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Title: Empire of Unreason (Age of Unreason, Bk 3) by J. Gregory Keyes ISBN: 0-345-40610-9 Publisher: Del Rey Books Pub. Date: 29 May, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An Intricate Tapestry of Events
Comment: Empire of Unreason is the third volume (out of four) in J. Gregory Keyes series, "The Age of Unreason." The series depicts an 18th Century world that has discovered the existence of angels who take an active role in the human world. These are not the beneficient creatures that appear on Christmas cards, but spirits that intend the control and destruction of the human race.
In the first volume, "Newton's Cannon," we find three key players, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin and Adrienne do Montchevreuil enmeshed in the plots and machinations of the English and French kings. This is a titanic struggle over Newton's discovery of Philosopher's Mercury. It ends in the destruction of both countries when Louis XIV managed to aim a comet at London.
In the second volume, "A Calculus of Angels," the world is plunged into a new Dark Age by the cataclysm. Newton and his assistant Franklin flee to Prague, while Adrienne struggles for survival and is drawn to Tsar Peter the Great. Cotton Mather and Blackbeard lead an expedition to the Old World to find out what had happened. Along with them comes a Choctaw shaman, Red Shoes, who will play an increasingly significant part in later volumes.
With most of the players introduced book three, "Empire of Unreason," plays them out on a canvas that focuses on events in the New World. Franklin and Red Shoes lead separate efforts that bring them in direct conflict with the machinations of angels manipulating imperial Russia. These manifest as the appearance of James Stuart (the English Pretender) with an army on the Eastern Coast and the invasion of the Western Coast by Oriental and Russian forces lead by the Sun Child, who is actually de Montchevreuil's son. The plot swirls with complexities as the various characters are drawn into what may become a confrontation in the next volume. Here they fight battles and hunt the creatures of the Malakim (angels) and are hunted in turn. The writing is colorful and there is a never-ending supply of cliffhangers and twists to keep up the reader's interest.
I am reading another alternate history series at the same time, Mary Gentle's Book of Ash. This follows a young woman military commander in a struggle across the face of 15th century Europe. The two series have much in common. The heroes are facing enemies that would eradicate the human race. The primary characters are touched by magical forces that change them permanently. And their struggles are against overwhelming odds.
The series differ in that Ash is true science fiction coupled with superb military history, while the Age of Unreason is a fantasy with the illusion of a scientific basis. Age of Unreason is the more intellectually interesting, since the author takes the time to delve into philosophical and metaphysical ideas. Not in such detail that the narrative is ever the least bit tedious, but there will be times when you put the books down and think over a paragraph.
Both series are exceptional works of author's imagination that I recommend wholeheartedly. Certainly, if you enjoy one of them, you will enjoy the other.
Rating: 4
Summary: A steady progression towards the climax of the series
Comment: I consider myself a big fan of J. Gregory Keyes, so it probably comes as no surprise that I found this book, like its predecessors, to be delightful. This third book in the "Age of Unreason" series picks up ten years after _A Calculus of Angels_ left off, and the three main characters of the tale (Ben Franklin, Adrienne de Montchevreuil, and Red Shoes of the Choctaw) soon realize a malevolent entity in the western reaches of North America threatens all the Colonials have fought for.
Keyes' style is round-robin, and he rotates between characters, chapter by chapter, throughout the book. He is somewhat guilty of blatant cliff-hangerism, but I've learned to enjoy it. His characters are interesting enough that I didn't mind being torn away from one to hear about another.
But without a doubt, his strength is his masterful concoction of cultures that could have been ancestors of our own. His knowledge of native American tribes is evident, and he uses it to greater effect in this volume than in the previous two. My biggest complaint was that _Empire of Unreason_ seemed to end like a movie whose film had run out, which is why it gets only four stars. Certainly, there could've been a grander climax, but the book as a whole stands solidly.
If you've read the first two books in the series, the third is no reason to stop. My favorite still remains _Newton's Cannon_, but this book sets up a fourth (and final, so I hear) book that I eagerly await.
Rating: 4
Summary: More character development,please
Comment: Ten years have passed since the death of Isaac Newton, ten years since the Russians had access to his scientific journals fromn Prague, the less critical ones than the few he could manage to take with him to Venice. We see now why he did not want to contribute to the 'science' of the Royal Society, nor lend much aid to the monarch in Prague - in reality the 'technology' of the malakim (the realm of spirits between humans and God), or even more correctly - plain old fashioned sorcery - "philosophically useless" as Newton once told Ben Franklin. A guilded cage for the truly scientific spirit. And what use have the Russians made of his discoveries? They produce more and more hideously evil machines of war, even a life-gobbling maelstrom of malakim known as the keres, a "dark engine". One suspected that Leonhard Euler would make an appearance, but so far, maddeningly, he JUST MAKES AN APPEARANCE!. Probably the most gifted mathematician to ever live, he frees himself from service to Tsar Peter, and goes in search of, who else?, Newton's clever young apprentice, Franklin. And the subplot is dropped there! Red Shoes becomes a frightening apotheosis of the Native American shaman, and Adrienne finally learns the error of 'using' the malakim, thoughtlessly, like a witch. But is it too late?, and her son...it is her passions that will destroy the world. And maybe that is the point of Keyes' opera: that what makes us humans distinct from our mere human nature - (read especially her 'dream' in the abandoned wilderness that was once the gardens of Versailles) - is our reason, which we ought not abandon, even in the face of extraordinary temptations to gain everything: power, wealth, revenge, victory ... simply by "asking" for it.
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Title: Newton's Cannon (The Age of Unreason, Book 1) by J. Gregory Keyes ISBN: 0345433785 Publisher: Del Rey Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Waterborn (Chosen of the Changeling, Book 1) by J. GREGORY KEYES ISBN: 0345396707 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 02 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Blackgod (Chosen of the Changeling) by J. Gregory Keyes ISBN: 0345418808 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 28 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Briar King (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, Book 1) by J. Gregory Keyes ISBN: 0345440668 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 21 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Fool's Fate (The Tawny Man, Book 3) by ROBIN HOBB ISBN: 0553801546 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 03 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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