ISBN: 0-312-86782-4 Order from: Amazon.com Barnes & Noble.com
A slow, sometimes plodding police investigation in an intricately detailed world where astrology and alchemy work, this character-rich fantasy lacks excitement.
Reviewed by David on July 01, 2001
Genre: Fantasy (Mystery, Magic, Police Procedural)
Synopsis: In the first book of the series, Point of Hopes, the authors introduced the city Astreiant, in a low-technology world where alchemy and astrology work. The stars really influence people's ability and behavior, and alchemical formulae can grant power—or kill.
The world is largely familiar, but with a number of understated but significant changes. Same-sex liasons are acepted—and more common than heterosexual relationships. Political and economic power is more common among women, although not exclusively so. And mildly archaic terms are sometimes used—to subtly underscore the difference between our world and Astreiant's.
The districts of the city are called Points, and the police—sometimes corrupt and frequently powerless against the arrogant nobles—are called pointsmen.
Nicolas Rathe, a pointsman of unusual competence and dediaction, and his good friend former mercenary Eslingen have become famous after stopping a magical threat to the city's children in Point of Hopes. Now, in a neighboring theater district, the Point of Dreams, Rathe is confronted with a rash of deaths. Some may be merely suspicious, others are clear murders. But all seem connected with the upcoming, ceremonial production of the newest play.
Combined with the mystical importance of the play, the noble participants of the spectacle, and the newest craze for magical arrangements of flowers, the pointsman's investigation becomes a minefield.
Full Review: Scott and Barnett are very good at detailed and understated description of an exotic world, and the colorul and utterly plausible characters populating it.
However, despite the solid characters and the three-dimensional world, the fantasy lacks excitement. The world is just not colorful enough to engage the reader's full attention, and the plot is slow throughout much of the book. Unlike, say, Scott's excellent Five-Twelfth of Heaven, there is no sense of breathless adventure, of the threatened protagonist triumphing against great odds. Rathe and Eslingen are likable and competent, but they aer just not quite sympathetic enough, or sufficiently threatened in this novel, to provide the same sense of welcome surprise when they succeed.
The investigation of the book is competent, and realistically difficult, and the world and its inhabitants are impressively solid. These factors make reading this book a worthwhile experience, even if not a particularly entertaining one.
Overall: 5.5; Plot: 6; Characters: 5.5; Style: 5; World-building: 6.5; Originality: 6;
Copyright date 2001, Tor, February 2001, Cloth
ISBN: 0-312-86782-4 Order from: Amazon.com Barnes & Noble.com