Trial of Flowers: A Novel of the City Imperishable

by Jay Lake

Book Overview

The City Imperishable's secret master and heir to the long-vacant throne has vanished from a locked room, as politics have turned deadly in a bid to revive the city's long-vanished empire. The city's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1597800562
• ISBN13: 9781597800563
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Night Shade Books
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Not Free SF Reader

Jason and the Boxodwarfs. or Dunnyman delving Imago shortening sequence sacrifice. In a rather strange city - one that is definitely of the New Weird variety, three men form a strange alliance of sorts because they can see very bad things are likely to happen in the future. Old Gods coming back, apparently not good at all. These three are a dwarf, a business type, and a not-at-the-moment layabout lawyer. Some old political legislation is used to challenge the status quo, as well as the leverage of an invading army that would like to do away with them. Cults, gangs, cameleopards, blind child monsters, devil dogs, guns, gamblers and more. Definitely not one for the squeamish. The dwarves here are formed in the Japanese torture-and-bonsai variety, not the born under mountains and hang out with hobbits type.

Night in the City Imperishable

Dark urban fantasy just below the outstanding quality of Meiville and Vandemeer. Lake creates strong characters and extremely visual scenes. As in other successful works in this genre, the city itself becomes a critical character in the plot's unfolding. Lake comes close at times to crossing the imaginary dividing line I have in my reader's mind separating dark from morally repellant but manages to walk the tightrope well. Set some time aside because the prose can be dense but the plot remains compelling and fast-moving. If you like the genre, you will like Trial of Flowers.

Dark tales of the City Imperishable

Trial of Flowers is a compelling, literary fantasy in the 'new weird' school, and readers of China Miéville and similar fare will feel right at home in this excellent novel. Told from the perspective of two ambitious men and a rather twisted dwarf, the City Imperishable itself becomes the fourth character in the story. The complexity of the setting and a unique historical backstory captured my interest from the first page and creative plot twists kept me interested. Lake has created unforgettable, complex characters through which we truly experience his world, without resorting to the cliches so common to the fantasy genre. An original fusion of the familiar and the fantastic, the City is truly a breeding ground for new forms of conspiracy, perversion and darkness that serve to escalate this tale above the mundane. Trial of Flowers is a denser and more complex work than the authors first novel but the transition is effortless. Highly recommended.

Dark Urban Fantasy

Jay Lake's "The Trial of Flowers" is a decadent, dark urban fantasy in the mold of M. John Harrison's "Viriconium" or, as the book's jacket mentions, "Perdido Street Station" and "The Etched City". The City Imperishable is a sprawling, ancient metropolis where power rests in the hands of the rich and the city's dwarves are treated like second class citizens. It immediately brings to mind an industrializing London layered with Rome at its darkest and most decayed. The Cthuluesque old gods are awakening and terrorizing the city by offing its citizens in dark and bloody ways during the night. The heir to the long vacant throne disappears early in the book, and a combined army of barbarian tribes is on the march with the intention of pulling the city down brick by brick so that its long dead but still feared empire will never rise again. Into this swirling and bloody backdrop are cast the three main characters: Jason, servant and friend of the missing heir; Bijaz the Dwarf, leader of the city's sewn dwarves, whose lips are gruesomely sealed; and Imago, a down in his luck lawyer of sorts with an ingenious plan to reinstate the office of the mayor by staging "the trial of flowers", a rite so ancient that no one knows what it is. These three uneasy allies are ultimately tasked with saving the city, journeying through the drug dens, torture pits, and ancient temples beneath the city and into the dark, magic filled nights on a quest to stop the resurrection of terrible gods who derive their power from bloodshed and suffering. Lake's decadent world is ripe with decay, corruption, violence and sex. A world well worth visiting. If you like this book check out "Black Orchids from Aum"