The Poison Master by Liz Williams
The Poison Master by Liz Williams
Liz Williams’s The Poison Master, like works by China Mieville, Jack Vance, and Gene Wolfe, inhabits that area between science fiction and fantasy (sometimes called science fantasy, though that term seems more fitting to the works of Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury). The universe obeys scientific rules, but they aren’t our scientific rules in all ways. The fantasy elements in many ways feel like SF, while some aspects of the aliens society feel like fantasy. But whatever term one uses to describe it, the universe she creates is an interesting and detailed one, and the setting of a good, if not completely successfully novel.
Most of the novel follows Alivet Dee, a young woman who is an apothecary on the planet Latent Emanation. A small group of humans had come there several hundred years earlier, led by strange alien beings called Lords of Night, who now rule the world in a rather capricious and cruel way. Alivet’s twin sister has been taken by them as a servant and Alivet hopes to free her someday. But Alivet is accused of murder, and, as she flees, is befriended – perhaps; she has her doubts – by Ari Ghairan, a poison master from the planet Hathes. Ghairan wants to kill or drive out the Lords of Night, and he needs Alivet’s help.
Much of the book takes place on the planet Hathes, a strange society that seems like something Jack Vance would have created. It’s a structured society, where assassination – by poison – is common, populated by strange grouping of people and some strange aliens. It has a rigid social structure and strange customs (though many make sense, given the fear of poisoning). On Hathes, Alivet works to develop what’s needed to kill the Lords of Night and save her sister while at the same time trying to determine what Ghairan’s real intentions are for her. She alternately – or perhaps even simultaneously – fears him, distrusts him, and likes him, so she doesn’t know quite what to do.
Likewise, Latent Emanation, its geography (or what we see of it), its society, and its inhabitants are well drawn and imaginative. The Lords of Night and their capricious servants the Unpriests rule. Their Night Palaces are located in the medieval city of Levenah. The Night Palaces themselves seem to be a cross between something out of Gormenghast crossed with part of Stargate Many humans live in Levenah, but often retreat to the swamps as part of the search – a drug-induced ritual in which people try to remember their origins.
Throughout, Williams’s details are well worked out. The underpinnings of the universe are strange – a combination of numerology, science, the occult, and, most of all, alchemy. Alivet, while described as an apothecary, really is more of an alchemist (which in many ways is the “science” of this science fiction novel), and Williams weaves the underlying concepts of alchemy involving transformation into the fabric of her novel. Williams’s use of drugs in the story, not only in their uses (ranging from poisons to ways to knowledge), but to the way Alivet talks to them – and, in some cases, the answer – is fascinating in and of itself and adds to the sense of strangeness that permeates much of the book
The novel also has a frame of sorts. I say of sorts because the novel has multiple “parts,” each of which has multiple chapters. The first chapter of each part is set in the past, in an alternate version of our earth, and centers around the alchemist John Dee. Bit by bit, Williams unfolds some of the back story this way, putting together the story of how humans came to travel elsewhere in the universe, including to Latent Emanation. It’s an interesting device, especially in the early chapters, but it doesn’t entirely work. After a few such chapters, we know enough of the story to figure out the rest of the back story and the chapters set in our past become more distraction than illumination. Williams seems to realize this also, since these chapters become shorter later in the book. This way of telling the back story was an interesting experiment, but it may have worked better as a simple prelude or even as a flashback of some sort later in the book.
But in any case, this is a minor distraction in an otherwise well done book. I’ve now read two books by Williams – this and Banner of Souls – and have enjoyed both. I have two other books by her on my to-be-read shelf and hope to get to them sometime soon (though truth be told, my too-be-read shelf has hundreds of books on it; the only hope I have of making a major dent in it is early retirement and long life).
Liz Williams’s The Poison Master, like works by China Mieville, Jack Vance, and Gene Wolfe, inhabits that area between science fiction and fantasy (sometimes called science fantasy, though that term seems more fitting to the works of Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury). The universe obeys scientific rules, but they aren’t our scientific rules in all ways. The fantasy elements in many ways feel like SF, while some aspects of the aliens society feel like fantasy. But whatever term one uses to describe it, the universe she creates is an interesting and detailed one, and the setting of a good, if not completely successfully novel.
Most of the novel follows Alivet Dee, a young woman who is an apothecary on the planet Latent Emanation. A small group of humans had come there several hundred years earlier, led by strange alien beings called Lords of Night, who now rule the world in a rather capricious and cruel way. Alivet’s twin sister has been taken by them as a servant and Alivet hopes to free her someday. But Alivet is accused of murder, and, as she flees, is befriended – perhaps; she has her doubts – by Ari Ghairan, a poison master from the planet Hathes. Ghairan wants to kill or drive out the Lords of Night, and he needs Alivet’s help.
Much of the book takes place on the planet Hathes, a strange society that seems like something Jack Vance would have created. It’s a structured society, where assassination – by poison – is common, populated by strange grouping of people and some strange aliens. It has a rigid social structure and strange customs (though many make sense, given the fear of poisoning). On Hathes, Alivet works to develop what’s needed to kill the Lords of Night and save her sister while at the same time trying to determine what Ghairan’s real intentions are for her. She alternately – or perhaps even simultaneously – fears him, distrusts him, and likes him, so she doesn’t know quite what to do.
Likewise, Latent Emanation, its geography (or what we see of it), its society, and its inhabitants are well drawn and imaginative. The Lords of Night and their capricious servants the Unpriests rule. Their Night Palaces are located in the medieval city of Levenah. The Night Palaces themselves seem to be a cross between something out of Gormenghast crossed with part of Stargate Many humans live in Levenah, but often retreat to the swamps as part of the search – a drug-induced ritual in which people try to remember their origins.
Throughout, Williams’s details are well worked out. The underpinnings of the universe are strange – a combination of numerology, science, the occult, and, most of all, alchemy. Alivet, while described as an apothecary, really is more of an alchemist (which in many ways is the “science” of this science fiction novel), and Williams weaves the underlying concepts of alchemy involving transformation into the fabric of her novel. Williams’s use of drugs in the story, not only in their uses (ranging from poisons to ways to knowledge), but to the way Alivet talks to them – and, in some cases, the answer – is fascinating in and of itself and adds to the sense of strangeness that permeates much of the book
The novel also has a frame of sorts. I say of sorts because the novel has multiple “parts,” each of which has multiple chapters. The first chapter of each part is set in the past, in an alternate version of our earth, and centers around the alchemist John Dee. Bit by bit, Williams unfolds some of the back story this way, putting together the story of how humans came to travel elsewhere in the universe, including to Latent Emanation. It’s an interesting device, especially in the early chapters, but it doesn’t entirely work. After a few such chapters, we know enough of the story to figure out the rest of the back story and the chapters set in our past become more distraction than illumination. Williams seems to realize this also, since these chapters become shorter later in the book. This way of telling the back story was an interesting experiment, but it may have worked better as a simple prelude or even as a flashback of some sort later in the book.
But in any case, this is a minor distraction in an otherwise well done book. I’ve now read two books by Williams – this and Banner of Souls – and have enjoyed both. I have two other books by her on my to-be-read shelf and hope to get to them sometime soon (though truth be told, my too-be-read shelf has hundreds of books on it; the only hope I have of making a major dent in it is early retirement and long life).
posted by Jim Mann at 11:35 PM
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