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Empress of Dreams
“Tanith Lee: Princess Royal of Heroic Fantasy” –Village Voice
“Tanith Lee truly has become the Scheherazade of our time.” –Arkham House
“From the day that her novel The Birthgrave was first published Tanith Lee has been a blazing gem in the crown of fantasy literature… ‘Princess Royal’… perhaps better the Empress of Dreams.” –Donald A. Wollheim
Throughout her forty-year career, Tanith Lee proved herself adept at numerous genres, including high fantasy, horror, science fiction, and combinations thereof. One of her specialties was the variety of heroic fantasy known as sword-and-sorcery. Novels such as The Birthgrave, Night’s Master, and The Storm Lord are highly regarded by both fans and critics, but she has a wealth of short stories to her credit as well. Sixteen of Tanith’s tales of swords and sorcery appear in this collection. When you read them, you will discover why she deserves such exalted titles as “Princess Royal of Heroic Fantasy” and The Empress of Dreams.
Stories included:
“Odds Against the Gods”
“Sleeping Tiger”
“The Demoness”
“The Sombrus Tower”
“Winter White”
“In the Balance”
“Northern Chess”
“Southern Lights”
“Mirage and Magia”
“The Three Brides of Hamid-Dar”
“The Pain of Glass”
“These Beasts”
“Two Lions, a Witch, and the War-Robe”
“A Tower of Arkrondurl”
“The Woman in Scarlet”
“Evillo the Uncunning”
“Tanith Lee truly has become the Scheherazade of our time.” –Arkham House
“From the day that her novel The Birthgrave was first published Tanith Lee has been a blazing gem in the crown of fantasy literature… ‘Princess Royal’… perhaps better the Empress of Dreams.” –Donald A. Wollheim
Throughout her forty-year career, Tanith Lee proved herself adept at numerous genres, including high fantasy, horror, science fiction, and combinations thereof. One of her specialties was the variety of heroic fantasy known as sword-and-sorcery. Novels such as The Birthgrave, Night’s Master, and The Storm Lord are highly regarded by both fans and critics, but she has a wealth of short stories to her credit as well. Sixteen of Tanith’s tales of swords and sorcery appear in this collection. When you read them, you will discover why she deserves such exalted titles as “Princess Royal of Heroic Fantasy” and The Empress of Dreams.
Stories included:
“Odds Against the Gods”
“Sleeping Tiger”
“The Demoness”
“The Sombrus Tower”
“Winter White”
“In the Balance”
“Northern Chess”
“Southern Lights”
“Mirage and Magia”
“The Three Brides of Hamid-Dar”
“The Pain of Glass”
“These Beasts”
“Two Lions, a Witch, and the War-Robe”
“A Tower of Arkrondurl”
“The Woman in Scarlet”
“Evillo the Uncunning”
269 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2021
52 people are currently reading
122 people want to read
About the author
Tanith Lee
613 books1,941 followersTanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of 77 novels, 14 collections, and almost 300 short stories. She also wrote four radio plays broadcast by the BBC and two scripts for the UK, science fiction, cult television series "Blake's 7."
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.
Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.
Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.
Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.
Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.
Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.
Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.
Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.
Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.
Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.
Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
February 5, 2021
An excellent collection, the stories are not all sword & sorcery tales as I was expecting from the publisher's synopsis, though certainly there are some. Most are in fact fable like tales that captivate with dark touches of the fantastical and mythical, frequently portraying an unfortunate hero or heroine preyed on or haunted by a malevolent force; whether demon, vampire, ghost, wizard or other shadowy figure. The writing is haunting, luxuriant and enchanting, with wonderfully exotic settings and characters often full of a naive boldness and affability as they venture forth across blighted landscapes.
All the stories are consistently excellent without fail. Standouts for me are the two feminist sword & sorcery stories Northern Chess and Southern Lights, both featuring Jaisel, woman warrior. A bold, clever warrior with a sharp tongue and manner, Jaisel confronts the ceaseless derision of the men she encounters, eager to, and capable of, outdoing them at every turn. I would have loved to read more Jaisel stories, but alas, Lee wrote only the two.
"She had fallen into the casual habit of the wandering adventurer. Destination was an excuse, never a goal. And when she saw the women at their looms or in their greasy kitchens, or tangled with babies, or broken with field work, or leering out of painted masks from shadowy town doorways, Jaisel’s urge to travel, to ride, to fly, to run away, increased."
Another standout is Evillo the Uncunning, which I first read in "Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance", probably the best SFF anthology I've ever read. It's the tale of a young adventurer who unwittingly follows in the footsteps of Cugel the Clever, encountering surprise after surprise, including a magical, talking snail that becomes his travelling companion. It's wonderfully droll and is the most humorous story in the collection, and I think perhaps the best.
All the stories are consistently excellent without fail. Standouts for me are the two feminist sword & sorcery stories Northern Chess and Southern Lights, both featuring Jaisel, woman warrior. A bold, clever warrior with a sharp tongue and manner, Jaisel confronts the ceaseless derision of the men she encounters, eager to, and capable of, outdoing them at every turn. I would have loved to read more Jaisel stories, but alas, Lee wrote only the two.
"She had fallen into the casual habit of the wandering adventurer. Destination was an excuse, never a goal. And when she saw the women at their looms or in their greasy kitchens, or tangled with babies, or broken with field work, or leering out of painted masks from shadowy town doorways, Jaisel’s urge to travel, to ride, to fly, to run away, increased."
Another standout is Evillo the Uncunning, which I first read in "Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance", probably the best SFF anthology I've ever read. It's the tale of a young adventurer who unwittingly follows in the footsteps of Cugel the Clever, encountering surprise after surprise, including a magical, talking snail that becomes his travelling companion. It's wonderfully droll and is the most humorous story in the collection, and I think perhaps the best.
February 12, 2021
I have collected Tanith Lee books for countless years. I am always on the lookout for something new to add to my collection. Then DMR Books announced a new anthology of Ms. Lee's short stories. Sixteen stories, and I had only read two before? Sign me up.
Tanith Lee's stories have a fairy tale, dream-like quality to them. They also have an air of twilight and antiquity to them. A darkness lurks at the edges. They are like a rare wine, to be sipped and savored. I took my time, enjoying each tale, a little at a time.
Odds Against the Gods
Truth, the foundling, chaffs at life cloistered in service to a god she doesn't believe in. Her misadventures and escapades are worthy of any Dying Earth tale.
Sleeping Tiger
After dispatching a bandit, Sky Tiger, seeks a temple to care for the dead man's remains. The help he seeks eludes him as he becomes embroiled in a mysterious act of magic.
The Demoness
The Vampire lives in the tower luring strangers to their doom. A foolish knight escapes her clutches, prompting a hunt for lost prey.
The Sombrus Tower
Set in same world as The Demoness. A knight finds himself cursed and decides to face his destiny. The journey to the Sombrus Tower is a long arduous trail.
Winter White
On the journey home a peerless warrior finds a trifle in a secluded place and keeps it. Right away something is wrong. Dauntless he bulls through to his peril. Learning too late that his actions have harvested an unbearable fruit.
In the Balance
A young magician apprentice seeks to become a full magician. Paired with his chief rival, only one will survive the test. Who will draw the ring and who the serpent?
