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Jan
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By Susanna Clarke.
Incredibly for a book this long (800 pages or 32 hours as an audio book) there are few, if any, dull moments. The story is set in 19th Century England and tells the story of two English magicians who resurrect English magic. It's a very different kind of fantasy than the Tolkein genre - quest to fight the forces of evil, etc. The story is essentially a novel convincingly set in 19th Century that just happens to be about magic.
It is full of vignettes where English Magic was used - for example during the battle of Waterloo to defeat Napoleon's armies; another explains how a tribe of Walloon speaking American Indians came to be. The story is very heavy with foot notes and I 've heard people criticize this as interrupting the flow of the story - well certainly as an audio book this wasn't a problem and the footnotes are as much a part of the entertainment as the story itself (it reminded me a little of THGG - which keeps dipping into the Encyclopedia Galactica in a kind of footnoey way) - again some might see this as a distraction but is clearly part of the story.
The other criticism I've heard is the use of 19th Century spelling throughout the book which can slow you down a bit initially - again this isn't a problem with an audio book ! Indeed, one of the best aspects of the story is the language in which the characters converse - 19th Century English, which if you are familiar with Austen or Dickens, is very eloquent, sophisticated and witty. The narrator for the Audio Ranaissance audible book is Simon Prebble (who is English or has a very convincing English accent) - a convincing accent made it all the more enjoyable.
This was definitely one of the best reads (er, listens) I have had in a while; probably since Neal Stephenson's Crytonomicon (an equally hefty and well paced tome)
The story ends in a way that strongly suggests a second book - and I'm very much looking forward to that.
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