surgeon, who runs her little hospital with an iron fist, and Beth, the mysterious artist who captivates Gwynn's imagination, and who is as fearless and unfathomable as they come.
This is a book in which reality and dreaming are impossible to keep separate; in which a prostitute gives birth to a child with the body of a crocodile; in which a debauched priest can work only useless miracles; in which flowers sprout from the crushed skulls of the dead; in which the dead are sewn together to make new life.
This book will probably appeal to lovers of a good mind-fscking - for instance, fans of M. John Harrison's Viriconium series, and the works of authors such as Jeff Vandermeer and Haruki Murakami.
---
This ficlet was written on request from
crystalwrenn. It will, unfortunately, make little sense to anyone who hasn't read the book, but hey! Hopefully I've at least convinced one or two people to pick up a copy. Prompt: "Beth, the crocodillian baby and its slave protitute mother."
Words: 231
Warnings: None
It had the body of a crocodile and the head of a man, and a lotus blossom grew out from its belly like a parasite. Its face was noble and stately, a face that expected devotion as merely its due.
She had intended the thing for her bestiary, but she could think of no name to give it. Looking at her sketch, she imagined its leathery hide printed in vivid emerald ink, its face olive-skinned and blue-eyed, framed in hair of darkest sable. She asked it what its name was. It stared back silently and would not tell her.
So next she drew out its parentage: a river god with the body of a man and the head of a crocodile, and a proud Lusan whore. The mother was very young, hardly more than a child, but the world had aged her prematurely and her face was lined and haggard. Her eyes, however, were clear, her gaze hard and cold as steel. These were the eyes of a queen.
She imagined the girl's dusky body made all of river silt, shifting and flowing as the currents passed through her, and wondered whether she would be proud of the strange fruit that had dropped from her womb, or horrified.
In the end Beth found no name for the creature, and, losing interest, discarded it; but she kept the sketches of the whore.
---
Also, feel free to snatch this icon:
It's Beth in the guise of a sphinx, from the cover of the Prime edition of the book, designed by KJ Bishop.
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And hey, I have absolutely nothing against hot characters. *is equally shallow*