Dreams of the Compass Rose | |||||||
Vera Nazarian | |||||||
iBooks, 311 pages | |||||||
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A review by Georges T. Dodds
Originally published in 2002 by Wildside Press, Dreams of the Compass Rose is a collection of 14 intricately
interwoven dreams, which tell of a semi-desert world of oases, cities shimmering mirage-like between reality and
imagination, where the seemingly weak and downtrodden wield great influence, in a place ruled over by a ruthless but
Illusion-ensnared emperor (taqavor) who cannot face his past -- central to and representative of his vast empiristan
of Amarantea is a floating compass rose. Unlike, for example, Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man, the 14 dreams are
not linked by a framing story, but rather through the recurrence of different well developed characters at different
stages and or incarnations in their existences, some human, some gods, some deluded by illusion, some parting its
veil over reality. In this sense, the book explores what develops when illusion is allowed to mask truth, something
which some might argue is not entirely irrelevant to current times.
A man who is chased by Death whose scythe he has stolen in order to preserve his love, a cityscape which shifts according
to the mad dreams of its aging king, the greed-driven demise of an oasis town, a warrior who faithfully serves a spiteful
and spoiled princess, a wonderful horse in which an emperor thinks to have trapped illusion... all these intermingle in a
finely woven tapestry of Dunsany-Smith tinged, but not derivative fantasy. Certainly, to my personal tastes, this is the
finest new fantasy work I've read in at least a decade, reminding me of more youthful days spent devouring Ballantine
Adult Fantasy series titles
This isn't to say that Dreams of the Compass Rose is flawless, there are a few instances where the usually lush
prose sinks to a somewhat more pedestrian level, although never gratingly so. While not in any sense overtly feminist,
the majority of the strong characters are women. Nonetheless the male characters retain interest in their devotedness,
dutifulness, and particularly with respect to their entanglements with Illusion.
For anyone who enjoys the pre-Tolkienian masters of adult fantasy, Dreams of the Compass Rose is clearly must read,
and re-read; for others, read because it is original, intelligent, challenging and reinvents the sort of material that
formed the basis of modern fantasy.
Georges Dodds is a research scientist in vegetable crop physiology, who for close to 25 years has read and collected close to 2000 titles of predominantly pre-1950 science-fiction and fantasy, both in English and French. He writes columns on early imaginative literature for WARP, the newsletter/fanzine of the Montreal Science Fiction and Fantasy Association and maintains a site reflecting his tastes in imaginative literature. |
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