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linwearcamenel's review
3.0
This was one of the most interesting worlds I've come across in fantasy. The mixing of all the world's religions with religiously fueled magic is a brilliant idea.
Unfortunately, the plot feels rushed and dependent on backstory we don't get to see. That's pretty normal for fantasy but here it felt as if the backstory was half the story. The characters were also less than three-dimensional. With more world-building, greater depth of character and a plot that had room to breathe. I would have loved to see this world in the hands of a Sanderson, Rothfuss or Jemison.
Unfortunately, the plot feels rushed and dependent on backstory we don't get to see. That's pretty normal for fantasy but here it felt as if the backstory was half the story. The characters were also less than three-dimensional. With more world-building, greater depth of character and a plot that had room to breathe. I would have loved to see this world in the hands of a Sanderson, Rothfuss or Jemison.
nightxade's review
4.0
Have you ever read a book and wished you could chat with the author to find out what they meant at a certain part? To learn what went into the crafting of a character or plot line? Well I've been chatting with Teresa Frohock a bit on Twitter for a while now, with the intent to read her book. Then I was struck with the idea of actually livetweeting my read the way I livetweet TV shows. Ms. Frohock loved the idea and as a result, I got to have the most wonderful reading experience with a great book and a fantastic author.
Misere is a tale of hope and redemption, of love and of faith. But it is not a tale involving pretty flowers (in fact, there is one not-so-pretty flower that would make an interesting Valentine's Day gift) nor is it a sweet love story. Frohock delves into the darkest emotions and desires with Miserere and, perhaps the only flaw I have with this book is that she could have gone even deeper.
From the first chapter, I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the subtext that teased out the relationship between Lucian, his twin sister Catarina and Rachael, the lover he betrayed. They are all older characters who have faced severe and even physically debilitating hardships. What they face in the story is just as likely to lead to their deaths as to their redemption, and the reader is often uncertain of which the character truly wants. This sets Miserere apart from many of the other books in the fantasy genre that feature naive young protagonists setting out on glorious adventure with the promise of a happy and heroic ending.
Actually, there is a young protagonist here - a girl named Lindsay who is pulled through the Veil from Earth into Woerld. She is drawn to Lucian and the exiled knight must choose whether or not to keep his promise, or open the Gates of Hell to save her. Lucian's dealings with her are touching and a little heartbreaking as, through Lindsay, you learn bits and pieces about his relationship with Catarina and the guilt he feels over her current sinister condition.
There is a lot of religious reference that could easily turn some readers off. I love religion, but due to my upbringing with an overbearing Christian mother, I have no interest in being preached at. Miserere does not shy away from the religious references, but it never proselytizes and there's no whining over why God might be punishing a particular character. It's quite clear that each character is responsible for their own predicament or that of others around them. They remain true to their faith and I really like that faith is the source of actual magic. I am curious as to how the same would work within the other religions - which is the other thing I like about this book. While you don't get to spend much time with the other sects, they are there and they all *gasp* get along.
Something else that pleases me about Miserere is Frohock’s treatment of female characters. As in, there is no difference between the women and the men. They are each considered capable in their various roles, and Frohock did not feel the need to justify or even point this fact out. Men and women are simply equals.
Imagine that. A fantasy book that actually frees itself from the prejudices of our reality.
As I mentioned, I really like the book's darkness. This is one of the few truly dark fantasy books I've read and it's definitely something I want more of. I enjoy the rainbows and dragons and happy endings as much as the next reader, but sometimes, I want to read books that aren't afraid to be just for adults.
See more reviews at
The BiblioSanctum
Misere is a tale of hope and redemption, of love and of faith. But it is not a tale involving pretty flowers (in fact, there is one not-so-pretty flower that would make an interesting Valentine's Day gift) nor is it a sweet love story. Frohock delves into the darkest emotions and desires with Miserere and, perhaps the only flaw I have with this book is that she could have gone even deeper.
From the first chapter, I was pleasantly overwhelmed by the subtext that teased out the relationship between Lucian, his twin sister Catarina and Rachael, the lover he betrayed. They are all older characters who have faced severe and even physically debilitating hardships. What they face in the story is just as likely to lead to their deaths as to their redemption, and the reader is often uncertain of which the character truly wants. This sets Miserere apart from many of the other books in the fantasy genre that feature naive young protagonists setting out on glorious adventure with the promise of a happy and heroic ending.
Actually, there is a young protagonist here - a girl named Lindsay who is pulled through the Veil from Earth into Woerld. She is drawn to Lucian and the exiled knight must choose whether or not to keep his promise, or open the Gates of Hell to save her. Lucian's dealings with her are touching and a little heartbreaking as, through Lindsay, you learn bits and pieces about his relationship with Catarina and the guilt he feels over her current sinister condition.