Northern Chess
Jaisel is a female warrior, dismissed and degraded by male knights. She encounters an army laying siege to a castle made unbreachable by a sorcerer's curse. Everything has a weakness.
Southern Lights
Jaisel is back. Caught out in the cold wilderness, without a warm place to bed down she stumbles across a secluded town in celebration. A chance meeting leads her to lodging. Things don't add up though. There is something possibly nefarious going on. It's truly a shame that Ms. Lee only wrote two stories about Jaisel because I really enjoyed both. This particular tale was my favorite.
Mirage and Magia
A town is plagued by a beautiful demoness who lures men to her home and when they leave they are simpletons. What does she want? How can the townspeople make her stop? Or leave?
Sad to say The Three Brides of Hamid-Dar, The Pain of Glass, Two Lions a Witch, and a War Robe, and These Beasts didn't leave much of an impression on me.
A Tower of Arkrondurl
This was probably my second favorite story. Told in parts, each building upon the one before. Nine towers. Nine aspects of the Sorcerer Arkondurl. How do you kill something already dead that hell refuses to take?
The Woman in Scarlet
Another tale told in parts. A warrior caste who are bonded to their swords. Never taking another lover than their blades. The bond is unbreakable...right?
Evillo the Uncunning
Tanith's tribue to Jack Vance's Dying Earth. Evillo is a young man eager to see the world. His ignorance and idolization of Cugel the Clever lead him through many mishaps that could only happen on the Dying Earth.
A fantastic collection by an author who deserves much more accolades.
Recommended!
Tanith Lee's stories have a fairy tale, dream-like quality to them. They also have an air of twilight and antiquity to them. A darkness lurks at the edges. They are like a rare wine, to be sipped and savored. I took my time, enjoying each tale, a little at a time.
Odds Against the Gods
Truth, the foundling, chaffs at life cloistered in service to a god she doesn't believe in. Her misadventures and escapades are worthy of any Dying Earth tale.
Sleeping Tiger
After dispatching a bandit, Sky Tiger, seeks a temple to care for the dead man's remains. The help he seeks eludes him as he becomes embroiled in a mysterious act of magic.
The Demoness
The Vampire lives in the tower luring strangers to their doom. A foolish knight escapes her clutches, prompting a hunt for lost prey.
The Sombrus Tower
Set in same world as The Demoness. A knight finds himself cursed and decides to face his destiny. The journey to the Sombrus Tower is a long arduous trail.
Winter White
On the journey home a peerless warrior finds a trifle in a secluded place and keeps it. Right away something is wrong. Dauntless he bulls through to his peril. Learning too late that his actions have harvested an unbearable fruit.
In the Balance
A young magician apprentice seeks to become a full magician. Paired with his chief rival, only one will survive the test. Who will draw the ring and who the serpent?
Northern Chess
Jaisel is a female warrior, dismissed and degraded by male knights. She encounters an army laying siege to a castle made unbreachable by a sorcerer's curse. Everything has a weakness.
Southern Lights
Jaisel is back. Caught out in the cold wilderness, without a warm place to bed down she stumbles across a secluded town in celebration. A chance meeting leads her to lodging. Things don't add up though. There is something possibly nefarious going on. It's truly a shame that Ms. Lee only wrote two stories about Jaisel because I really enjoyed both. This particular tale was my favorite.
Mirage and Magia
A town is plagued by a beautiful demoness who lures men to her home and when they leave they are simpletons. What does she want? How can the townspeople make her stop? Or leave?
Sad to say The Three Brides of Hamid-Dar, The Pain of Glass, Two Lions a Witch, and a War Robe, and These Beasts didn't leave much of an impression on me.
A Tower of Arkrondurl
This was probably my second favorite story. Told in parts, each building upon the one before. Nine towers. Nine aspects of the Sorcerer Arkondurl. How do you kill something already dead that hell refuses to take?
The Woman in Scarlet
Another tale told in parts. A warrior caste who are bonded to their swords. Never taking another lover than their blades. The bond is unbreakable...right?
Evillo the Uncunning
Tanith's tribue to Jack Vance's Dying Earth. Evillo is a young man eager to see the world. His ignorance and idolization of Cugel the Clever lead him through many mishaps that could only happen on the Dying Earth.
A fantastic collection by an author who deserves much more accolades.
Recommended!
July 26, 2021
A collection of fantasy stories (mostly lying somewhere in the debatable borderlands of sword & sorcery) by the inimitable Tanith Lee, spanning her career from early to late. (My one minor niggle with the collection -- I didn't see any kind of copyright page listing the dates & sources for the individual stories.)
As always with Lee's fantasy, they were lush and decadent and enfolded me like a big, black velvet cloak.
As always with Lee's fantasy, they were lush and decadent and enfolded me like a big, black velvet cloak.
June 18, 2022
My favorites were Odds Against the Gods, The Demoness, & Northern Chess. I highly recommend this collection for those who enjoy Tanith Lee's Sword & Sorcery fantasy. S&S isn't my favorite subgenre of fantasy, which is likely why overall this collection felt like a 3 stars to me.
August 8, 2022
Tanith Lee infuses her fantasies with such a dreamlike quality that the colours become sharper, the clash of steel becomes more violent, beauties and words become even more sublime, and yet...
Yet the works become more ethereal— as if they are waiting to vanish once we have read them.
The present collection contains some of her finest fantasies.
Sixteen long and short works are present here. Several were too ornate and acted as soporifics. But several were taut, suspenseful, or humorous works that left an indelible impression upon me.
My favourites were~
1. Odds Against the Gods;
2. In the Balance;
3. Northern Chess;
4. Southern Lights;
5. The Three Brides of Hamad-Dar;
6. Two Lions, a Witch, and the War-Robe.
Above all, the book has been endowed with a truly spectacular cover, by Lauren Gornik.
Recommended.
Yet the works become more ethereal— as if they are waiting to vanish once we have read them.
The present collection contains some of her finest fantasies.
Sixteen long and short works are present here. Several were too ornate and acted as soporifics. But several were taut, suspenseful, or humorous works that left an indelible impression upon me.
My favourites were~
1. Odds Against the Gods;
2. In the Balance;
3. Northern Chess;
4. Southern Lights;
5. The Three Brides of Hamad-Dar;
6. Two Lions, a Witch, and the War-Robe.
Above all, the book has been endowed with a truly spectacular cover, by Lauren Gornik.
Recommended.
February 25, 2021
I have read Tanith Lee since my teen years, and lamented her death a few years back. Consequently, when DMR Books announced a new anthology of Ms. Lee's short stories of which I had read one, I was eager to dive in.
This collection does not disappoint. Lee had the ability to write in a wide variety of voices and styles, but one of her strongest was a slightly-detached, third person, almost like an updated tale-teller or fable-maker, punctuated with dry observations, sly wit but also sometimes incredible beauty or terror, mentioned almost off-hand. (For example of the latter, no one could make a one-sentence *inference* of a rape seem so horrific, while also necessary to a plot in one story, and then with only a slight bit of rephrasing talk about a main character's impotence in a humorous voice in another. Most writers would just bungle this, badly. Not Lee.)
