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UK Authors - Sci-fi & fantasy |
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The Burning City |
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 The Burning City byLarry Niven & Jerry Pournelle Orbit (Little, Brown) 656 pages, 2000 ISBN 1841490067 Reviewed by our UK Editor Rachel A. Hyde Fourteen thousand years ago on the continent of America, young Whandall Placehold is growing up in Tep’s Town. This isn’t a very permanent place to be. Every few years, the fire god Yangin-Atep possesses one of its inhabitants and part of the city is burned down. Whandall is one of the Lordkin who do not work but take what they want from the Kinless who do all the tasks. Beyond the city in greater luxury live the Lords themselves. Then there's the Forest which is filled with dangerous plants. The Lordkin live a violent life, the menfolk joining fierce street gangs as soon as they are old enough. Whandall wants to see the world beyond. He hears stories about it from wandering storytellers and from a magician who escaped Atlantis before it was destroyed. Then the fire god enters him, but instead of burning the city, he starts out on an epic journey… The fact that this novel is set on Earth sets it apart from most fantasy. This is also more knife and fire than sword and sorcery. The warring street gangs belong to the world of contemporary and SF, their names redolent of Native American tribes. Atlantis, forests of killer plants, epic journeys are all fantasy so this is a real patchwork quilt of elements which have been recombined to create something new and inventive. The characters could have been better drawn as few of them truly come to life, and the part of the book where Whandall grows up could've been shorter. Beyond the city is a world peopled with Native American ancestors, and I preferred this section of the novel. The Burning City is an interesting addition to the usually neglected body of fantasy dealing with the Earth’s mythic past. |
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