There is a lot of religious reference that could easily turn some readers off. I love religion, but due to my upbringing with an overbearing Christian mother, I have no interest in being preached at. Miserere does not shy away from the religious references, but it never proselytizes and there's no whining over why God might be punishing a particular character. It's quite clear that each character is responsible for their own predicament or that of others around them. They remain true to their faith and I really like that faith is the source of actual magic. I am curious as to how the same would work within the other religions - which is the other thing I like about this book. While you don't get to spend much time with the other sects, they are there and they all *gasp* get along.
Something else that pleases me about Miserere is Frohock’s treatment of female characters. As in, there is no difference between the women and the men. They are each considered capable in their various roles, and Frohock did not feel the need to justify or even point this fact out. Men and women are simply equals.
Imagine that. A fantasy book that actually frees itself from the prejudices of our reality.
As I mentioned, I really like the book's darkness. This is one of the few truly dark fantasy books I've read and it's definitely something I want more of. I enjoy the rainbows and dragons and happy endings as much as the next reader, but sometimes, I want to read books that aren't afraid to be just for adults.
See more reviews at
The BiblioSanctum
xandira's review
3.0
This was very interesting in some ways, and not as much in others. It was very neat to see a fantasy world with real world religions powering the magic system. Fighting demons with Bible psalms and faith was pretty cool. Although faiths other than Christianity were mentioned, I would have liked to see more of those in action. I feel like it wasted most of the draw by focusing on one religious style and then hand waving most of the explanations of how it worked. It also had a surprising element of time travel as well that I was not expecting.
I don't have any specific complaints about the story. It didn't grab me in a big way, but it was interesting enough to keep me reading. Any originality in the plot was entirely because of the setting.
I found the characters to be middling. They weren't particularly unique, but not annoyingly cliché.
So yeah. Average rating for an average book with a cool premise.
I don't have any specific complaints about the story. It didn't grab me in a big way, but it was interesting enough to keep me reading. Any originality in the plot was entirely because of the setting.
I found the characters to be middling. They weren't particularly unique, but not annoyingly cliché.
So yeah. Average rating for an average book with a cool premise.
kamreadsandrecs's review
3.0
It’s supposed to be a compliment when one is capable of leaving another “wanting more”. If one is to believe the fashionistas and tastemakers of the world, to leave another wanting more is a sign of one’s capability for restraint and discretion, whether in one’s clothes or in one’s manners. Leave them wanting more, so saith the experts, and they will keep coming back for more.
This is an equally appealing trait in storytelling. A good storyteller, regardless of the medium they choose to work with, will be able to create a narrative that leaves the reader wanting to know more. This is especially true when one is telling a story of some length: whether it’s a movie or television series, or a comic book story arc, or a novel series, there has to be something to keep the reader or viewer coming back for more. And a good storyteller will be able to find that hook, and not only find it, but sustain it for as long as necessary.
However, a good storyteller knows that a story can go on for far too long. Some television shows, for instance, go on for far, far longer than they ought, as do some comic books, and occasionally to novels. There is only so much length a given story can have, and if the storyteller attempts to overreach that length, it can lead to a great deal of annoyance and frustration.
The opposite—the potential story being too big for the confines finally imposed upon it—is somewhat rarer, but it does happen. I often joke that I turn a book over and shake it out to see if some more plot will fall out; occasionally I mean this as a compliment, to signify my eagerness for a sequel that will come out, but sometimes, I mean it because I feel a particular novel could have been longer, but isn’t. It was the latter, somewhat-less-flattering sense that I got when I finished Teresa Frohock’s Miserere: An Autumn Tale.
Miserere tells the story of Lucian Negru, once a famed exorcist and warrior for the Christian bastion on Woerld, who betrayed his lover and his leaders in an attempt to save his sister, Catarina. Unfortunately, Catarina tricked him, and instead made an alliance with the denizens of Hell to bring the forces of a Fallen Angel to World and from there, to Earth and then on to Heaven, in exchange for rulership of all of Woerld. However, he manages to escape from his sister, and sets himself on a path towards redemption—a redemption he is uncertain he is even worthy of.
The world building for Miserere is at once unique and very familiar. It posits that there are four worlds: Hell, Woerld, Earth, and Heaven, each lying next to each other in that order. Travel between them is possible, but there are varying degrees of difficulty: one can travel from Earth to Woerld with minimal problems (so long as one meets certain requirements), while travel to Hell from Woerld can be achieved by certain people with the talent for opening what are called Hell Gates (Lucian is one such person). As for what the worlds are like, Hell and Heaven are precisely what we imagine them to be, more or less, and Earth is as we recognise it now.
