Burying the Shadow

by Storm Constantine

Book Overview

Rayojini lives an idyllic life amongst the soulscapers of Taparak until she reaches the age at which she will be initiated into their ranks. Her initiation rite, though it follows the traditional... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0747238774
• ISBN13: 9780747238775
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Headline Book Publishing
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.0" x 4.4"

Customer Reviews

Very Good

Highly recommended. The plot has already been discussed in comprehensive reviews here, so I won't dissect it too deeply. But I must caution potential readers: this is really NOT a vampire story. Forget that you have read this is a vampire story. To call it such influences potential readers to assign preconceived stereotypical notions usually adhered to vampire stories. So forget about vampires. I do not believe Ms Constantine intended Burying the Shadow to be stuffed into that pigeonhole. The story is told in the first person, alternating between two well developed and plausible female protagonists, whose exotic (and very different) lives inevitably collide in an unavoidable bitter-sweet climax. The setting is a lush realm populated with various uniquely Storm-esque love-or-hate rogues, fragile beauties (fortunately not too many of those), arcane customs, and fantastic locales. Hidden secrets abound. Constantine is a superb word weaver; she injects rich detail into her worlds without over doing it. Her characters and settings are ethereal, yet they are entirely believable. Her baroque prose (at its height here) flows from the page in such a way as to suck the reader in, willing or not, so there are moments when the reader forgets they are holding a book in their hands (one of the true marks of successful writing). I feel I must mention there are, perhaps, elements occurring later on in the book that could have been expanded on or reworked (you may disagree), however on the whole this is eclipsed by the strength of the leads and the overall exuberance of the story. If you want to take a journey far from the tedious agonies of your mundane existence, you will not regret purchasing Burying the Shadow. So what are you waiting for? (also very highly recommended: Calenture, by Storm Constantine)

Uncovering the Shadow

Burying the Shadow is a book that involves two major storylines intertwining and finally, at the conclusion of the story, colliding. The story is told by two female narrators who alternate their accounts (not switching off every chapter, but very nearly) and together give the novel an narrative style wherein the reader often knows more about what's going on the than do the characters themselves. The first narrator is Gimel Metetronim, an 'artisan' in the city of Sacramante, part of a vast, fantastic mystical world Storm creates as a stand-in / alternature universe for Earth. The 'artisans' live in an isolated quarter of the city while gaining fame among the human populace, gifting them with their plays, music, poetry, paintings and other creative endeavors. All the artisans' work is sponsored by patron families, who, as it turns out, pay for this artwork with more their money -- they pay with their blood. This is because the artisans don't just *seem* otherworldly, but actually *are*, for they are the eloim, a race of human-seeming but immortal blooddrinkers who came from another world and now live on earth, surviving through a symbiotic relationshp with the patron families. Although Sacramante is widely renowned for its arts scene, the intimate relationship between the eloim and the human families is a tightly held secret, with family members accepting and welcoming the 'sup' (small drinks that do not kill), eloim using human servants (who'se lives can be extended via bloodsharing), and offerings of willing sacrificial victims, including children. This is the way it has been for centuries, only now, after such a long period of stability, the situation in Sacramante has begun to change, become unbalanced. There is a sickness among the eloim/'artisans,' with a rash of suicides, unheard of among the immortal race. There is debate as to the cause of this sickness, but finally Gimel and her brother (yes, brother) Beth decide they can't wait for answer to fall from the sky or be delivered by the Parzupheim, the body of ancients who govern the eloim world. They go in search of a 'soulscaper,' a highly specialized professional trained to enter the subconscious and repair the soulscape, the inner mind and spirit found in all individuals and tied to both mind and body. (Those readers familiar with the study of archetypes, Carl Jung, dreams, etc., will find this fascinating.) The second narrative is delivered by of Rayojini the soulscaper, whose story intersects with that of the eloim. As the story begins Rayojini is a human girl, a daughter of a soulscraper, living in the fantastical petrified forest city of Taparak, home of the soulscapers and their art. Through a sacred cememony involving the specialized scrying fumes (needed to enter the subconscious world), Rayojini is initiated into the life of a soulscaper and also introduced to her 'guardian pursuers,' symbolic figures all soulscapers are taught to look for as figures of their conscience and/or ove