This is a world where magic has been banned. Anyone displaying signs of ability to perform it is drowned, murdered … or worse (yes, there IS worse). Amidst the terror, a group of secret magic users discovers one another. Collectively, they have the talent to do amazing things, though the law forbids it. If they are caught, they will die and likely their entire family with them.
Unlike the author’s earlier writings, this series promises to be ongoing. Somewhat emotionally less intense, it is nonetheless breathtaking in its complexity and originality. Beautifully written. I consumed the book in two long evenings. Give me a week and I probably read it again. Carol Berg, all of whose books I have read as hard copies or on Kindle is — in my opinion — a very underrated fantasy author. She creates characters who, by happenstance, bad luck, politics or some bizarre law, have been beaten down to near nothingness, yet survive, find their power and are greater than before. You cannot steal or crush their greatness.
She hadn’t written anything in a few years and I have been hoping she would emerge with a new set of stories. She has.
Under the new name of Cate Glass, “An Illusion of Thieves” has the feeling of a (hopefully!) long series. A bit more upbeat than earlier works, the story is exciting and highly complex. For the entire book, it’s as if these folks are tiptoeing through a vast minefield where even a minor misstep would mean destruction for all. How many secret magickers live under the constant threat of terror of death and ruin? We can only guess, but I’m sure there are many and laws notwithstanding, many other secret practitioners exist on all levels of society.
If you have not read any other of Carol Berg’s books … well … given the state of our world, could there be a better time to start? She is a wonderful author and I highly recommend all of her books to anyone who enjoys these kinds of stories.
These days — since my eyes are not quite what they were — I prefer audiobooks. I listened to this the day after it was released. All of her previous books I read first in print, either on Kindle or as a hard copy … and later as audiobooks.
Carol Berg’s (Cate Glass) books are not like other fantasy novels. Her characters are not typical fantasy characters. Her stories aren’t long quests to save the world from a dark lord or prince. They are profoundly personal, deep, and sometimes, heartbreaking … yet good in the end, great events. You’ll meet dragons, lords, prisoners, sorcerers and many more. If you’ve been looking for something new — Cate Glass’s new book is a fine start, after which, you can joyfully dig into Carol Berg’s earlier series.
You will not be disappointed.
NOTE: As part two of this prompt — which is prompting me to review this book which I meant to do before now! — I’m including another review of a book by the same author. The secret word is DRAGONS.
Man (as opposed to a woman) should not lead a nation. Men are unsuited to the task. A man can be seduced by the size of a breast or beer.
A woman cannot.
A Talmud Legend relates the remarkable tale of how Alexander the Great searched for and found the gates of Paradise on Earth. Upon his appearance, however, he was not greeted knowingly by the Guardian of the Gate. The story reveals that even the most powerful, well-known or ‘great’ men need to be humbled, just like all of us on Earth need to be.
The legend goes as follows:
Once arriving at the gates of Paradise, Alexander the Great knocked persistently on the doors and demanded to be let inside. An Angel finally came calmly to the entrance and asked ‘Who is there?’
Alexander boldly announced, “It is I, the Great Conqueror and Lord of the Earth. Open the gates.” The Angel (to Alexander’s surprise and disappointment), said “We know him not. This is the Lord’s gate, only the righteous enter here.”
Incapable of persuading the Angel to allow his entrance, Alexander the Great prepared to go. Unwilling to leave the gates without some sort of token for his accomplishment for at least discovering the location of the abode of the just, he bravely asked the Guardian of the Gate for a gift. Granting his wish the Guardian gave him a small valuable item and said, “Take this, may it prove useful unto thee, and teach thee wisdom, more wisdom than thou hast acquired during thy ambitious expeditions and pursuits.”
Realizing the gift was nothing more than a piece of bone, Alexander the Great was angered and threw it down to the ground. An accompanying wise and learned man hastened Alexander to reconsider the value of the gift from the abode of the just and offered to weigh it upon the scales. Alexander allowed the wise man to do so. On one side was placed the small fragment of bone. The other side was filled with gold. No matter how much gold continued to be placed upon the scale, the fragment of bone outweighed it. The more gold put onto the scale, the lower the bone sank.
Confused, Alexander asked what could outweigh the bone. The wise man proceeded to show him and covered the bone with dust from the ground. Instantly, the side of the scale with the fragment flew up.
It was realized, “The bone was that which surrounds the eye of man; the eye of man which naught can satisfy save the dust which covers the grave.”
How, then, can a MAN lead a nation when nothing can satisfy him except his own grave? Beware the greed of man. Beware man and his hormones, his endless need for dominance, his demands for power and proof of his superiority. He will never be enough. He can never have enough.