Woerld, however, is kind of different. On the surface it reads very much like the typical Western medieval-fantasy setting, but what makes it different is that every major religion on Earth is reflected there, but unlike on Earth, where they tend to fight with each other, the major religions on Woerld get on very well—mostly because they are tasked with protecting Woerld, and Earth, from intrusion by the denizens of Hell. Interestingly enough, what happens on Woerld has a ripple effect on Earth:for example, when the Zoroastrian bastion in Woerld was eliminated by the forces of Hell, it caused World War II to happen on Earth. The novel focuses primarily on the Church (the Christian bastion), but there are mentions made of the Mosque (Islam) and the Rabbinate (Judaism), and there are references to Wicca, Buddhism, and Hinduism having powerful and influential bastions, as well. Each bastion practices its own forms of magic, and fields its own warriors, called Katharoi, who are Woerld’s front lines against the constantly-encroaching forces of Hell.
This is, of course, incredibly fascinating, particularly to anyone who’s looked at Earth and wondered why humanity can’t just get over itself and get along. The bastions of Woerld are aware of the schisms between religions and within the religions themselves,and comment that because of reasons such as greed for power and money, the religions on Earth can no longer hear the Celestial Court (Heaven), leaving it especially vulnerable to the forces of Hell, should those forces manage to defeat the forces on Woerld. Interestingly, the character who makes the comment also notes that Earth faces no common enemy the same way Woerld does, and therefore the fractious relationships between and within the world religions is to be expected.
However, for all that it’s suggested that there is a very deep, very rich world, there isn’t really much done in terms of world building besides what I’ve already described. The details regarding the Church are relatively sketchy, and rely mostly on the readers’ own knowledge of how the Church on Earth actually works (which may be all right if the reader knows how it works, but may be problematic for others who don’t). As for the rest of Woerld, it’s not really talked about unless it’s pertinent to the plot. This is rather unfortunate, because this makes the novel feel narrower than it deserves to be.
That narrowness, however, is not something I can blame on the characters, who are quite strong in their own way. Some reviewers have accused Lucian of being a “wimp”, but I rather like how he’s been written: a man who has been broken and betrayed, who realises that he’s made a great many wrong choices in his life, and wants nothing more than a second chance to make right those mistakes—and makes it very clear in his thoughts and actions that that’s all he wants. He’s not the “traditionally” masculine hero looking for redemption, but his quest for it is something I can believe, because his regret actually feels genuine (as opposed to other “tragic heroes” in fantasy whose “quest for redemption” appears to consist of killing every single person they meet along the way to forgiveness).
Rachael and Catarina, the two women who are most important to Lucian, could easily have slipped into lesser characters who exist just to give Lucian a tragic backstory, but fortunately, they stand up well on their own.I like Rachael, in particular, because although she’s clearly written as Lucian’s love interest, that romantic relationship doesn’t get in the way of the very real fact that he betrayed her, despite the trust and faith she gave him along with her heart. Throughout the course of the novel she acknowledges that yes, she does love him, but she’s also aware that she can’t find it in herself to love him again the way she used to. They have both changed so much as individuals that the dynamics they used to have might as well belong to other people, and though she gives Lucian a second chance, that’s all she gives him: a second chance. To his credit, Lucian acknowledges these changes, and is content with being given a second chance. Whether or not they fall in love again is not the point for either of them; what matters is that they are willing to give each other another chance, and whether or not their relationship goes back to what it was—well, only time can tell. It’s also interesting that she acts as the more “traditional” kind of fantasy hero, charging into danger and being the one who forgives Lucian for his betrayal, instead of the other way around.
Catarina is also interesting, albeit in a rather uncomfortable way—which, in my opinion, makes her a good character, and an interesting villain. I do wish, however, that there had been more time to grow her into a true and genuine threat, because while I understand the whys and wherefores (to some extent) of her villainy, I don’t think it was really given a big-enough stage upon which to show how far it goes. The other characters talk about her villainy, but I would have liked to have seen it in action, and by this I mean really big action, something on the scale of (referring to Lord of the Rings>) the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, for instance, or at least the Battle of Helm’s Deep. I find it rather sad that Catarina has all the potential to be a very good villain, but she doesn’t get her stage.
There is also the question of Lindsay, the foundling who Lucian saves and bonds with early in the novel. What sad about this is that I can’t really say much about her except that she’s interesting, and has all the potential to become a fantastic character—a potential that isn’t realised because, again, the plot doesn’t give her the chance to really grow and spread her wings. For the most part, she acts primarily as proof that Lucian isn’t such a bad person after all, a walking, talking piece of evidence of his true (good) nature. This is rather a waste of what could have been a great child character, which are rather rare in fantasy novels, particularly in novels as dark as Miserere. Had there been a bit more story, and the plot been a bit larger, I think she would have been just as much as a standout as Rachael, and doing so on the strength of her own character as an independent entity from Lucian.
