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Clouds End
De Sean Stewart
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"Stewart's beautifully lucid, poetic prose makes for a narrative of commanding power and enchantment that echoes the best of Le Guin and Tolkien." — Booklist
"An astonishing, wise, beautiful work, full of the terror and wonder and love and power of life and legend intertwined." — Locus
The island people of Clouds End are united by their history, an abundance of tales relating heroic struggles and the emergence of their land from the dreaded Mist. The preservation of their traditions is entrusted to a tribal Witness, who foretells the future and enshrines the past with stories of memorable lives. Young Brook longs for adventures that will culminate in her role as a Witness, and her journey begins when Jo, a shapeshifting "haunt" who sometimes assumes the guise of a seagull, forms her exact double. "Twinning" is a fearful fate since only one of the two can survive and both usually come to untimely ends.
The end seems very near at hand with the sudden pressure of an imminent attack by the forces of a mad emperor from beyond the sea. The threat forces Jo and Brook into an uneasy alliance to defend Clouds End. Together with other young islanders, they set sail to confront the forces of evil and fulfill their destiny.
"An astonishing, wise, beautiful work, full of the terror and wonder and love and power of life and legend intertwined." — Locus
The island people of Clouds End are united by their history, an abundance of tales relating heroic struggles and the emergence of their land from the dreaded Mist. The preservation of their traditions is entrusted to a tribal Witness, who foretells the future and enshrines the past with stories of memorable lives. Young Brook longs for adventures that will culminate in her role as a Witness, and her journey begins when Jo, a shapeshifting "haunt" who sometimes assumes the guise of a seagull, forms her exact double. "Twinning" is a fearful fate since only one of the two can survive and both usually come to untimely ends.
The end seems very near at hand with the sudden pressure of an imminent attack by the forces of a mad emperor from beyond the sea. The threat forces Jo and Brook into an uneasy alliance to defend Clouds End. Together with other young islanders, they set sail to confront the forces of evil and fulfill their destiny.
Actions du livre
Commencer à lireInformations sur le livre
Clouds End
De Sean Stewart
Description
"Stewart's beautifully lucid, poetic prose makes for a narrative of commanding power and enchantment that echoes the best of Le Guin and Tolkien." — Booklist
"An astonishing, wise, beautiful work, full of the terror and wonder and love and power of life and legend intertwined." — Locus
The island people of Clouds End are united by their history, an abundance of tales relating heroic struggles and the emergence of their land from the dreaded Mist. The preservation of their traditions is entrusted to a tribal Witness, who foretells the future and enshrines the past with stories of memorable lives. Young Brook longs for adventures that will culminate in her role as a Witness, and her journey begins when Jo, a shapeshifting "haunt" who sometimes assumes the guise of a seagull, forms her exact double. "Twinning" is a fearful fate since only one of the two can survive and both usually come to untimely ends.
The end seems very near at hand with the sudden pressure of an imminent attack by the forces of a mad emperor from beyond the sea. The threat forces Jo and Brook into an uneasy alliance to defend Clouds End. Together with other young islanders, they set sail to confront the forces of evil and fulfill their destiny.
"An astonishing, wise, beautiful work, full of the terror and wonder and love and power of life and legend intertwined." — Locus
The island people of Clouds End are united by their history, an abundance of tales relating heroic struggles and the emergence of their land from the dreaded Mist. The preservation of their traditions is entrusted to a tribal Witness, who foretells the future and enshrines the past with stories of memorable lives. Young Brook longs for adventures that will culminate in her role as a Witness, and her journey begins when Jo, a shapeshifting "haunt" who sometimes assumes the guise of a seagull, forms her exact double. "Twinning" is a fearful fate since only one of the two can survive and both usually come to untimely ends.
The end seems very near at hand with the sudden pressure of an imminent attack by the forces of a mad emperor from beyond the sea. The threat forces Jo and Brook into an uneasy alliance to defend Clouds End. Together with other young islanders, they set sail to confront the forces of evil and fulfill their destiny.
À propos de l'auteur
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Avis
I love Sean Stewart and I wish he hadn't given up on writing fantasy. His books are always a treat and pay back tenfold the effort put into them by the reader. _Clouds End_ was Stewart's "pure fantasy" novel, not the mixed urban fantasy with science fictional elements type of story that the majority of his works seem to fall into. I have to admit that the first time I tried to read this book I didn't like it. I still think that Stewart wasn't fully successful in realizing what he was attempting , but this novel still has some of Stewart's best writing, character development, and a truly marvellous vision of a magical world.
