Maledicte

by Lane Robins

Book Overview

From a dazzling new voice in fantasy comes a mesmerizing tale of treachery, passion, intrigue, betrayal, and an act of pure vengeance that threatens to bring down a kingdom.

Seething with decadent appetites unchecked by law or gods, the court of Antyre is ruled by the last of a dissolute aristocracy. But now to the kingdom comes a handsome, enigmatic nobleman, Maledicte, whose perfect manners, enchanting charisma, and brilliant swordplay...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 034549573X
• ISBN13: 9780345495730
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.8" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Dark and Addictive

I picked this book up at the library with some reluctance. But I am sooo glad I did. This is one of the books that I think is worthy of being bought. An excellent fast paced read. Maledicte and Miranda are two different characters with the same body. Maledicte is the male nobleman bent on revenge and murder. Miranda is the female street rat and thief who lost the only person she ever cared about. So many questions passed through my mind while I devoured this book but the one that stood out the most was who really is the villain? I recommend this book to anyone that doesn't mind bloody scenes. There's a lot of gore.

my favorite

This is the best book I have ever read. I have not been able to find something better since I finished it. I look forward to her next book Kings and Assassins, hoping that Maledicte will make a comeback as Miranda. This book has been compared to Jacqueline Carey's books, but Maledicte is so much better. Carey's books look like trashy romance novels in comparison.

Read this book if...

This seems to be one of those books people either love or hate. If you're the kind of person who doesn't like "gray" characters, or characters who aren't heroic or innately good, then this isn't the book for you. However, if you like dark fantasy, swordplay, revenge, the kind of romance that really breaks your heart (but not in a fluffy way--and not between who you think it's going to be), and characters that are more human than heroic, then you will probably love this book as much as I did. Some people had complaints about the point of view changing often (it remains in third person the whole book, but focuses on different characters), but I didn't think it was problematic, and it was actually interesting to watch Maledicte from so many other points of view (it would get really old really fast to keep reading about a woman's struggle to pass as a convincing man.) Plus it doesn't in any way hinder the story from centering on Maledicte. Personally, I loved this book, partially because the things that bothered other people didn't bother me, and because I didn't mind that Maledicte was a vengeful god-possessed protagonist... but most of all I haven't read anything quite like this before, or since, and I thought it was unique and engrossing, and really hard to put down

Promising basis, delicate plot, and flawed characters make it a decadent, enjoyable dark fatasy. Ver

In the Relics, the slums of the courtly city Antyre, a young boy is kidnapped and a young girl is left beaten and alone. Four years later, a new nobleman enters the court: Maledicte, a beautiful, sharp-tongued, and dangerous youth with a mysterious background. He attracts the attention of the court, but Maledicte has intentions of his own--beneath his coats and padded corsets, he is really Miranda, a Relics streetrat, who has come to reclaim Janus and to revenge those that kidnapped him years ago. But Maledicte has made a dangerous pact with Black-Winged Ani, goddess of love and revenge, and must deal with the machinations of the court, Ani's growing power, and Janus's own ambitions. Mixing aspects and styles that have appeared in other books--magic, political intrigue, gender issues, decadence, decay--more skillfully than any other in the genre, Maledicte is a delicately plotted book peopled with realistically faulted characters, and it is an exceptionally decadent read. I greatly enjoyed it, highly recommend it, and plan to purchase it and read it again. Maledicte is in the line of other fantasy novels that combined political intrigue, gender/sexuality, and magic--such as Bishop's The Black Jewels Trilogy or Cary's Kushiel's books, for example. However, Maledicte excels where these other attempts falter, using these elements to serve the story, rather than allowing them to run rampant over it, and combining them with strong storytelling, plot, and characters. The world of the book is completely of the author's creation, but convoluted politics and exposition do not overwhelm the text. Instead, Robins constrains both politics and worldbuilding to roles that precisely suit the story: they create plot and setting, but overwhelm neither. Miranda-cum-Madelicte's gender and sexuality is handled with skill and great respect: gender defines Maledicte's identity, and it complicates his various relationships, but Robins treats it with matter-of-fact respect and distance. As she does with other aspects, Robins constrains the issue of gender to its purpose as a character builder, and leaves the rest of the theorizing and contemplating to the reader. Finally, the book's magical elements manage to be both realistically grounded and truly fantastical without digressing into magical rule-making--or worse, faulty magical rule-making. From the delicate art of poison to Ani's ability to possess or heal her followers, magic sets the book in a world entirely unlike our own, but one with sensical structure and consequences. As Ani gains power, her threat is immediate and great, but without exaggeration or plot holes. In other, fewer words: Maledicte combines promising and successful concepts that appear in other dark fantasy books, and does so in a way that succeeds brilliantly where these other books fail. Running alongside these promising and brilliantly-handled aspects is a delicate plot and a cast of realistic characters that make Maledicte a true, decadent de

deep, decadent, well written, like a fine gourmet meal

I just finished this fabulous book. I was intrigued by the cover, and for once the inside matched the outside. I would not compare the pedestrian Jacqueline Carey's work to this book. The correct comparison is Ellen Kushner and her Swordspoint series. Robins brings her own spin to a similar playground: a decadent world with faded gods, an impotent court were form counts more than substance, full of politics, plots, rivalries, and shifting alliances. The characters are aristocrats, servants, spies, killers, and the wretched and poor of a good sized trading city. The tone of the city is from times past, full of town houses, palaces, and dark and dangerous stews. Robins adds a touch of magic, and dangerous wild gods who touch the lives of those who seek their aid, often to their destruction. The characters are exceptionally real, and their relationships and stories are well done. Robins looks at the limits of love, and loyalty, and how those feelings can be turned to obsession, and vengeance. How the lack of basic human needs (food, shelter, warmth) can drive people to forget the humanity of others, and how extreme wealth and privilege can prevent people ever recognizing that others have any humanity to begin with. The book is also funny, sad, suspenseful and finally uplifting. There is a great deal of violence and an almost Arsenic-and-Old-Lace quality to the killings at the start. There are many layers to the story, with the national and political fueling the personal and bringing love, loss, violence, vengeance, greed, sex and the quest for survival into the mix. The writing is very good, the dialog witty, and almost making it a (black) comedy of manners. Carey could not write anything like the dialog, almost Oscar Wilde like. It is the type of book where you want to savor it and not see it end. There is a very strong feeling of reading a fantastical historical novel, and of reading a very polished writer. I want to read more by this author, and even more in this setting.