The first mention of either the Lady of the Lake or Ninian (Niniane, Vivian, etc.) is to be found in the late work Prose Merlin. Her character remains much the same through to Sir Thomas Malory, who simply makes the story more complex. In all the stories that name her Ninian is a fully developed character. She is the original owner of Arthur’s second sword and later becomes Merlin’s pupil.
However, as with many aspects of the Arthurian literary world, there are serious gaps in reasoning with her story, and these gaps suggest a very different origin for her. For instance, Merlin somehow knows she will betray him, but teaches her anyway. The romances explain that he does so because he loves her, but that sounds like more of a rationalization of something not understood than a historical fact that is.
The end of her story is that Niniane does trap Merlin in a cave the moment her studies are over. He is left there, alive (again, no serious explanation). It certainly is not out of malice for Arthur. Niniane takes over as his counselor for the remainder of his reign and does her best to help him. She is also one of the four women who take him to Avalon. That is the extent of Ninian’s literary career. Clearly, her original character and the transformation have been hidden by chance and misunderstandings.
Uinniau was a prominent ecclesiastic of sixth-century Britain who may have been Columba’s teacher. He was known as Niniane in Welsh saints’ lives or Nynia by Bede. However, much of Scotland has place-names derived from his proper name of Uinniau. This Uinniau was known for three things mainly. First, he was one of the most knowledgeable persons of his age. Second, he was a great teacher who made his monastery of Whithorn was a primary center of learning in Britain. Finally, it is known that he would occasionally go on a retreat to a nearby cave, known as St. Ninian’s Cave, which was several miles away from his monastery.
Niniane would eventually became the form by which Uinniau was exclusively known. In fact, the process must have been an early one. Bede, writing in 725, knew him only by that name. It was an unfortunate circumstance that Niniane was a Celtic name, and the romance writers who would treat Arthur on the continent spoke Germanic and Latin languages. The unfamiliarity with Celtic would lead to confusion over his gender, and he became a she there.
Arthur was an attractive figure in the literature of the Middle Ages, gravitating all manner of figures, motifs, and stories to him. In previous blogs, I have mentioned the attraction of the Myrddin (Merlin) legend and the figure of Urien. The same sort of fate awaited Uinniau. Long before Arthur had become a figure of romance, Uinniau’s dominant name-form had become to Niniane. For the Celtic speaker that was still a male name, but for continentals, it was female.
That change from male to female, from independent ecclesiastic to intelligent layperson was where Uinniau became a different literary figure. Once Uinniau was a part of the Arthurian universe, his reputation for intelligence would have drawn him to the already established Merlin; in an irony of history, a lunatic (Myrddin) became the teacher of one of the best-read people of the age (Uinniau). Once that transformation was accomplished, the latent aspects of Uinniau’s memory easily made their way into Arthurian the tales, and Merlin was trapped in the cave Uinnau had used as a refuge.
I won’t pretend to know how Ninian became the Lady of the Lake. However, she would not have begun her Arthurian career that way. She would have started off as Merlin’s pupil and successor with the qualities of her historical precursor intact. She was associated with a lake only by Robert de Boron, an author that I have discovered in my research was not one to stick with his traditional sources. It is possible he knew of some Celtic tale which he used to enhance Uinniau’s mythology. It is equally possible he used something more contemporary. That part of the history of the Lady of the Lake we may never know.
The Dogon people of the Bandiagara Plateau in Mali, West Africa have an extraordinarily complex cosmology that informs every aspect of their socio-sacred lives. First communicated by Dogon elders to French anthropologist, Marcel Griaule, in the 1930s, it reveals, in particular, some astonishing conceptions relating to the star Sirius and of its smaller orbiting star now known to be a white dwarf and referred to by astronomers as Sirius B. The circumstances of how the Dogon may or may not have known about this invisible star companion have been hotly debated in recent years, and I’m not going into it here. Instead, here is my very simplified version – or at least as far as I have grasped it – of how the universe began. Apologies to the Dogon for any error in my understanding:
This is not a new book. It was released again on Kindle in May 2013. Desperadoeshas been available in soft or hardcover (currently, only soft) since 1997.
I love western movies and have since I was a kid. I’ve read a lot of “western” novels too over the years, enjoyed some, didn’t much like others. Over all, I prefer this genre as cinema rather than on the printed page. Nonetheless, I was drawn to this book after I realized I know very little about the personal lives and motivations of these notorious bandit gangs of the turn of the century wild west.
Until this book, I hadn’t realized the James boys, the Youngers, Coles and the Daltons were all related. Cousins, it turns out. This led me to interesting speculations about the relative importance of DNA versus environment in character formation. The familial relationships certainly present some intriguing possibilities. Perhaps the cousins were all copying each other’s “feats.” The story hints that there was at least some jealousy by the Daltons of cousin Jesse’s fame.
