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2019/56: Amberlough -- Lara Elena Donnelly
Wednesday, May 29th, 2019 08:06 am2019/56: Amberlough -- Lara Elena Donnelly
It's easy to describe Amberlough as 'Cabaret meets Le Carré', not least because those are the two sources from which Donnelly has chosen epigraphs. The comparison is not inaccurate, but I was also reminded of Ellen Kushner's Riverside, another secondary-world fantasy with no magic, rooted in an urban landscape, featuring a city where homophobia and racism play little part, but crime, corruption and social classism are endemic. ( no more spoilery than the blurb )
There was the Aristide lying beside him in bed — the charming performer and monarch of the demimonde — and there was the other Aristide, the one he was supposed to arrest and interrogate. The one whose life and livelihood he was meant to raze. They both knew where the boundaries lay. It was impossible to love someone when you spent your time digging at their secrets in the hopes of undermining their career. And vice versa. [p. 83]
It's easy to describe Amberlough as 'Cabaret meets Le Carré', not least because those are the two sources from which Donnelly has chosen epigraphs. The comparison is not inaccurate, but I was also reminded of Ellen Kushner's Riverside, another secondary-world fantasy with no magic, rooted in an urban landscape, featuring a city where homophobia and racism play little part, but crime, corruption and social classism are endemic. ( no more spoilery than the blurb )