This all points to what I think is the real problem with this novel: the plot is too small for the setting and the characters in it. It’s a good story, to be sure, suitably dark and dangerous (which I appreciate; I like it when an author can make it feel as if all the characters are genuinely in danger), but it could have been larger, more suitably epic to correspond to the potential of the world in which it happens. I find it mildly frustrating for Frohock to have this potentially huge world, and these potentially amazing characters, and then not utilise as much of that in the plot—a realisation made even more annoying by the fact that there are writers who are capable of writing a novel with a truly epic feel while confining it to one volume: Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor and Robert Jackson Bennett’s City of Stairs being excellent examples. If I was aware that there was a sequel coming, I wouldn’t feel so frustrated, but since Miserere is a one-shot, I have no choice but to content myself with what I’ve been presented—which is, sadly, not nearly enough to be called truly satisfying.
Overall, Miserere: An Autumn Tale has all the potential to be an incredible novel: the world building is intriguing, and the characters appear to be well-written and interesting. However, the story Frohock chooses to write using these amazing characters and to set in this amazing world is far, far too small to really push the limits of both characterisation and world building. There is only so much oblique references can do, after all, to create a sense of depth for both a setting and characters, and the plot of Miserere is simply insufficient to show off the true possibilities of what Frohock’s created.
This is an equally appealing trait in storytelling. A good storyteller, regardless of the medium they choose to work with, will be able to create a narrative that leaves the reader wanting to know more. This is especially true when one is telling a story of some length: whether it’s a movie or television series, or a comic book story arc, or a novel series, there has to be something to keep the reader or viewer coming back for more. And a good storyteller will be able to find that hook, and not only find it, but sustain it for as long as necessary.
However, a good storyteller knows that a story can go on for far too long. Some television shows, for instance, go on for far, far longer than they ought, as do some comic books, and occasionally to novels. There is only so much length a given story can have, and if the storyteller attempts to overreach that length, it can lead to a great deal of annoyance and frustration.
The opposite—the potential story being too big for the confines finally imposed upon it—is somewhat rarer, but it does happen. I often joke that I turn a book over and shake it out to see if some more plot will fall out; occasionally I mean this as a compliment, to signify my eagerness for a sequel that will come out, but sometimes, I mean it because I feel a particular novel could have been longer, but isn’t. It was the latter, somewhat-less-flattering sense that I got when I finished Teresa Frohock’s Miserere: An Autumn Tale.
Miserere tells the story of Lucian Negru, once a famed exorcist and warrior for the Christian bastion on Woerld, who betrayed his lover and his leaders in an attempt to save his sister, Catarina. Unfortunately, Catarina tricked him, and instead made an alliance with the denizens of Hell to bring the forces of a Fallen Angel to World and from there, to Earth and then on to Heaven, in exchange for rulership of all of Woerld. However, he manages to escape from his sister, and sets himself on a path towards redemption—a redemption he is uncertain he is even worthy of.
The world building for Miserere is at once unique and very familiar. It posits that there are four worlds: Hell, Woerld, Earth, and Heaven, each lying next to each other in that order. Travel between them is possible, but there are varying degrees of difficulty: one can travel from Earth to Woerld with minimal problems (so long as one meets certain requirements), while travel to Hell from Woerld can be achieved by certain people with the talent for opening what are called Hell Gates (Lucian is one such person). As for what the worlds are like, Hell and Heaven are precisely what we imagine them to be, more or less, and Earth is as we recognise it now.
Woerld, however, is kind of different. On the surface it reads very much like the typical Western medieval-fantasy setting, but what makes it different is that every major religion on Earth is reflected there, but unlike on Earth, where they tend to fight with each other, the major religions on Woerld get on very well—mostly because they are tasked with protecting Woerld, and Earth, from intrusion by the denizens of Hell. Interestingly enough, what happens on Woerld has a ripple effect on Earth:
This is, of course, incredibly fascinating, particularly to anyone who’s looked at Earth and wondered why humanity can’t just get over itself and get along. The bastions of Woerld are aware of the schisms between religions and within the religions themselves,
However, for all that it’s suggested that there is a very deep, very rich world, there isn’t really much done in terms of world building besides what I’ve already described. The details regarding the Church are relatively sketchy, and rely mostly on the readers’ own knowledge of how the Church on Earth actually works (which may be all right if the reader knows how it works, but may be problematic for others who don’t). As for the rest of Woerld, it’s not really talked about unless it’s pertinent to the plot. This is rather unfortunate, because this makes the novel feel narrower than it deserves to be.
That narrowness, however, is not something I can blame on the characters, who are quite strong in their own way. Some reviewers have accused Lucian of being a “wimp”, but I rather like how he’s been written: a man who has been broken and betrayed, who realises that he’s made a great many wrong choices in his life, and wants nothing more than a second chance to make right those mistakes—and makes it very clear in his thoughts and actions that that’s all he wants. He’s not the “traditionally” masculine hero looking for redemption, but his quest for it is something I can believe, because his regret actually feels genuine (as opposed to other “tragic heroes” in fantasy whose “quest for redemption” appears to consist of killing every single person they meet along the way to forgiveness).
Rachael and Catarina, the two women who are most important to Lucian, could easily have slipped into lesser characters who exist just to give Lucian a tragic backstory, but fortunately, they stand up well on their own.