Desperadoesis well-written and feels authentic, so much so that I found myself asking how much of this was “made up” and how much was historical.
The answer is that although a lot of it is fact, a lot of it isn’t. Fiction and fact are beautifully woven throughout the story until it is difficult to tease them apart. Nonetheless, this is a novel, so if you are want history, this isn’t it. On the other hand, if you are more interested in the psychological profile of these characters and the feeling of being transported to another time and place, this might be exactly the right book. Sometimes fiction contains more truth than “only the facts” can convey.
Whether you enjoy the book will depend on if you can find a way to emotionally connect with any of the characters. All of the Daltons and their close associates lack a moral compass as well as a fundamental understanding of right and wrong. Even granting that they came from backgrounds of extreme deprivation — and their role models were as depraved as they themselves became — it’s hard to understand the characters’ rapid, virtual overnight, transformation from relatively decent people and officers of the law into rustlers, bank robbers and sadistic thrill killers.
Despite occasional actions that could be interpreted as “gallant” or at least decent, their primary goal was attention. Fame. They wanted to be feared and recognized. Towards that end, they also stole money but money was never a primary motivator. To achieve this end, there were no lines they would not cross, no rules they would not break. At no point is there any feeling that it mattered a whit to any of them how many people’s lives they ruined or ended. They were sociopaths (maybe psychopaths — I’ve never been entirely clear on the difference), utterly lacking in empathy except for one another … and there were limits to that, too.
The story is told in the first person by Emmett Dalton, the one brother who survived. He went out to Hollywood where they were happy (apparently) to pay him big bucks to “advise” and provide authenticity to the making of movies.
Of all the bandits — all his brothers and cousins — only he remained alive to “cash in” on the notoriety.
Ironically, they started as lawmen. While still functioning in that capacity, they began rustling horses. They didn’t think there was anything particularly wrong with it. It wasn’t that they didn’t know it was illegal, but the whole “right” and “wrong” thing seems to have been rather hazy to them. Moreover, working as a sheriff or deputy sheriff was so poorly paid they actually couldn’t live on the money. So they initially considered horse-stealing a way to supplement their incomes. They eventually were caught though only big brother Gratton (Grat) (probably mildly retarded) was arrested for rustling. Grat spent a bit of time in jail, but was ultimately released. A trial would have embarrassed the judge who had employed the Daltons as lawmen. He didn’t want it known his employees were horse thieves. Except that everyone knew. It just wasn’t official — and never became official.
The Dalton boys’ decision to become an outlaw gang was exactly that: a choice. They were not forced into a life of crime. They genuinely enjoyed being outlaws and criminals. They liked beating people up, breaking their body parts and killing them, sometimes just because they felt like it. No sense of remorse is forthcoming through the voice of the narrator.
Emmett, as the first-person narrator, supposedly was privy to every moment of the life of his brothers. This is a bit hard to swallow unless the other gang members spent all of their free time telling Emmett everything they had done since they’d last talked. You have to suspend your credibility or there’s no way to get into the book.
Left to right: Bill Power; Bob Dalton; Grat Dalton, Dick Broadwell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Of the Dalton lads (there were 15 brothers and sisters and you never learn what happened to most of the others) Bob is the true glory hound. Grat is a big dumb guy who seemed to not have any thoughts about much of anything. Emmett, two years younger than Bob, is his older brother’s passionate admirer. His adulation of his Bob Dalton was unlimited, though to Emmett’s credit (?), he did occasionally think up an interesting crime to commit, so he was not without a degree of personal creativity. He also appeared to be, of the gang, the only one with any capacity for love — in a severely circumscribed way.
Then there’s Bob’s psychopathic girlfriend, Eugenia Moore who was the real brains of the outfit, though perhaps brains is too strong a word.
As you can probably tell, I didn’t like the characters. There is a high probability that the author has captured the essence of these people accurately, but accuracy alone wasn’t enough to make me enjoy being in their company. Ultimately, if I can’t relate to at least one character in a book, it’s difficult for me to enjoy the story. I spent the first half of this book looking for a redeeming feature in someone. I spent the rest of the book wishing I’d never started reading it in the first place.
Grave of Bob Dalton, Grat Dalton and Bill Power (Photo: Wikipedia)
This was Ron Hansen’s first novel. He has written a dozen or so since then and he is highly regarded. I have no argument with his skill as a writer and perhaps I would like his later novels and non-fiction better than Desperadoes.
I didn’t hate the book, but I didn’t enjoy it. Perhaps the nature of the material fore-ordained my response. Sadistic, vicious sociopathic killers are not romantic. I don’t find a trip through their minds pleasant or fun. Interesting is as good as I can give it.