There are 16 tales -- some overlap in setting, one returns to Lee's "Flat Earth", the rest are standalone.
Odds Against the Gods
Truth, the foundling, chaffs at life cloistered in service to a god of personal depravation and contrives to seduce a new acolyte, with decidedly unexpected consequences. This story could have ended at the midpoint and read one way, and quite satisfactorily. Taken to its conclusion it takes on a slightly different tone, equally fine.
Sleeping Tiger
An Asian fantasy that was a bit too trod and predictable.
The Demoness
One of two tales set in an Arthurian-esque setting. A curse lies on the seven greatest heroes in the realm. One has gone missing, another seeks him and the trail leads to a cursed tower, where lives a Vampiress who does not even fully comprehend what she is. The knight escapes her clutches, only making her desire him more, in a tireless pursuit across the realm. A sad, poetic and haunting story.
The Sombrus Tower
Set in same world as The Demoness, and taking up the tale of another of the cursed knights. The journey to the Sombrus Tower reads like the retelling of the Questing Beast told by a feverish Michael Moorcock writing an Eternal Champion episode. The end is visually powerful and decidedly disturbing.
Sadly, I don't think Lee wrote any more tales in this setting, so the fates of the other four knights remain unknown.
Winter White
A new take on those who live by the sword...a brutal northern warlord takes what he wants and destroys what opposes him...and then fate balances the scales.
In the Balance
A short, first person tale about two apprentices in a school of wizardry taking their final exam -- one ends in life, the other death. Harry Potter this isn't. A nice little story, but a bit short.
Northern Chess
One of two linked stories about the heroine Jaisel, who was Brienne of Tarth, long before Brienne was. Underestimated by the male knights she meets, she encounters an army laying siege to a castle defended by a sorcerer's curse.
Southern Lights
Fleeing the cold, Jaisel stumbles across a secluded town and meets a beautiful young girl who offers to bring her home where she may lodge with she and her father. The old man is blind, and seems to think Jaisel is a man, the daughter...well, something is wrong, with her, the house...everything.
The Jaisel and Sombrous Tower tales are by far the best in the volume, and I again lament there is no more to be had.
Mirage and Magia
A town is plagued by a beautiful enchantress who appears in town to summon men to their doom -- for after a night in her company, they emerge mindless. There is no rhyme or reason to whom she chooses or when, only that she shall. Then an equally strange man arrives to end her predations. This also reads like a strange twist on Turandot.
The Three Brides of Hamid-Dar
A tale so in keeping with the sorts of tales in the 1001 Nights you could have convinced me it was. Clever and whitty, but not a favorite.
The Pain of Glass
A tale of the Flat Earth, told in four scenes, each of which are the actions that came before, concluded with a short epilogue that brings us back to the present. The tale is well-done and the conceit works in Lee's gifted hands, but the final payoff requires a certain amount of empathy for the framing character, and there is no reason to have such, either during the tale or at its end.
Two Lions a Witch, and a War Robe
This one I just didn't like.
These Beasts
An Egyptian-esque tale about someone who tries to rob the tomb of Anubis (Anubar) himself, and pays a terrible, if unexpected price. This was a straight-up Weird Tales-style pulp-horror tale and great fun.
A Tower of Arkrondurl
The Sorcerer Arkondurl built nine towers, each to house a fragment of himself, so that he might never be fully slain, but his psyche is fractured thereby. How do you kill such a thing? The answer may surprise!
The Woman in Scarlet
A warrior caste who are bonded to their sentient swords, which appear to them in their dreams in female form. Companion, counselor and lover, the swords demand everything from the warrior and in return are faithful companions. But if one were...fickle?
Evillo the Uncunning
Tanith's tribue to Jack Vance's Dying Earth. Evillo is a young man eager to see the world. His ignorance and idolization of Cugel the Clever lead him through many mishaps that could only happen on the Dying Earth. A good story, though I was never a huge Dying Earth fan.
There is only one truly disappointing story, and maybe two or three that are so-so, and of the remaining dozen, at least half are *excellent* making this collection well worth your time and money.
This collection does not disappoint. Lee had the ability to write in a wide variety of voices and styles, but one of her strongest was a slightly-detached, third person, almost like an updated tale-teller or fable-maker, punctuated with dry observations, sly wit but also sometimes incredible beauty or terror, mentioned almost off-hand. (For example of the latter, no one could make a one-sentence *inference* of a rape seem so horrific, while also necessary to a plot in one story, and then with only a slight bit of rephrasing talk about a main character's impotence in a humorous voice in another. Most writers would just bungle this, badly. Not Lee.)
There are 16 tales -- some overlap in setting, one returns to Lee's "Flat Earth", the rest are standalone.
Odds Against the Gods
Truth, the foundling, chaffs at life cloistered in service to a god of personal depravation and contrives to seduce a new acolyte, with decidedly unexpected consequences. This story could have ended at the midpoint and read one way, and quite satisfactorily. Taken to its conclusion it takes on a slightly different tone, equally fine.
Sleeping Tiger
An Asian fantasy that was a bit too trod and predictable.
The Demoness
One of two tales set in an Arthurian-esque setting. A curse lies on the seven greatest heroes in the realm. One has gone missing, another seeks him and the trail leads to a cursed tower, where lives a Vampiress who does not even fully comprehend what she is. The knight escapes her clutches, only making her desire him more, in a tireless pursuit across the realm. A sad, poetic and haunting story.
The Sombrus Tower
Set in same world as The Demoness, and taking up the tale of another of the cursed knights. The journey to the Sombrus Tower reads like the retelling of the Questing Beast told by a feverish Michael Moorcock writing an Eternal Champion episode. The end is visually powerful and decidedly disturbing.
Sadly, I don't think Lee wrote any more tales in this setting, so the fates of the other four knights remain unknown.
Winter White
A new take on those who live by the sword...a brutal northern warlord takes what he wants and destroys what opposes him...and then fate balances the scales.
In the Balance
A short, first person tale about two apprentices in a school of wizardry taking their final exam -- one ends in life, the other death. Harry Potter this isn't. A nice little story, but a bit short.
Northern Chess
One of two linked stories about the heroine Jaisel, who was Brienne of Tarth, long before Brienne was. Underestimated by the male knights she meets, she encounters an army laying siege to a castle defended by a sorcerer's curse.
Southern Lights
Fleeing the cold, Jaisel stumbles across a secluded town and meets a beautiful young girl who offers to bring her home where she may lodge with she and her father. The old man is blind, and seems to think Jaisel is a man, the daughter...well, something is wrong, with her, the house...everything.
The Jaisel and Sombrous Tower tales are by far the best in the volume, and I again lament there is no more to be had.
Mirage and Magia
A town is plagued by a beautiful enchantress who appears in town to summon men to their doom -- for after a night in her company, they emerge mindless. There is no rhyme or reason to whom she chooses or when, only that she shall. Then an equally strange man arrives to end her predations. This also reads like a strange twist on Turandot.
The Three Brides of Hamid-Dar
A tale so in keeping with the sorts of tales in the 1001 Nights you could have convinced me it was. Clever and whitty, but not a favorite.