Catarina is also interesting, albeit in a rather uncomfortable way—which, in my opinion, makes her a good character, and an interesting villain. I do wish, however, that there had been more time to grow her into a true and genuine threat, because while I understand the whys and wherefores (to some extent) of her villainy, I don’t think it was really given a big-enough stage upon which to show how far it goes. The other characters talk about her villainy, but I would have liked to have seen it in action, and by this I mean really big action, something on the scale of (referring to Lord of the Rings>) the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, for instance, or at least the Battle of Helm’s Deep. I find it rather sad that Catarina has all the potential to be a very good villain, but she doesn’t get her stage.
There is also the question of Lindsay, the foundling who Lucian saves and bonds with early in the novel. What sad about this is that I can’t really say much about her except that she’s interesting, and has all the potential to become a fantastic character—a potential that isn’t realised because, again, the plot doesn’t give her the chance to really grow and spread her wings. For the most part, she acts primarily as proof that Lucian isn’t such a bad person after all, a walking, talking piece of evidence of his true (good) nature. This is rather a waste of what could have been a great child character, which are rather rare in fantasy novels, particularly in novels as dark as Miserere. Had there been a bit more story, and the plot been a bit larger, I think she would have been just as much as a standout as Rachael, and doing so on the strength of her own character as an independent entity from Lucian.
This all points to what I think is the real problem with this novel: the plot is too small for the setting and the characters in it. It’s a good story, to be sure, suitably dark and dangerous (which I appreciate; I like it when an author can make it feel as if all the characters are genuinely in danger), but it could have been larger, more suitably epic to correspond to the potential of the world in which it happens. I find it mildly frustrating for Frohock to have this potentially huge world, and these potentially amazing characters, and then not utilise as much of that in the plot—a realisation made even more annoying by the fact that there are writers who are capable of writing a novel with a truly epic feel while confining it to one volume: Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor and Robert Jackson Bennett’s City of Stairs being excellent examples. If I was aware that there was a sequel coming, I wouldn’t feel so frustrated, but since Miserere is a one-shot, I have no choice but to content myself with what I’ve been presented—which is, sadly, not nearly enough to be called truly satisfying.
Overall, Miserere: An Autumn Tale has all the potential to be an incredible novel: the world building is intriguing, and the characters appear to be well-written and interesting. However, the story Frohock chooses to write using these amazing characters and to set in this amazing world is far, far too small to really push the limits of both characterisation and world building. There is only so much oblique references can do, after all, to create a sense of depth for both a setting and characters, and the plot of Miserere is simply insufficient to show off the true possibilities of what Frohock’s created.
mercwolfmoor's review
I didn't like it--I bounced off almost every element, from the writing style to the world to the characters. The main impression I had was the unrelenting sense unpleasantness in the tone and style. It continually rubbed me the wrong way.
However. The Rosa vs Wyrm scene? Was epic. GIANT FORMER-SAINT-TURNED KILLER ROSEBUSHES THAT EAT PEOPLE vs DEMON FROM HELL: CAGE MATCH. (That was pretty awesome, not gonna lie.)
If it were a movie, I'd say watch it for that scene alone, but alas.
However. The Rosa vs Wyrm scene? Was epic. GIANT FORMER-SAINT-TURNED KILLER ROSEBUSHES THAT EAT PEOPLE vs DEMON FROM HELL: CAGE MATCH. (That was pretty awesome, not gonna lie.)
If it were a movie, I'd say watch it for that scene alone, but alas.
readingtheend's review
3.0
I read a review on Tor.com that said this book deserved better than the cover it ended up with, and that turned out to be totally true. I am not as into high fantasy as I was in my youth (I read Diana Wynne Jones's painfully true Tough Guide to Fantasyland at a crucial age), but I still enjoyed this and might read another in the series. They say psalms when they want to do magic! I could totally do that!
tomunro's review
5.0
When I was much younger I walked often in London and past a theatre proudly and forever proclaiming its production of "Les Miserables." Literally for decades the show's title put me off until the film and my daughters' affection awoke me to its qualities. I even went to see it live in celebration of a big birthday (I won;t say how big). There in the programme I found an echo of my early suspicions when the director had told the original cast words to the effect off, "we are putting on a musical about french history in England, with forty two on stage deaths and its got the word miserable in the title, how hard did we want to make it for ourselves."
In a similar vein I had seen Teresa Frohock's debut novel on book shelves and hesitated to lift it down. The title - seemed at a glance a little less than cheerful, the cover striking but a little too crusadery? However, I am glad I did not wait as long to correct my error with this engrossing book as I waited with the musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's masterpiece.
I read it in three days, it would have been two but for a headache perhaps induced by too much kindle-ing - serves me right for not buying it in hard copy when I had the chance.
