Mélusine (Doctrine of Labyrinths, #1) in Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library

Mar 03, 2012 Jamie Collins rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

Read again in 2016 (part of my annual holiday wallowing in re-reads) and I'm still in agreement with my original review, with perhaps more emphasis on the extreme angst, particularly at the end, good grief.

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March 2012 review:
So Felix is a wizard who’s driven mad when his evil master uses him to destroy a powerful magical thingamajig. Mildmay is a thief/assassin who gets hired by another wizard to track down Felix, for complicate ...more

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Jul 28, 2008 Kimberly rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy

This book is one part terrific novel, and one part huh? I definitely recommend you have the sequel, The Virtu on hand when you read it, because this is one of those books that feels like it was arbitrarily split in half. Although, honestly, there are ends left hanging even when you read both books, and now that I'm reading the third one, I'm still not certain they will be tied off. I found the world of Melusine to be gorgeously conceived and complex to the point of utter confusion---the calendri ...more

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Dec 28, 2007 Schnaucl rated it really liked it

Shelves: read_2007, series, fiction, library, later_purchased, fantasy, december, lgbtqia

I really liked this book (so much so that I picked up the second book the day after I finished the first one).

As with any book that has constantly alternating points of view, I found it distracting at first but eventually I was able to settle into it. (It's a personal preference. It works for some people and not for others). The world is an interesting place, though I think the nonstandard measurement of time is unnecessary and irritating.

I did not guess the connection between Mildmay and Feli ...more

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Apr 19, 2008 Izlinda rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, fantasy-erotic

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Well, I managed to finish this book, so it doesn't get a one-star. (I reserve that for books I really hate even after finishing them, or books I deplore so much I stop halfway through.) I basically checked it out with high hopes, based on a review (on its cover) by an author I absolutely adore:

"A lush novel, rife with decadent magic, debilitating madness, and dubious deeds." Jacqueline Carey, author of Kushiel's Legacy trilogy

*coughs so hard* Well, I found this book so hard to get into I abandon ...more

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Jul 02, 2012 emily rated it it was ok

Shelves: queers-and-queer-relationships, 2011-to-2015, con-artists-pirates-and-thieves, fantasy-high-fantasy

i liked a lot of things about this book, but i would've liked it a lot more if the latter two-thirds of it had been narrated from mildmay's pov. felix's crazy babble wasn't interesting after the first few times; i couldn't get into the monster-heads and flapping shadows and nonsense. i like that felix is gay and that that isn't at all the focus of the book, but i think i'll like the sequel much more, assuming there's some actual sane felix bits in it. i will read the sequel, because the world is ...more

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Aug 09, 2010 Kati rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, dropped, in-english, work-reviews, queer, 2014

Too much rape. Too much sexual violence in general. Suffering on top of suffering on top of suffering. Felix was too much of a limp noodle for me to sympathize with his plight. Not my cuppa. Dropping it. As far as gay fantasy goes, I'll rather go and re-read Lynn Flewelling. ...more

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Apr 22, 2008 Jeffrey rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

I was in the library which had a copy of Virtu but not a copy of this book. I felt compelled to order it and read it b/c Virtu was hard to understand.

I have to say that I liked it but found it not as incredible as several reviews indicated.

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