The Pain of Glass
A tale of the Flat Earth, told in four scenes, each of which are the actions that came before, concluded with a short epilogue that brings us back to the present. The tale is well-done and the conceit works in Lee's gifted hands, but the final payoff requires a certain amount of empathy for the framing character, and there is no reason to have such, either during the tale or at its end.
Two Lions a Witch, and a War Robe
This one I just didn't like.
These Beasts
An Egyptian-esque tale about someone who tries to rob the tomb of Anubis (Anubar) himself, and pays a terrible, if unexpected price. This was a straight-up Weird Tales-style pulp-horror tale and great fun.
A Tower of Arkrondurl
The Sorcerer Arkondurl built nine towers, each to house a fragment of himself, so that he might never be fully slain, but his psyche is fractured thereby. How do you kill such a thing? The answer may surprise!
The Woman in Scarlet
A warrior caste who are bonded to their sentient swords, which appear to them in their dreams in female form. Companion, counselor and lover, the swords demand everything from the warrior and in return are faithful companions. But if one were...fickle?
Evillo the Uncunning
Tanith's tribue to Jack Vance's Dying Earth. Evillo is a young man eager to see the world. His ignorance and idolization of Cugel the Clever lead him through many mishaps that could only happen on the Dying Earth. A good story, though I was never a huge Dying Earth fan.
There is only one truly disappointing story, and maybe two or three that are so-so, and of the remaining dozen, at least half are *excellent* making this collection well worth your time and money.
May 17, 2021
This was actually my first exposure to the writings of Tanith Lee (save the story 'Evillo the Uncunning' which is also contained in this collection) and I feel kind of weird that I never read her work before now. She is a remarkable wordsmith in that 70s fantasy vibe I enjoy so much.
May 7, 2023
The Emperor of Dreams fu una preziosa selezione dei racconti perturbanti di quel principe nero chiamato Clark Ashton Smith, e DMR Books ha fatto benissimo a richiamarne il titolo in questo volume dedicato a Tanith Lee, perché vari racconti qui contenuti presentano sicuramente quel gusto sanguigno e crudele tipicamente smithiano – ma anche tante, tante altre tonalità, perché in quasi quarant'anni di carriera Lee si è confermata paurosamente eclettica, tanto da saper spaziare in lungo in largo persino in quel genere apparentemente angusto che è l'heroic fantasy.
Nello specifico, The Empress of Dreams si apre con due pezzi degli anni Settanta, il racconto picaresco brutale e al contempo dissacrante "Odds Against the Gods" e la storia di spettri dal sapore finto-cinese "Sleeping Tiger", testi che personalmente accosterei al Fritz Leiber dei migliori episodi della saga di Fafhrd e il Grigio Acchiappatopi, ovverosia quelli tragicomici in cui gli dèi sono ingordi, i preti pavidi, i negromanti tronfi quanto pericolosi, i furfanti delle merde umane tremendamente simpatiche. Successivamente abbiamo il dittico di racconti sui cavalieri di Krennok, il premiato "The Demoness" e il meno noto "The Sombrus Tower", che sono assolutamente eccellenti nel dare una piega orrorifica (e in certi versi femminista anti-machista) al tropo desueto della cerca cavalleresca, e a mostrarci forze tenebrose che siano o paurosamente imbattibili, o tremendamente degne di empatia.
Dopo una rinfrancante favola esopea di magia, "In the Balance", e un racconto di orrore erotico dalla patina celtica, "Winter White", incontriamo invece le due avventure della spadaccina Jaisel, "Northern Chess" e "Southern Lights", palesemente inserite in quel filone di fantasy femminista della seconda ondata che, se non erro, trovava espressione attorno a Marion Zimmer Bradley ed era avversato da Ursula Le Guin – ovverosia lineari storie d'azione le cui eroine femminili (tendenzialmente maschiacci) reclamano per sé l'accesso alle tradizionali fantasie maschili di violenza e avventura, ricalcando in modo un po' pedissequo e non esattamente innovativo gli antecedenti pulp di Jirel di Joiry o di Valeria della Fratellanza Rossa. A sollevare Jaisel molto al di sopra di questa base derivativa, ci sono una graziosa estetica da Europa rinascimentale, nel primo racconto un approccio inter-diegetico al tema sessismo che dà sicuramente più serietà alla trama, e nel secondo racconto una struttura di piccolo mistero che sorprende per quanto non succede più che per quello che succede – validi, il secondo più del primo, ma capisco perché Lee abbia abbandonato il personaggio.
Passiamo quindi a una trafila di quattro racconti d'estetica (di nuovo) orientaleggiante, probabilmente i più smithiani della raccolta, tanto che in varia forma potrebbero tutti provenire da una sorta di aggiunta di Tanith Lee a Le mille e una notte: "Mirage and Magia" è un apologo morale di vanità e autostima dall'estetica oserei dire birmano-tibetana, "The Three Brides of Hamad-Har" è esplicitamente una storia picaresca alla maniera mille-e-una-notturna entro il filone delle disavventure di facchini e mendicanti, "The Pain of Glass" è una complessa vicenda di amor perduto narrata a ritroso e collocata nell'universo leeano della Terra Piatta (saga che a questo punto devo assolutamente recuperare...), "The Beasts" è una storia di ladri e tombe maledette che da sola vale mille volte la (brutta) raccolta italiana sull'argomento Thanatolia.
Infine, il volume ci propone quattro racconti ciascuno dei quali più unico che raro: "Two Lions, a Witch, and the War-Robe" decostruisce gli stilemi high fantasy più manierati facendoli confliggere con risultati caricaturali con lo sword & sorcery leiberiano, "A Tower of Akrondurl" ci narra il proverbiale giorno speciale che si rivela ordinario nella vita di un mago (e sarà la gioia di chi ama le fettine di vita), "The Woman in Scarlet" (il racconto che dà la copertina alla raccolta) elabora il simbolismo fallico di ogni fantasia eroica a base di spade e ne ricava una struggente storia d'amore fra un guerriero e la sua lama, e infine "Evillo the Uncunning" ci ripropone, circolarmente, un racconto picaresco tragicomico, ma non uno qualsiasi – un omaggio alla saga picaresca tragicomica della Terra Morente di Jack Vance, in cui l'eroe Evillo è fan sfegatato delle leggende di cui parla la saga originale vanciana (e ciò mi stimola a maggior ragione a ricominciare a leggerla).
Dopo aver letto questa raccolta, il mio amore per madama Lee è cresciuto esponenzialmente, perché ci vuole un grande estro per cogliere così bene l'essenza estetica dell'heroic fantasy, quella discrepanza un po' antico greca fra la proattività umana e il distacco ora severo ora grottesco degli dèi, e per eseguirla in così tante tinte e note diverse. Uno scrigno del tesoro da cui c'è tanto da imparare.