It was half way through the book before I found the meaning of its title (I blame a miserable experience with latin at school for my ignorance) and glimpsed a language bridging pun on misery and miserere, very different themes that chase each other through the pages of this book.
For a debut novel it reads surprisingly like a sequel. The three principal adult characters Lucian Negru. Rachel Boucher and Catarina share a fascinating backstory, rivaling the different adventures of Persephone and Dante in straying beyond mortal boundaries. I wondered if perhaps the author had in fact written it all in detail, and then chosen to discard the first half in order to launch us at her characters at a key point in their tumble down the slippery slope of fate. That is not to say Miserere suffers by the missing prequel. It is that rarity in modern Fantasy, a self-contained book that does not abandon us at a Falls of Rauros type cliffhanger, nor demand a sequel to tie off loose-ends. Then again, there is enough life in the setting and the characters to afford another story or two, if the author could be so tempted.
Two comparisons spring to my mind in trying to give a feel for Miserere but both have only a tenuous link to Frohock's masterpiece. The first is the Narnia books, for they too have a parallel worlds and a christian theme and the potential for people to slip from our contemporary world into somewhere fantastically different. However, the woerld Frohock writes of is no Narnia with talking animals and an excess of turkish delight. It is like slipping from 1916 England into 1916 Flanders, from the world they sought to defend, to the bloody frontline in the defence against hell itself.
The second comparison is with Kirstin Cashore's Graceling books, for a select few in her world were special characters (denoted by unmatched eye colours) with powers whose nature only become apparent over time. So too people who are enabled to slip from Earth into Frohock's Woerld have special powers which can be nurtured and can aid in the fight against the denizens of hell. For example the hero Lucian Negru has the power of exorcism and the power to open gates - doorways - into hell itself. Other people who have crossed the divide have different powers - but all of them valuable to the righteous and a target for the damned.
The book opens with its hero crippled, imprisoned and in disgrace, and its heroine scorned and sickening, like Blake's Rose, she is sick assailed by an invisible worm, The forces of darkness seem doomed to triumph, the forces of good are in disarray. But faith, hope and if not charity then a little mercy will go a long way and I enjoyed going along with the ride, even if at times I had to read through splayed fingers so fearful was I for characters I had come to love.
Amazon.co.uk lists Miserere as Christian Fantasy and it is true, there is not so much a spine as a full skeleton of christian faith that supports this story. But that does not stop it from being a rip-roaring read that can be enjoyed by people of all faiths and none. The films Solomon Kane and Constantine both grew intoxicating and fantastic tales from the fertile soil of christian belief. More so than that, Miserere presents a world - or rather a woerld - parallel to earth where every religious belief has forsaken their differences and worked in close allegiance to combat a far greater peril. While Frohock's characters are overtly christian, it is clear that there are many faiths and many routes that lead to heaven, and as many ways to fall into hell. (There is that a lesson perhaps for our own earth and its religious leaders)
The reality of the threat that faces the leaders of Woerld, of demons made real, of possession, of gates into hell itself, of betrayals great and small, makes for a culture that is austere and unforgiving. There is a medieval tone to the reality of religion in the setting Frohock has created and the absoluteness of both its absolution and its condemnation.
I had dipped into one review of Miserere long before I read it and I remember the reviewer expressing some disappointment with the hero Lucian who they felt had simply made a bad choice sixteen years before the book began, and in so doing had precipitated the story's central crisis. Having now read the book I think that view does a disservice both to the character and Frohock's story telling. This is a tale about the repercussions of a choice, an impossible choice between blood and love, between family and friendship, between an unbreakable oath and a broken heart. Lucian made a choice in good faith (forgive the pun) and has lived with and been changed by the consequences.
Frohock makes clear the reasons for the decision Lucian made and for all the peril it brought upon his woerld I will not criticise him for it. He is a man of faith and honour, faithfully and honourably portrayed. He is determined to do right at any personal cost and with no hope of anything more than a fleeting opportunity for redemption. A tale of such a man is worth following.
There is a intriguing motif in Frohock's writing that the devil does not so much steal or buy our souls entire, as have us barter away our most human emotions in exchange for power, surrendering such gifts as empathy, or compassion in order to work satanic miracles. It is a thought that lingers with me, and one perhaps to bear in mind as I hear more tales of regions of this our world torn apart in the name of religion. All we have to do to become monsters, is to abjurer those emotions that make us human.
In a similar vein I had seen Teresa Frohock's debut novel on book shelves and hesitated to lift it down. The title - seemed at a glance a little less than cheerful, the cover striking but a little too crusadery? However, I am glad I did not wait as long to correct my error with this engrossing book as I waited with the musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's masterpiece.
I read it in three days, it would have been two but for a headache perhaps induced by too much kindle-ing - serves me right for not buying it in hard copy when I had the chance.
It was half way through the book before I found the meaning of its title (I blame a miserable experience with latin at school for my ignorance) and glimpsed a language bridging pun on misery and miserere, very different themes that chase each other through the pages of this book.