Stewart has said that he wanted to write an epic fantasy in the mould of Tolkien, but from his own agnostic perspective as opposed to the religiously infused one of Tolkien. The world he creates is truly magical. We start out on the island of Clouds End, a place that exists on the very edge of the magical otherworld known as the Mist. The Mist is the place from which mankind draws their myths and stories, both good and evil, and seems to interact with the human psyche in some sort of symbiotic way, bringing to life the unconscious dreams of those on its periphery. In this sense it is something like Ryhope Wood as seen in Robert Holdstock's classic _Mythago Wood_, though it seems to be creating the world around it in a much more concrete fashion even as it participates in the generation of myths and heroes; for the Mist produces gods and powers, giving physical substance to the folk heroes and villians of mankind. It also changes any humans who enter its depths, making them into Haunts, something akin to the preternatural fae of our more traditional mythologies. We see examples of the former in the world changing figures of the Gull Warrior and Sere, one apparently a folk hero of the island dwellers, the other a trickster god of fire and chaos; the latter comes directly into the story in the form of Jo, a human who had entered the Mist and became a shapeshifter who now longs to regain a human soul.
The main characters are a group of four young friends, all inhabitants of Clouds End, who are drawn into a quest when one of their number, Brook, is "twinned" by Jo and is now mystically bound to her. They decide to follow Jo in her quest to the mainland and become embroiled in a war undertaken by the Emperor of a far land under the malign influence of the fire-god Sere. As usual with Stewart each of these characters are fully realized and interesting people, from the uncertain and apprehensive Brook and solid and dependable Rope, to the adventure seeking and rash Shale and the mercurial and love-lorn Foam. As well, true to form, Stewart's depiction of magic is spot-on. Magic is seen as a numinous and capricious force that touches human lives in unexpected and usually dangerous ways. This is not simply science by another name, it is the unknown and the unknowable taking part in our everyday lives; our dreams and nightmares come to life.
The story is full of exceptional scenes and characters and I found it a joy to read simply for the sake of Stewart's prose, but I have to admit that I don't think it ultimately worked as an example of epic fantasy. The supposed reason for the overall quest, the war being waged by the empire of the forest dwellers against the islanders, seems to peter out without really requiring any intervention on the part of the main characters. It is actually their individual stories that hold more interest, and follow much more reasonable arcs, than the supposed meta-plot of the novel and I think Stewart would have been better served to have simply told their stories without attempting to force them into the context of an 'epic fantasy quest'. Still, I think Stewart has written a worthy book in _Clouds End_ and it is exceptional both for its similarities to his other work and, perhaps moreso, because of its differences.
Rating: 3Stewart has said that he wanted to write an epic fantasy in the mould of Tolkien, but from his own agnostic perspective as opposed to the religiously infused one of Tolkien. The world he creates is truly magical. We start out on the island of Clouds End, a place that exists on the very edge of the magical otherworld known as the Mist. The Mist is the place from which mankind draws their myths and stories, both good and evil, and seems to interact with the human psyche in some sort of symbiotic way, bringing to life the unconscious dreams of those on its periphery. In this sense it is something like Ryhope Wood as seen in Robert Holdstock's classic _Mythago Wood_, though it seems to be creating the world around it in a much more concrete fashion even as it participates in the generation of myths and heroes; for the Mist produces gods and powers, giving physical substance to the folk heroes and villians of mankind. It also changes any humans who enter its depths, making them into Haunts, something akin to the preternatural fae of our more traditional mythologies. We see examples of the former in the world changing figures of the Gull Warrior and Sere, one apparently a folk hero of the island dwellers, the other a trickster god of fire and chaos; the latter comes directly into the story in the form of Jo, a human who had entered the Mist and became a shapeshifter who now longs to regain a human soul.
The main characters are a group of four young friends, all inhabitants of Clouds End, who are drawn into a quest when one of their number, Brook, is "twinned" by Jo and is now mystically bound to her. They decide to follow Jo in her quest to the mainland and become embroiled in a war undertaken by the Emperor of a far land under the malign influence of the fire-god Sere. As usual with Stewart each of these characters are fully realized and interesting people, from the uncertain and apprehensive Brook and solid and dependable Rope, to the adventure seeking and rash Shale and the mercurial and love-lorn Foam. As well, true to form, Stewart's depiction of magic is spot-on. Magic is seen as a numinous and capricious force that touches human lives in unexpected and usually dangerous ways. This is not simply science by another name, it is the unknown and the unknowable taking part in our everyday lives; our dreams and nightmares come to life.
The story is full of exceptional scenes and characters and I found it a joy to read simply for the sake of Stewart's prose, but I have to admit that I don't think it ultimately worked as an example of epic fantasy. The supposed reason for the overall quest, the war being waged by the empire of the forest dwellers against the islanders, seems to peter out without really requiring any intervention on the part of the main characters. It is actually their individual stories that hold more interest, and follow much more reasonable arcs, than the supposed meta-plot of the novel and I think Stewart would have been better served to have simply told their stories without attempting to force them into the context of an 'epic fantasy quest'. Still, I think Stewart has written a worthy book in _Clouds End_ and it is exceptional both for its similarities to his other work and, perhaps moreso, because of its differences.