Nello specifico, The Empress of Dreams si apre con due pezzi degli anni Settanta, il racconto picaresco brutale e al contempo dissacrante "Odds Against the Gods" e la storia di spettri dal sapore finto-cinese "Sleeping Tiger", testi che personalmente accosterei al Fritz Leiber dei migliori episodi della saga di Fafhrd e il Grigio Acchiappatopi, ovverosia quelli tragicomici in cui gli dèi sono ingordi, i preti pavidi, i negromanti tronfi quanto pericolosi, i furfanti delle merde umane tremendamente simpatiche. Successivamente abbiamo il dittico di racconti sui cavalieri di Krennok, il premiato "The Demoness" e il meno noto "The Sombrus Tower", che sono assolutamente eccellenti nel dare una piega orrorifica (e in certi versi femminista anti-machista) al tropo desueto della cerca cavalleresca, e a mostrarci forze tenebrose che siano o paurosamente imbattibili, o tremendamente degne di empatia.
Dopo una rinfrancante favola esopea di magia, "In the Balance", e un racconto di orrore erotico dalla patina celtica, "Winter White", incontriamo invece le due avventure della spadaccina Jaisel, "Northern Chess" e "Southern Lights", palesemente inserite in quel filone di fantasy femminista della seconda ondata che, se non erro, trovava espressione attorno a Marion Zimmer Bradley ed era avversato da Ursula Le Guin – ovverosia lineari storie d'azione le cui eroine femminili (tendenzialmente maschiacci) reclamano per sé l'accesso alle tradizionali fantasie maschili di violenza e avventura, ricalcando in modo un po' pedissequo e non esattamente innovativo gli antecedenti pulp di Jirel di Joiry o di Valeria della Fratellanza Rossa. A sollevare Jaisel molto al di sopra di questa base derivativa, ci sono una graziosa estetica da Europa rinascimentale, nel primo racconto un approccio inter-diegetico al tema sessismo che dà sicuramente più serietà alla trama, e nel secondo racconto una struttura di piccolo mistero che sorprende per quanto non succede più che per quello che succede – validi, il secondo più del primo, ma capisco perché Lee abbia abbandonato il personaggio.
Passiamo quindi a una trafila di quattro racconti d'estetica (di nuovo) orientaleggiante, probabilmente i più smithiani della raccolta, tanto che in varia forma potrebbero tutti provenire da una sorta di aggiunta di Tanith Lee a Le mille e una notte: "Mirage and Magia" è un apologo morale di vanità e autostima dall'estetica oserei dire birmano-tibetana, "The Three Brides of Hamad-Har" è esplicitamente una storia picaresca alla maniera mille-e-una-notturna entro il filone delle disavventure di facchini e mendicanti, "The Pain of Glass" è una complessa vicenda di amor perduto narrata a ritroso e collocata nell'universo leeano della Terra Piatta (saga che a questo punto devo assolutamente recuperare...), "The Beasts" è una storia di ladri e tombe maledette che da sola vale mille volte la (brutta) raccolta italiana sull'argomento Thanatolia.
Infine, il volume ci propone quattro racconti ciascuno dei quali più unico che raro: "Two Lions, a Witch, and the War-Robe" decostruisce gli stilemi high fantasy più manierati facendoli confliggere con risultati caricaturali con lo sword & sorcery leiberiano, "A Tower of Akrondurl" ci narra il proverbiale giorno speciale che si rivela ordinario nella vita di un mago (e sarà la gioia di chi ama le fettine di vita), "The Woman in Scarlet" (il racconto che dà la copertina alla raccolta) elabora il simbolismo fallico di ogni fantasia eroica a base di spade e ne ricava una struggente storia d'amore fra un guerriero e la sua lama, e infine "Evillo the Uncunning" ci ripropone, circolarmente, un racconto picaresco tragicomico, ma non uno qualsiasi – un omaggio alla saga picaresca tragicomica della Terra Morente di Jack Vance, in cui l'eroe Evillo è fan sfegatato delle leggende di cui parla la saga originale vanciana (e ciò mi stimola a maggior ragione a ricominciare a leggerla).
Dopo aver letto questa raccolta, il mio amore per madama Lee è cresciuto esponenzialmente, perché ci vuole un grande estro per cogliere così bene l'essenza estetica dell'heroic fantasy, quella discrepanza un po' antico greca fra la proattività umana e il distacco ora severo ora grottesco degli dèi, e per eseguirla in così tante tinte e note diverse. Uno scrigno del tesoro da cui c'è tanto da imparare.
July 23, 2021
I love Tanith Lee's style of story-telling with the wildly imaginative flights of fancy and mythical darkness. I think she was influenced at least in part by Arabian Nights especially on The Three Brides Of Hamid-Dar. Many of the stories have feminist themes woven throughout. The final story was particular great, and it turns out that part of why I like it so much is that Lee is a fan of Jack Vance, and this story was set in his Dying Earth as part of a tribute anthology.
April 15, 2022
First, regarding the cover-this is sword & sorcery, not erotica. Just wanted to get that out of the way. While the cover is nice art and does fit a sort of dark sorceress motif it also stops most readers from reading this book in public and will loose some sales due to misinterpretations of what sort of writing is in here. Which is a shame, for these are the magical stories of Tannith Lee, full of humor, magic, adventure, and madness in the best traditions.
“Odds Against the Gods” starts off this collection with a truly fantastic Sword & Sorcery story set with a very casual, matter of fact voice and tone. While the events portrayed are funny and magical and sinister and all the things they ought to be for the subgenre, the fiery energy of most S&S seems inverted to instead generate an off macabre humor that still evokes some sympathy.
“Sleeping Tiger” began with some awkward sentence structures, every coma breaks the flow, even of otherwise excellent sentences, see, this effect if done purposefully can be great, for simulating rocking effects, but without purpose it just disrupts, mostly the reader. Anyway, it started a bit strange that way. But then it improved thought out to show a short supernatural tale of loyalty, love, and sacrifice.
The next story is “the Demoness” which is probably the best sucubus story ever written. It is not over sexualized, as the majority of such stories are. Here Lee’s soft, understated style does its charm, presenting a totally alien mindset in a creature’s tale that is so sympathetic despite also telling something of the horror the being has and does perpetrate. It should be mentioned that the writing is as always very beautiful too-color and simile are employed majestically to paint mesmerizing scenes that may lack the fire of most sword and sorcery yet are enchanting all the same.
“The Sombrus Tower” highlights the writers best strength-her etchings of sorcery and elder world things. While this is not Lovecraft or twilight zone it falls nicely somewhere in between, driving and moving stories and characters along. Here we find that we are in the same stories universe as the last tale, though obviously both stand easily on there own. Here again we have a theme of fate and doom in dance with a hero. Also again the theme of women and feminine beauty, cast over a back drop of the inhumanely strange. This story ends in a jarring, disjointed fashion that leaves lots of tension and plot unresolved, which I fashion is rather the point-it fits better here than a more classic story structure, letting the reader experience s little of the deadly angst, agony, and desperate disjointed spirits of the protagonist perhaps.
“Winter White” continues on in a similar style from the previously noted, though now our ‘hero’ is even more the sword & sorcery outsider (though a leader, he fits due to his savage nature and uncivilized, uncouth ways) and here we have a near comic continual encounter with the supernatural as our protagonist is so stoic he shrugs off most of the strangeness happening to him. For a while. In any event, this is just a wonderfully told story.
“In the Balance” is a short moral tale that was enjoyable for the emotional spin and the perfect play of tension and reader expectations.