They make my skin crawl. But other people obviously did like the book and it has received some excellent reviews on Amazon. If you can read it as a case study of a bunch of old-timey criminals, you might like it better than I did. It is well-written and thoroughly unpleasant at the same time. I guess that’s what you get when you write about outlaw gangs, even when you write really well.
The first mention of either the Lady of the Lake or Ninian (Niniane, Vivian, etc.) is to be found in the late work Prose Merlin. Her character remains much the same through to Sir Thomas Malory, who simply makes the story more complex. In all the stories that name her Ninian is a fully developed character. She is the original owner of Arthur’s second sword and later becomes Merlin’s pupil.
However, as with many aspects of the Arthurian literary world, there are serious gaps in reasoning with her story, and these gaps suggest a very different origin for her. For instance, Merlin somehow knows she will betray him, but teaches her anyway. The romances explain that he does so because he loves her, but that sounds like more of a rationalization of something not understood than an historical fact that is.
The end of her story is that Niniane does trap Merlin in a cave the moment her studies are over. He is left there, alive (again, no serious explanation). It certainly is not out of malice for Arthur. Ninian takes over as his counselor for the remainder of his reign and does her best to help him. She is also one of the four women who takes him to Avalon. That is the extent of Ninian’s literary career. Clearly her original character and the transformation have been hidden by chance and misunderstandings.
Uinniau was a prominent ecclesiastic of sixth century Britain who may have been Columba’s teacher. He was known as Ninian in Welsh saints’ lives or Nynia by Bede. However, much of Scotland has place-names derived from his proper name of Uinniau. This Uinniau was known for three things mainly. First, he was one of the most knowledgeable persons of his age. Second, he was a great teacher who made his monastery of Whithorn was a primary center of learning in Britain. Finally, it is known that he would occasionally go on a retreat to a nearby cave, known as St. Ninian’s Cave, which was several miles away from his monastery.
Ninian would eventually became the form by which Uinniau was exclusively known. In fact, the process must have been an early one. Bede, writing in 725, knew him only by that name. It was an unfortunate circumstance that Ninian was a Celtic name, and the romance writers who would treat Arthur on the continent spoke Germanic and Latin languages. The unfamiliarity with Celtic would lead to confusion over his gender, and he became a she there.
Arthur was an attractive figure in the literature of the Middle Ages, gravitating all manner of figures, motifs, and stories to him. In previous blogs I have mentioned the attraction of the Myrddin (Merlin) legend and the figure of Urien. The same sort of fate awaited Uinniau. Long before Arthur had become a figure of romance, Uinniau’s dominant name-form had become to Ninian. For the Celtic speaker that was still a male name, but for continentals it was female.
That change from male to female, from independent ecclesiastic to intelligent layperson was where Uinniau became a different literary figure. Once Uinniau was a part of the Arthurian universe, his reputation for intelligence would have drawn him to the already established Merlin; in an irony of history a lunatic (Myrddin) became the teacher of one of the best-read people of the age (Uinniau). Once that transformation was accomplished, the latent aspects of Uinniau’s memory easily made their way into Arthurian the tales, and Merlin was trapped in the cave Uinnau had used as a refuge.
I won’t pretend to know how Ninian became the Lady of the Lake. However, she would not have begun her Arthurian career that way. She would have started off as Merlin’s pupil and successor with the qualities of her historical precursor intact. She was associated with a lake only by Robert de Boron, an author that I have discovered in my research was not one to stick with his traditional sources. It is possible he knew of some Celtic tale which he used to enhance Uinniau’s mythology. It is equally possible he used something more contemporary. That part of the history of the Lady of the Lake we may never know.
I love still love archaeology and history, though I never did get to make a great discovery. I also love myths and legends, especially anything connected with King Arthur. When I saw this on Sue Vincent‘s site, I was absolutely thrilled. I have re-blogged it for you here, with (of course) a link to the full story on it’s originating site,
TheBreakAway– Seeking Ideas Beyond Conventional Thought
Source: Independent.co.uk
David Keys
August 5, 2016
The mysterious origins of the British archaeological site most often associated with the legend of King Arthur have just become even more mysterious.
Archaeologists have discovered the impressive remains of a probable Dark Age royal palace at Tintagel in Cornwall. It is likely that the one-metre thick walls being unearthed are those of the main residence of the 6th century rulers of an ancient south-west British kingdom, known as Dumnonia.
Scholars have long argued about whether King Arthur actually existed or whether he was in reality a legendary character formed through the conflation of a series of separate historical and mythological figures.
But the discovery by English Heritage-funded archaeologists of a probable Dark Age palace at Tintagel will certainly trigger debate in Arthurian studies circles – because, in medieval tradition, Arthur was said to have been conceived at Tintagel as a result of an illicit union between a British King and the beautiful wife of a local ruler.
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