For a debut novel it reads surprisingly like a sequel. The three principal adult characters Lucian Negru. Rachel Boucher and Catarina share a fascinating backstory, rivaling the different adventures of Persephone and Dante in straying beyond mortal boundaries. I wondered if perhaps the author had in fact written it all in detail, and then chosen to discard the first half in order to launch us at her characters at a key point in their tumble down the slippery slope of fate. That is not to say Miserere suffers by the missing prequel. It is that rarity in modern Fantasy, a self-contained book that does not abandon us at a Falls of Rauros type cliffhanger, nor demand a sequel to tie off loose-ends. Then again, there is enough life in the setting and the characters to afford another story or two, if the author could be so tempted.
Two comparisons spring to my mind in trying to give a feel for Miserere but both have only a tenuous link to Frohock's masterpiece. The first is the Narnia books, for they too have a parallel worlds and a christian theme and the potential for people to slip from our contemporary world into somewhere fantastically different. However, the woerld Frohock writes of is no Narnia with talking animals and an excess of turkish delight. It is like slipping from 1916 England into 1916 Flanders, from the world they sought to defend, to the bloody frontline in the defence against hell itself.
The second comparison is with Kirstin Cashore's Graceling books, for a select few in her world were special characters (denoted by unmatched eye colours) with powers whose nature only become apparent over time. So too people who are enabled to slip from Earth into Frohock's Woerld have special powers which can be nurtured and can aid in the fight against the denizens of hell. For example the hero Lucian Negru has the power of exorcism and the power to open gates - doorways - into hell itself. Other people who have crossed the divide have different powers - but all of them valuable to the righteous and a target for the damned.
The book opens with its hero crippled, imprisoned and in disgrace, and its heroine scorned and sickening, like Blake's Rose, she is sick assailed by an invisible worm, The forces of darkness seem doomed to triumph, the forces of good are in disarray. But faith, hope and if not charity then a little mercy will go a long way and I enjoyed going along with the ride, even if at times I had to read through splayed fingers so fearful was I for characters I had come to love.
Amazon.co.uk lists Miserere as Christian Fantasy and it is true, there is not so much a spine as a full skeleton of christian faith that supports this story. But that does not stop it from being a rip-roaring read that can be enjoyed by people of all faiths and none. The films Solomon Kane and Constantine both grew intoxicating and fantastic tales from the fertile soil of christian belief. More so than that, Miserere presents a world - or rather a woerld - parallel to earth where every religious belief has forsaken their differences and worked in close allegiance to combat a far greater peril. While Frohock's characters are overtly christian, it is clear that there are many faiths and many routes that lead to heaven, and as many ways to fall into hell. (There is that a lesson perhaps for our own earth and its religious leaders)
The reality of the threat that faces the leaders of Woerld, of demons made real, of possession, of gates into hell itself, of betrayals great and small, makes for a culture that is austere and unforgiving. There is a medieval tone to the reality of religion in the setting Frohock has created and the absoluteness of both its absolution and its condemnation.
I had dipped into one review of Miserere long before I read it and I remember the reviewer expressing some disappointment with the hero Lucian who they felt had simply made a bad choice sixteen years before the book began, and in so doing had precipitated the story's central crisis. Having now read the book I think that view does a disservice both to the character and Frohock's story telling. This is a tale about the repercussions of a choice, an impossible choice between blood and love, between family and friendship, between an unbreakable oath and a broken heart. Lucian made a choice in good faith (forgive the pun) and has lived with and been changed by the consequences.
Frohock makes clear the reasons for the decision Lucian made and for all the peril it brought upon his woerld I will not criticise him for it. He is a man of faith and honour, faithfully and honourably portrayed. He is determined to do right at any personal cost and with no hope of anything more than a fleeting opportunity for redemption. A tale of such a man is worth following.
There is a intriguing motif in Frohock's writing that the devil does not so much steal or buy our souls entire, as have us barter away our most human emotions in exchange for power, surrendering such gifts as empathy, or compassion in order to work satanic miracles. It is a thought that lingers with me, and one perhaps to bear in mind as I hear more tales of regions of this our world torn apart in the name of religion. All we have to do to become monsters, is to abjurer those emotions that make us human.
bibliotropic's review
4.0
There’s something I want to get out of the way here: I almost didn’t read this book past the first chapter. It started out seeming like a big mess, like the author didn’t know if she wanted to create a fantasy world or an alternate earth. Real-world mythology and religion (or rather, religious organizations all co-existing peacefully without any mention of actual religion) existing side-by-side with magic, fictional places mentioned alongside real places. It felt like a mess, like the author was perhaps banking on nobody having ever heard of an angel named Mastema or a place called Walachia, instead just hoping they’ll consider it all a part of the fantasy.
