|
|
| 
THE ETCHED CITY
Still, none of this should deter you from becoming one of the first to
discover K.J. Bishop. THE ETCHED CITY is definitely a must-read for lovers of literate dark fantasy. Pan Macmillan has picked up UK and commonwealth rights, Bantam Spectra recently purchased the U.S. publication rights, but the book is available *now* from hot small press Prime. Get it.
Copyright © 2003 Paula Guran. All Rights Reserved. |
Australian writer K.J. Bishop makes a stunning debut with THE ETCHED
CITY. Her memorable imagery, voluptuous language, rich characters, and
phantasmagoric vision reveal a new star among writers of the "new
weird" (or whatever other label they are sure to disdain). Primary
protagonists are Raule, a physician, and Gwynn, a gunslinger, who
share a history as revolutionary desperados. The revolution is over
and lost when they meet up again in the deserts of the Copper Country.
A relationship of convenience and survival ensues which leads them
both to the river city of Ashamoil and new, more civilized, lives.
Gwynn, is an amoral foreigner from the frozen north, a mercenary and
musician as well as revolutionary and gunslinger, who finds his
well-paid place among the henchman of a local honcho whose fortune
comes from arms dealing and the slave trade. Raule, who feels her
conscience has been lost, is rejected by the local College of
Physicians and takes a position in a parish hospital for the poor.
There, along with her regular duties, she begins collecting and
studying monstrously aberrant stillbirths. She disapproves of Gwynn's
choice of employer and the two grow apart while residing in Ashamoil.
Gwynn enjoys an ongoing intellectual discussion of theology,
spirituality, philosophy, and ethics with the hospital's lecherous and
often inebriated priest. His discovery of an etching by Beth
Constanzin poses a mystery for Gwynn that he eventually solves when he
finds the artist and they become lovers -- only to discover he has no
idea of his role in her transformation. He also watches as a
compatriot, Marriot, drowns in an impossible desire that finally
demands his dispatch. Dreams, miracles, mysteries, and wonders invade
reality and metaphor becomes metamorphosis, matter becomes as
malleable as thought.