It really doesn’t normally take me two days to read a book under four hundred pages. But this is entirely normal when the author in question is Tanith Lee. Her work not only dates to earlier decades, its very style makes a reader feel its age and more.
I pulled Tales From the Flat Earth: Night’s Daughter out of my Pile at long last. It is the companion omnibus to Tales From the Flat Earth: The Lords of Darkness, which I read some time back. And I know I waited far too long. There are a number of recurring characters, beyond the Lords of Darkness themselves, and I only had the vaguest memories of who they were and what they’d done.
Obviously, Night’s Daughter is primarily about the child Azhrarn got on the mortal woman Dunizel, her life and her adventures. And it was not an easy read, not the first half of this omnibus, Delirium’s Mistress. I think part of that is because, as I said, I had largely forgotten many of the characters. Another aspect is because while the story is told chronologically, the girl (who is variously called Sovaz, Azhriaz, Soveh, and Atmeh) doesn’t go through life that way. I would say that she starts as a young woman, then a mature woman, then a child, and finally an old woman.
And I don’t know that I was in a mood for the rambling sort of stories making up a story that the Flat Earth novels tend to be. I’m not entirely certain how best to describe the effect. I suppose if you imagine a TV show where, one day, you’re presented with new characters in a new location. And you watch them for an episode or three before the main character slips into the story, but maybe only in the background. Then this tale concludes in its way, which isn’t always totally resolved, and the next episode will either be a different adventure for the main character, or another new beginning.
But yes, all these smaller stories weave together and join in by the end. So there’s that. Honestly, out of the three hundred fifty-three pages, it wasn’t until I was in the two-twenties or so that I really felt my interest catch and hold more strongly than it had previously.
And yet I can’t find it in myself to want to read Night’s Sorceries, the anthology that makes up the second half of this omnibus. Because, while reading Delirium’s Mistress, I realized that I do not need to keep the Flat Earth books. They are good books, if different from many. Some are definitely better than others, and they seem to be best on an initial reading. But their languorous pace and old-fashioned style means they tend to drag on a reread or a revisit.
So I’m glad to have discovered them, but I really, truly do not need them in my life or my library at this point. I’ve read all the novels now, or at least I think I have, and a number of the short stories. And that’s more than enough.
I do have some other Tanith Lee in the Pile, but those aren’t set on the Flat Earth. And no, I’m not going to read any of them right away. Tanith Lee is a lot as an author, and there’s a reason why it took me so long to read the second of a pair of omnibi. But I refuse to dismiss her work out of hand.
True, I had an opportunity to buy more anthologies recently and passed it up, but that’s a little different. I haven’t been buying nearly as many books in recent months. And I really do want to finish the Tanith Lee books I already have before seriously considering buying more. They’re a significant portion of my to-read Pile even now.
I think tomorrow will be a reread. Something I don’t need to think so hard about. But what it will be I have yet to decide.
mouse Reads Books 