“Northern Chess” begins with the sword and sorcery heroine that male writers so often would only write as side characters, but here she is the protagonist. Though dashing and what you’d expect, she is immediately cast in a scene and situations particularly vile for women and herself in particular, into a rapine cursed town where the knights are a danger and women birth monsters due to the curse. Perhaps it was just me, but I felt like this story had a dark, sexual tone through out which we 21st century readers have of course encountered elsewhere by now unless we have been hiding beneath a rock-regardless, it ramps up the tension, risks, and symbology of the story in strange ways which it otherwise might not. It should be noted in that while the overly sexualized word choices and actions are definitely a thing, there are also some nice word plays as a sort of strange hand shake with past male writers. Here witch-fire is used to describe the white of a corpse and not the white figure of a woman as Howard had done. I also found it amusing the use of “square” as one of the ‘cool’ sayings of our heroine, probably the first time I’ve seen that used non-ironically. Ah, the cool words of yesteryear become the nostalgic retired silver phrases of tomorrow, ever always.
“Southern Lights” is *spoiler* an interesting spin and twist on Frankenstein I think, made all the more fun by being another Jaisel tale which allows for some interesting inferences and of course a continuation of her adventures-though I felt she was uniquely inclined to make the worst of what was occurring.
“Mirage and Magia” is a good example of a common character and expression magnified many times by fantastic means-for surely many woman are the enchantress of this tale and perhaps what she sought they sought to, at least some? At least that was my take on this tale.
“The Three Brides of Hamid-Dar” seems loosely Arabian nights themed and was a thoroughly entertaining, though harrowing, story. Though I probably disagree with the message at the end-how can’t we?-it is certainly indeed memorable and up for many interpretations.
“The Pain of Glass” has an interesting narrative structure that holds a fascinating, harrowing tale of love and glass blown and shattered by intrigue and death. Though I liked the tale a lot, I’d like to rewrite that ending.
“These Beasts” seems slightly reminiscent of Ashton Smith’s writings in concept at least, though the tone and humor are all Lee’s. It’s a short tomb robbing story that goes about how one might expect with some interesting additions that figure in well with some of the sexualized plot and setting that Lee sometimes seems to implement. Nothing to extreme, but yet . . .
“Two Lions, a Witch, and a War-robe” is probably the funniest selection I’ve read in this anthology. As with many other stories, it’s is very surreal; here one feels that if there is a Narnia, it must be a drug that one had far to much of. That said, it was a largely good story with a beautiful use of tension and the comical to form it’s arc.
“The Tower if Arkondural” presents an unconventional hero in a life and death struggle. While not the strongest tale in this selection it was memorable and enjoyable in its own way.
“The Woman in Scarlet” is nothing short of a masterpiece. The world and mythos made within is wonderful-I wish it were a dnd setting; it ought to be. I wonder if the swords from Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive had their intellectual birth here, for this is a world of soul spirited Swords with a capital S. It does all this while giving a hat tip to “A Study in Scarlet” with the same philosophic undertones. And then there is the larger story itself, which can be read in so many different ways. It’s one of those stories that you can’t help but think about and rethink over again. Exceptional as the sly Sword herself. We are left with a strange tension, questions of mortality, morality, love, and death where we do not know who is hero or villian though we hear the song of Swords . . . Or so I think at least.
“Evillo the Uncanny” is probably my least favorite of this collection as I completely lost track of the plot a quarter way through. It seemed to me reminiscent of the stories of the monkey king as here we have a sort of empowering series of quest stories with many hyperbolic comedic moments steeped in magic.
“Odds Against the Gods” starts off this collection with a truly fantastic Sword & Sorcery story set with a very casual, matter of fact voice and tone. While the events portrayed are funny and magical and sinister and all the things they ought to be for the subgenre, the fiery energy of most S&S seems inverted to instead generate an off macabre humor that still evokes some sympathy.
“Sleeping Tiger” began with some awkward sentence structures, every coma breaks the flow, even of otherwise excellent sentences, see, this effect if done purposefully can be great, for simulating rocking effects, but without purpose it just disrupts, mostly the reader. Anyway, it started a bit strange that way. But then it improved thought out to show a short supernatural tale of loyalty, love, and sacrifice.
The next story is “the Demoness” which is probably the best sucubus story ever written. It is not over sexualized, as the majority of such stories are. Here Lee’s soft, understated style does its charm, presenting a totally alien mindset in a creature’s tale that is so sympathetic despite also telling something of the horror the being has and does perpetrate. It should be mentioned that the writing is as always very beautiful too-color and simile are employed majestically to paint mesmerizing scenes that may lack the fire of most sword and sorcery yet are enchanting all the same.
“The Sombrus Tower” highlights the writers best strength-her etchings of sorcery and elder world things. While this is not Lovecraft or twilight zone it falls nicely somewhere in between, driving and moving stories and characters along. Here we find that we are in the same stories universe as the last tale, though obviously both stand easily on there own. Here again we have a theme of fate and doom in dance with a hero. Also again the theme of women and feminine beauty, cast over a back drop of the inhumanely strange. This story ends in a jarring, disjointed fashion that leaves lots of tension and plot unresolved, which I fashion is rather the point-it fits better here than a more classic story structure, letting the reader experience s little of the deadly angst, agony, and desperate disjointed spirits of the protagonist perhaps.
“Winter White” continues on in a similar style from the previously noted, though now our ‘hero’ is even more the sword & sorcery outsider (though a leader, he fits due to his savage nature and uncivilized, uncouth ways) and here we have a near comic continual encounter with the supernatural as our protagonist is so stoic he shrugs off most of the strangeness happening to him. For a while. In any event, this is just a wonderfully told story.
“In the Balance” is a short moral tale that was enjoyable for the emotional spin and the perfect play of tension and reader expectations.
“Northern Chess” begins with the sword and sorcery heroine that male writers so often would only write as side characters, but here she is the protagonist. Though dashing and what you’d expect, she is immediately cast in a scene and situations particularly vile for women and herself in particular, into a rapine cursed town where the knights are a danger and women birth monsters due to the curse. Perhaps it was just me, but I felt like this story had a dark, sexual tone through out which we 21st century readers have of course encountered elsewhere by now unless we have been hiding beneath a rock-regardless, it ramps up the tension, risks, and symbology of the story in strange ways which it otherwise might not. It should be noted in that while the overly sexualized word choices and actions are definitely a thing, there are also some nice word plays as a sort of strange hand shake with past male writers. Here witch-fire is used to describe the white of a corpse and not the white figure of a woman as Howard had done. I also found it amusing the use of “square” as one of the ‘cool’ sayings of our heroine, probably the first time I’ve seen that used non-ironically. Ah, the cool words of yesteryear become the nostalgic retired silver phrases of tomorrow, ever always.
“Southern Lights” is *spoiler* an interesting spin and twist on Frankenstein I think, made all the more fun by being another Jaisel tale which allows for some interesting inferences and of course a continuation of her adventures-though I felt she was uniquely inclined to make the worst of what was occurring.
“Mirage and Magia” is a good example of a common character and expression magnified many times by fantastic means-for surely many woman are the enchantress of this tale and perhaps what she sought they sought to, at least some? At least that was my take on this tale.
