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mikepalumbo's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
dryad3's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
4.0
Surprisingly subversive!
selenajean's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.5
skeletonpandas's review against another edition
Very deep and thought provoking like all of Tannith Lee's books.
saltypiratewench's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Wow. The story had me hooked and as confused as she was, like in a fever dream. It could get slow and a little meandering, but it never felt pointless or predictable. The elegant language Tanith Lee used in her descriptions of the landscapes, both mental and physical, were haunting and kept me enthralled. I feel restless having finished it and want to read more, but have so many other books checked out right now!
Edit: Upon further reflection I took it down from 5 to 4. There were some problematic 70s style themes, tropes, and situations that bothered me quite a bit, but it is to be expected from fantasy of that era. Overall still a good book and you can see how it influenced some other authors later on.
Edit: Upon further reflection I took it down from 5 to 4. There were some problematic 70s style themes, tropes, and situations that bothered me quite a bit, but it is to be expected from fantasy of that era. Overall still a good book and you can see how it influenced some other authors later on.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Rape and Xenophobia
Minor: Child death, Animal death, and Animal cruelty
stephenmeansme's review against another edition
4.0
THE BIRTHGRAVE starts with a heck of an image: a pale goddess awakening in the heart of an erupting volcano. Our nameless protagonist wanders the world on a quest for some mysterious Jade, hounded by the curse of the evil fire calling itself Karrakaz. She becomes a village deity; a bandit queen, hippodrome champion, warlord's figurehead, prisoner, slave, feral... she is Imma, Uastis, Morna... It's quite an odyssey. Lee's prose is creative but doesn't feel as dated as some of the other "experimental" / "new wave" sf novels of the Seventies. The sequence in the city of Ankurum, involving a deadly chariot race, was particularly compelling.
It doesn't get 5 stars, mostly because it's just a bit overlong, and the ending is an amazingly literal dea ex machina - a development that, while fitting the protagonist's character development and not entirely unanticipated, doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the worldbuilding department.
Still, Lee was a prolific author and I have several more of her books on my shelf already; I look forward to diving deeper into her bibliography.
It doesn't get 5 stars, mostly because it's just a bit overlong, and the ending is an amazingly literal dea ex machina - a development that, while fitting the protagonist's character development and not entirely unanticipated, doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the worldbuilding department.
Still, Lee was a prolific author and I have several more of her books on my shelf already; I look forward to diving deeper into her bibliography.
alexisspeaking's review against another edition
4.0
High fantasy feminist literature? Yes please, thank you.
allthembooks's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
moirwyn's review against another edition
3.0
This review originally appeared on my blog, Books Without Any Pictures:
http://bookswithoutanypictures.com/2015/11/18/the-birthgrave-by-tanith-lee/
The Birthgrave by Tanith Lee is the story of a young woman of an unknown race who wakes up in the bowels of a volcano. She’s the last of her kind, and has no idea who she is or where she came from. She only knows that a mysterious and vaguely sinister entity that calls itself Karrakaz has spoken to her, telling her of the atrocities her people committed. Only she has been spared, because she just a child when the reckoning came.
The young woman leaves the volcano and sets out into the world, leaving a path of destruction in her wake. She is unlike other mortals; she quickly finds that she cannot die, and regenerates from wounds. She can heal with a thought, but only if people believe hard enough. Eating and drinking make her feel ill, so she only does it once every week or two. As she travels, she is seduced by a series of powerful men, none of whom have any respect for her. Each of her relationships ends badly for everyone involved.
The Birthgrave was hard for me to read, and for much of the book, I was frustrated. The nameless protagonist kept making the same mistakes over and over again and never seemed to learn from them. It wasn’t until I got to the end of the book that I was truly impressed, for it changed my entire perception of the previous 400 pages. Without going into too many details, at its core, The Birthgrave is a metaphor for the destructive power that the notion of original sin can have on an individual. The protagonist pursued a reckless path of self-destruction because she was spurred on by shame and guilt, and she felt on some level that it was what she deserved. And when she finally rises above that, she is able to see the patterns she’s fallen what they really are. This message resonated with me tremendously. It was just a somewhat painful process to get to it, and I’m not enough of a masochist to be able to say that it was worth the tradeoff. And yet, I still may read the next book in the series.
Despite my frustrations with the plot, I loved Tanith Lee’s writing. Her language is lush and sensual, and the novel’s atmosphere was filled with a barbaric kind of beauty. This is the type of world where lust, passion, nightmares, and death are all intertwined, and at the same time, it had an oddly pulpy vibe.
http://bookswithoutanypictures.com/2015/11/18/the-birthgrave-by-tanith-lee/
The Birthgrave by Tanith Lee is the story of a young woman of an unknown race who wakes up in the bowels of a volcano. She’s the last of her kind, and has no idea who she is or where she came from. She only knows that a mysterious and vaguely sinister entity that calls itself Karrakaz has spoken to her, telling her of the atrocities her people committed. Only she has been spared, because she just a child when the reckoning came.
The young woman leaves the volcano and sets out into the world, leaving a path of destruction in her wake. She is unlike other mortals; she quickly finds that she cannot die, and regenerates from wounds. She can heal with a thought, but only if people believe hard enough. Eating and drinking make her feel ill, so she only does it once every week or two. As she travels, she is seduced by a series of powerful men, none of whom have any respect for her. Each of her relationships ends badly for everyone involved.
The Birthgrave was hard for me to read, and for much of the book, I was frustrated. The nameless protagonist kept making the same mistakes over and over again and never seemed to learn from them. It wasn’t until I got to the end of the book that I was truly impressed, for it changed my entire perception of the previous 400 pages. Without going into too many details, at its core, The Birthgrave is a metaphor for the destructive power that the notion of original sin can have on an individual. The protagonist pursued a reckless path of self-destruction because she was spurred on by shame and guilt, and she felt on some level that it was what she deserved. And when she finally rises above that, she is able to see the patterns she’s fallen what they really are. This message resonated with me tremendously. It was just a somewhat painful process to get to it, and I’m not enough of a masochist to be able to say that it was worth the tradeoff. And yet, I still may read the next book in the series.
Despite my frustrations with the plot, I loved Tanith Lee’s writing. Her language is lush and sensual, and the novel’s atmosphere was filled with a barbaric kind of beauty. This is the type of world where lust, passion, nightmares, and death are all intertwined, and at the same time, it had an oddly pulpy vibe.