Then chapter 2 hits, and you realize, with a jump to the modern real world, that things aren’t actually as messed up as they seem, at least not when it comes to the world that the novel takes place in. It’s revealed that there are layers of reality, worlds in addition to our own, and that the veil between then sometimes gets thin enough to allow people to pass through from one world to the next. Not an original concept, I’ll grant you, but it did explain why mentions of real and fake places went hand in hand. There was a method to the madness, and it renewed my faith in the novel and made me want to keep reading.
Heavy with Judeo-Christian-Islamic mythology but still inclusive of any other belief system you can think of, Miserere takes place in Woerld, the plane of reality that’s one step closer to Hell than we are. The real action takes place around Lucian, who escapes the clutches of his power-hungry sister Catarina, the woman who’s working with a Fallen Angel to acquire yet more power and to take over Woerld. After his escape he meets Lindsay, a young girl who passed through the veil from our world into Woerld and who has become, in an instant, his protege. But Catarina’s not the only one looking to bring Lucian back. The forces of God, believing Lucian to be a criminal in exhile, are after him too. But conspiracy runs deep, and even those who claim to follow the light may have a sinister purpose.
What started off so chaotically ended up making a lot of sense by the end, and the story had a great deal of depth to it that isn’t always easy to come by when you’re essentially saying that God, Heaven, and Hell are real. Miserere was far from bible-thumping; it had quite a good message of inclusion, acceptance, and tolerance for the fact that even when people pray to different gods they’re still essentially praying to the same powers of goodness and light. Frohock plays with mythology in a wonderful and compelling way that makes you desperate to keep turning pages. The characters are richly detailed, well defined and interesting, and even though you’ve got adversaries who are working for the forces of evil, they remain three-dimensional and don’t simply become caricatures.
Frohock’s got some real talent here, and I was very impressed to find that this was her debut novel. This is normally the kind of quality you get from people who’ve been around the block a few times, so to speak. If this is Frohock’s starting point, then I’m very excited to see what she’s going to do next.
When all is said and done, the real reason this book lost points with me is because of the beginning. First impressions are important, and I know I can’t expect everything to be revealed within the first ten pages, but it sat so wrongly with me until I forced my way through what seemed like a poor and unpolished opening that I can’t help but have that impression colour my final review. I can only caution others to not be so thrown off when they read it. But in spite of a shaky start, the book turned out so much better than I thought it was going to, and this is one I can definitely recommend to those who enjoy a little world-crossing in their fantasy novels.
(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)
Then chapter 2 hits, and you realize, with a jump to the modern real world, that things aren’t actually as messed up as they seem, at least not when it comes to the world that the novel takes place in. It’s revealed that there are layers of reality, worlds in addition to our own, and that the veil between then sometimes gets thin enough to allow people to pass through from one world to the next. Not an original concept, I’ll grant you, but it did explain why mentions of real and fake places went hand in hand. There was a method to the madness, and it renewed my faith in the novel and made me want to keep reading.
Heavy with Judeo-Christian-Islamic mythology but still inclusive of any other belief system you can think of, Miserere takes place in Woerld, the plane of reality that’s one step closer to Hell than we are. The real action takes place around Lucian, who escapes the clutches of his power-hungry sister Catarina, the woman who’s working with a Fallen Angel to acquire yet more power and to take over Woerld. After his escape he meets Lindsay, a young girl who passed through the veil from our world into Woerld and who has become, in an instant, his protege. But Catarina’s not the only one looking to bring Lucian back. The forces of God, believing Lucian to be a criminal in exhile, are after him too. But conspiracy runs deep, and even those who claim to follow the light may have a sinister purpose.
What started off so chaotically ended up making a lot of sense by the end, and the story had a great deal of depth to it that isn’t always easy to come by when you’re essentially saying that God, Heaven, and Hell are real. Miserere was far from bible-thumping; it had quite a good message of inclusion, acceptance, and tolerance for the fact that even when people pray to different gods they’re still essentially praying to the same powers of goodness and light. Frohock plays with mythology in a wonderful and compelling way that makes you desperate to keep turning pages. The characters are richly detailed, well defined and interesting, and even though you’ve got adversaries who are working for the forces of evil, they remain three-dimensional and don’t simply become caricatures.
Frohock’s got some real talent here, and I was very impressed to find that this was her debut novel. This is normally the kind of quality you get from people who’ve been around the block a few times, so to speak. If this is Frohock’s starting point, then I’m very excited to see what she’s going to do next.
When all is said and done, the real reason this book lost points with me is because of the beginning. First impressions are important, and I know I can’t expect everything to be revealed within the first ten pages, but it sat so wrongly with me until I forced my way through what seemed like a poor and unpolished opening that I can’t help but have that impression colour my final review. I can only caution others to not be so thrown off when they read it. But in spite of a shaky start, the book turned out so much better than I thought it was going to, and this is one I can definitely recommend to those who enjoy a little world-crossing in their fantasy novels.
(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)
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