“The Three Brides of Hamid-Dar” seems loosely Arabian nights themed and was a thoroughly entertaining, though harrowing, story. Though I probably disagree with the message at the end-how can’t we?-it is certainly indeed memorable and up for many interpretations.
“The Pain of Glass” has an interesting narrative structure that holds a fascinating, harrowing tale of love and glass blown and shattered by intrigue and death. Though I liked the tale a lot, I’d like to rewrite that ending.
“These Beasts” seems slightly reminiscent of Ashton Smith’s writings in concept at least, though the tone and humor are all Lee’s. It’s a short tomb robbing story that goes about how one might expect with some interesting additions that figure in well with some of the sexualized plot and setting that Lee sometimes seems to implement. Nothing to extreme, but yet . . .
“Two Lions, a Witch, and a War-robe” is probably the funniest selection I’ve read in this anthology. As with many other stories, it’s is very surreal; here one feels that if there is a Narnia, it must be a drug that one had far to much of. That said, it was a largely good story with a beautiful use of tension and the comical to form it’s arc.
“The Tower if Arkondural” presents an unconventional hero in a life and death struggle. While not the strongest tale in this selection it was memorable and enjoyable in its own way.
“The Woman in Scarlet” is nothing short of a masterpiece. The world and mythos made within is wonderful-I wish it were a dnd setting; it ought to be. I wonder if the swords from Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive had their intellectual birth here, for this is a world of soul spirited Swords with a capital S. It does all this while giving a hat tip to “A Study in Scarlet” with the same philosophic undertones. And then there is the larger story itself, which can be read in so many different ways. It’s one of those stories that you can’t help but think about and rethink over again. Exceptional as the sly Sword herself. We are left with a strange tension, questions of mortality, morality, love, and death where we do not know who is hero or villian though we hear the song of Swords . . . Or so I think at least.
“Evillo the Uncanny” is probably my least favorite of this collection as I completely lost track of the plot a quarter way through. It seemed to me reminiscent of the stories of the monkey king as here we have a sort of empowering series of quest stories with many hyperbolic comedic moments steeped in magic.
April 7, 2022
I think I’m an outlier here. I liked this book, and I wanted to like it more than I did, but there’ something about Tanith Lee that just does not click with me. Definitely worth checking out to broaden your fantasy horizons but not my cup of tea, even though it felt like it should be.
What I really like about the stories in this collection is the elegant prose and general dreamlike sense of everything. Highlights for me would be The Three Brides of Hamilton-Dar and the Pain of Glass. I thought these were very beautiful, albeit in a dark way. I liked the two Jaisel stories - Southern Lights in particular. Though they do ultimately feel like mean-spirited homages to Jirel of Joiry.
So what doesn’t click with me? I think part of it is there is a heavy cynicism and bitterness in all of this, and juxtaposed against the elegant prose I find ti jarring. I like more mercenary motives in S&S, but most of these characters just feel ugly, unnecessarily cruel, and I don’t enjoy that. Though beautifully dreamlike, the stories can often be too meandering like the opener Odds Against the Gods. Also S&S is a racy genre, but this I think doesn’t leave enough to the imagination, and definitely too much sexual violence for my taste.
It’s funny it ends with a Vance homage. I feel the exact same way about Vance’s Dying Earth books as I do this collection.. I feel richer for reading them, but don’t actually like them.
Idk, what can I say? A story about a dude who’s married to his sword, and then his sword cheats on him with some foppish dandy might be very clever but just not for me.
What I really like about the stories in this collection is the elegant prose and general dreamlike sense of everything. Highlights for me would be The Three Brides of Hamilton-Dar and the Pain of Glass. I thought these were very beautiful, albeit in a dark way. I liked the two Jaisel stories - Southern Lights in particular. Though they do ultimately feel like mean-spirited homages to Jirel of Joiry.
So what doesn’t click with me? I think part of it is there is a heavy cynicism and bitterness in all of this, and juxtaposed against the elegant prose I find ti jarring. I like more mercenary motives in S&S, but most of these characters just feel ugly, unnecessarily cruel, and I don’t enjoy that. Though beautifully dreamlike, the stories can often be too meandering like the opener Odds Against the Gods. Also S&S is a racy genre, but this I think doesn’t leave enough to the imagination, and definitely too much sexual violence for my taste.
It’s funny it ends with a Vance homage. I feel the exact same way about Vance’s Dying Earth books as I do this collection.. I feel richer for reading them, but don’t actually like them.
Idk, what can I say? A story about a dude who’s married to his sword, and then his sword cheats on him with some foppish dandy might be very clever but just not for me.
December 2, 2021
Another amazing collection by Tanith Lee
Almost impossible to describe the experience of reading this book. It is visual and beautiful. Her language is astounding. I Must read more!
Almost impossible to describe the experience of reading this book. It is visual and beautiful. Her language is astounding. I Must read more!
June 22, 2025
Of All Time
There's really not a lot to say here. Tanith Lee is not simply one of the best writers "in terms" of something, like heroic fantasy, sword and sorcery, Dying Earth fanfiction, or any of those titles, and others besides, with the word "women's" stuck before it. She is one of the greatest writers ever to walk on planet Earth. Most famous for the "Tales of the Flat Earth" series, this collection brings together some of her more obscure and stand-alone short stories, which otherwise might never have seen reprinting. DMR Books deserves effusive praise for publishing this anthology from everyone alive.
Also, at the very end of the book we hear Tanith Lee in her own words, giving a quick afterword about how the work of the immortal Jack Vance changed her life, the way her own work has changed others. .... Particularly Neil Gaiman, amirite? Sorry. Anyway I felt that was very touching.
There's really not a lot to say here. Tanith Lee is not simply one of the best writers "in terms" of something, like heroic fantasy, sword and sorcery, Dying Earth fanfiction, or any of those titles, and others besides, with the word "women's" stuck before it. She is one of the greatest writers ever to walk on planet Earth. Most famous for the "Tales of the Flat Earth" series, this collection brings together some of her more obscure and stand-alone short stories, which otherwise might never have seen reprinting. DMR Books deserves effusive praise for publishing this anthology from everyone alive.
Also, at the very end of the book we hear Tanith Lee in her own words, giving a quick afterword about how the work of the immortal Jack Vance changed her life, the way her own work has changed others. .... Particularly Neil Gaiman, amirite? Sorry. Anyway I felt that was very touching.
March 9, 2021
"Razibond’s face was now a marvellous study for any student of the human mood. It had passed through the blank pink of shock to the crimson of wrath, sunk a second in superstitious, uneasy yellow, before escalating into an extraordinary puce—a hue that would have assured any dye-maker a fortune, had he been able to reproduce it."
from Two Lions, a Witch and the War-Robe
♔
"Bats flickered now over the hills, like the paling-darkening blink of sudden eyes."
from A Tower of Arkrondurl
♔
You will also encounter Kaiin . . . he who is the husband of the Empress.
LLAP
from Two Lions, a Witch and the War-Robe
♔
"Bats flickered now over the hills, like the paling-darkening blink of sudden eyes."
from A Tower of Arkrondurl
♔
You will also encounter Kaiin . . . he who is the husband of the Empress.
LLAP
March 11, 2025
Such a great mix of Tanith Lee shorts. Took my time with these, picked it up when I needed a break from reality. Plus a great ode to Jack Vance with the last story, Evillo the Uncunning. I'm sure to be returning to this collection in due time, but for now on to more Tanith Lee.
October 6, 2021
DNF - read the first two.
Realized it was short stories after I began reading. I don't often enjoy short stories.
Realized it was short stories after I began reading. I don't often enjoy short stories.
February 24, 2023
A perfect score for a perfect collection of the fantastical and the weird, if you like Clark Ashton Smith and you haven't read Tanith Lee, then what the fuck are you doing with your life?
January 21, 2023
****1/4: “The Sombrus Tower” is one of the best pieces of weird fiction, sword & sorcery that I have ever read. The other stories come damn close to matching it. Tanith Lee is still vastly underrated, a true master of the genre.
January 13, 2022
Empress of Dreams is an anthology collecting a selection of Tanith Lee’s short sword and sorcery fiction, published by indie publisher DMR Press in January 2021. The sixteen short stories collected here, originally published in a variety of anthologies, span the majority of Lee’s forty year writing career, ranging from Demoness (1976) to A Tower of Arkrondurl (2013, just two years before her death).
The title of the anthology, Empress of Dreams, is taken from a letter in praise of Lee by renowned SF&F editor Donald A Wollheim, who was the co-founder of DAW and who published Lee’s first S&S novel, The Birthgrave. Given the contents of this collection, it certainly serves as a fitting sobriquet.
While all these stories fit within the realms of sword and sorcery, they are happy to stretch and broaden that genre. The reader will find no ‘clonans’ within this collection, no barbarian heroes flexing their thews for riches and glory. There is often little combat to be found in these stories. Lee writes sword and sorcery as gothic fable: the mood is mysterious and macabre with the logic of the world serving the motif of the story. This helps lend her work a timeless quality, as if they were lost legends or folk tales, complete with dreamlike horror, luxuriant language, and often wry or cruel humour, though at times the poetry of the story can come at the expense of clarity.
Lee touches on many themes in the stories collected here. Some that recur with regularity are the desire to make one's own destiny, the repercussions of wrongdoing, and the capriciousness of human nature. Stories such as "The Three Brides of Hamid-Dar," "Mirage and Magia," and "The Pain of Glass" could slip almost without comment into a copy of 1001 Arabian Nights, while tales such as "Southern Lights" would have been appreciated by the Brothers Grimm.
My favourite of the anthology, "Winter White," is a horror tale. The basic set up, that of a haunted object, is reminiscent of the works of M.R. James (in particular, "Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come for You, My Lad"). In Lee’s hands, this is no mere ghost story. This is a tale of dark passions and darker happenings, a story set in a land which may be ancient Britain, or maybe somewhere stranger. Lee’s passion for the gothic and the fantastic shine here, creating a story that lingers long after the pages are turned.
Another highlight is the story that closes the anthology, "Evillo the Uncunning." This tale originally appeared in Songs of the Dying Earth, an anthology honouring the work of Jack Vance, and in it, Lee (a writer who counted Vance among her inspirations) tells the story about Evillo, a youth living upon the Dying Earth, who is inspired by stories he is told of Cugel (Vance’s protagonist in several Dying Earth stories). Here Lee nails the tone of Vance’s work. The story is full of adventure, weirdness, irony and magic, yet she brings enough of her own sensibilities to make the story stand out as a joy to read, whether or not the reader is conversant with Vance’s oeuvre. The reader may not look at snails the same way again.
Tanith Lee remains an author whose large body of work is less well known or well-read among fantasy fans than her gift for writing or the regard in which her work is held should warrant. With this anthology, DMR has made her sword and sorcery work available to a new audience, and the tales within do well to demonstrate the breadth and scope possible within the genre. For anyone whose appetite has been wetted by it, her Birthgrave trilogy remains available from DAW (in the U.S.). However, this anthology’s appeal is not restricted to those of an S&S persuasion, but has much to offer any fan of fantasy and gothic horror. Lee’s exotic prose and gifted imagination, on display here, demonstrates that she truly deserves her title. She is the Empress of Dreams.
Reviewed for Spiral Tower Press:
https://spiraltowerpress.blogspot.com...
The title of the anthology, Empress of Dreams, is taken from a letter in praise of Lee by renowned SF&F editor Donald A Wollheim, who was the co-founder of DAW and who published Lee’s first S&S novel, The Birthgrave. Given the contents of this collection, it certainly serves as a fitting sobriquet.
While all these stories fit within the realms of sword and sorcery, they are happy to stretch and broaden that genre. The reader will find no ‘clonans’ within this collection, no barbarian heroes flexing their thews for riches and glory. There is often little combat to be found in these stories. Lee writes sword and sorcery as gothic fable: the mood is mysterious and macabre with the logic of the world serving the motif of the story. This helps lend her work a timeless quality, as if they were lost legends or folk tales, complete with dreamlike horror, luxuriant language, and often wry or cruel humour, though at times the poetry of the story can come at the expense of clarity.
Lee touches on many themes in the stories collected here. Some that recur with regularity are the desire to make one's own destiny, the repercussions of wrongdoing, and the capriciousness of human nature. Stories such as "The Three Brides of Hamid-Dar," "Mirage and Magia," and "The Pain of Glass" could slip almost without comment into a copy of 1001 Arabian Nights, while tales such as "Southern Lights" would have been appreciated by the Brothers Grimm.
My favourite of the anthology, "Winter White," is a horror tale. The basic set up, that of a haunted object, is reminiscent of the works of M.R. James (in particular, "Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come for You, My Lad"). In Lee’s hands, this is no mere ghost story. This is a tale of dark passions and darker happenings, a story set in a land which may be ancient Britain, or maybe somewhere stranger. Lee’s passion for the gothic and the fantastic shine here, creating a story that lingers long after the pages are turned.
Another highlight is the story that closes the anthology, "Evillo the Uncunning." This tale originally appeared in Songs of the Dying Earth, an anthology honouring the work of Jack Vance, and in it, Lee (a writer who counted Vance among her inspirations) tells the story about Evillo, a youth living upon the Dying Earth, who is inspired by stories he is told of Cugel (Vance’s protagonist in several Dying Earth stories). Here Lee nails the tone of Vance’s work. The story is full of adventure, weirdness, irony and magic, yet she brings enough of her own sensibilities to make the story stand out as a joy to read, whether or not the reader is conversant with Vance’s oeuvre. The reader may not look at snails the same way again.
Tanith Lee remains an author whose large body of work is less well known or well-read among fantasy fans than her gift for writing or the regard in which her work is held should warrant. With this anthology, DMR has made her sword and sorcery work available to a new audience, and the tales within do well to demonstrate the breadth and scope possible within the genre. For anyone whose appetite has been wetted by it, her Birthgrave trilogy remains available from DAW (in the U.S.). However, this anthology’s appeal is not restricted to those of an S&S persuasion, but has much to offer any fan of fantasy and gothic horror. Lee’s exotic prose and gifted imagination, on display here, demonstrates that she truly deserves her title. She is the Empress of Dreams.
Reviewed for Spiral Tower Press:
https://spiraltowerpress.blogspot.com...
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