The Light Ages

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Great Expectations meets Germinal! It's this French novel by … Producer: Nobody's gonna wanna watch a French story. But with magic, you know, like Harry Potter! But it'll take place in the Victorian century, and instead of coal we'll have this magic called aether, and instead of coal pits, we'll have aether pits.

Now, yo If this book had been a movie, I can imagine that the pitch session would have gone like this: So, we have this kid right, and he meets this old lady, like Miss Havisham… Producer: Does this have monsters? And Miss Havisham is a monster, cause of the aether. Only she doesn't look like one. And it's gotta have sex too. Well, this Miss Havisham character brings up this little girl, Annalise, who's also a monster. Awww, no monster sex. That's way too weird. But then, even though the kid falls in love with her, she wants nothing to do with him, see.

Just like Great Expectations. Okay, I think we can sell that. Boy loves girl monster! We gonna need some violence. Yeah, that's where the Germi …errr…yeah, there're going to be riots cause the people are fed up of being crushed by the rich. And the boy will grow up to be this radical revolutionary. And there'll be this big scene where this bell-tower comes crashing down.

And lots of fire and explosions. Just like Harry Potter! Gimme a script tomorrow! The sad thing is that there are some great scenes: Robbie's mother slowly turning into a troll due to overexposure to aether, the ball when Robbie meets Annalise for the first time as an adult, the bell-tower crashing down on Robbie and Annalise… For these, I give it three stars. But not more than three.

Because these individual scenes don't gel into a compelling enough vision of an aetherised England. It's not enough to just write a story about the Victorian age, and then instead of "coal" write "aether" and instead of "coal pits" write "aether pits", and pretty much leave everything else the same.

The rendering of the culture and society was sufficiently similar to be recognizable. But the magic was woven in with such loving detail that it made that world subtly, weirdly, magically and compellingly different. This is not what happens here: So, you see, that's pretty much the problem.

You can take the idea of an age powered by magic, you can take ideas from history, but ultimately it still has to fuse together into a living, breathing whole.

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Otherwise, all it is is an Aetherpiltdown Man: View all 4 comments. Oct 16, Adam rated it really liked it Shelves: Melancholy character and touches of the grotesque this novel details an alternative history were a year industrial revolution based on the substance aether freezes progress leaving England in an eternal Victorian age.

Rather than take the dime novel approach of James p. Blaylock or Difilippo this reads more like an unearthed serious novel of the 19th century. Slow patches are made up for by the surreal and tragic revolution in the last third. Also some wonderful bits where the fantasy cliches are giving a grotesque trouncing the dragon and the unicorn, the quest narrative that brings to mind Swanwick. Jan 27, Marvin Marc rated it it was amazing. This is a sumptuous book, with a wonderful use of language.

If you want a whiz-bang adventure story, well, sorry. This one won't do. But not our England. Note the day of the week he was born; Sixshiftday. As you read on, you find that [grabbed from this site ][return][return]This creation owes much to Charles Dickens. As you read on, you find that the "Guilds" have done away with the old 6 days of work and one of rest.

Now men work 12 days, Firstshiftday through Twelfthshiftday, and wonder of wonders, get Halfshiftday and then Noshiftday. Aren't the mighty Guilds kind? The magic of the world, the Magick of Faery, has been extracted, and converted to a wondrous liquid which with the proper spells can build castles in the air and allow shoddy workmanship to become usable, and even valuable, and create unicorns, dragons, pitbeasts. As in the extraction and refinement of radioactive material, aether is dangerous, and Robert's mother is contaminated a number of years before our story starts when Robbie is seven.

She turns into a troll and is taken away. In a sense, I am minded of Starman Jones by Robert Heinlein, from the standpoint of the characterization of the Guilds.

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The massive disparity of wealth between the Guildmasters and the "marks", who live in filth and poverty is well delineated, and all the characters live, and breathe. Mar 12, Tamara added it Shelves: Theres a revolution in this book, but it turns out you need to care about the past for it's shattering to have any emotional or narrative impact. When one character accuses the protagonosts of trying to destroy her world, it means nothing, as we never got to have any real sense of her world and why it would matter to her. This is odd, given the slow, slow start and generally langurous pace, but this is all concerned with the rather tedious childhood of the protagonist and manages to never get ac Theres a revolution in this book, but it turns out you need to care about the past for it's shattering to have any emotional or narrative impact.

This is odd, given the slow, slow start and generally langurous pace, but this is all concerned with the rather tedious childhood of the protagonist and manages to never get across much real worldbuilding. Its possible that it merely aims not to glamorize the past, but the book is explicitely about the act of the revolution itself, not the doctrinal differences between the fantasy capitalism and failed fantasy syndicalism of before and after.

As such, it's vauge, dreamy atmospheric vibe holds up well the confused, frustrated loneliness of the arcs of it's heroes. The protagonist tries to substitute unrequited longing for a relashionship and politics for wonder, and the revolution merely goes round again. It fails to fulfill desire and the personal remains the personal. The revolution becomes a hollow shell over the skeleton of the magical, that the characters turn to again and again to provide that which reality cannot. It's ultimately a powerful notion, that our own flawed needs and weaknesses, our need to be someone we are not, underpin the structures of oppression.

Its just too long by half and could have used more of a plot. Recommended for those more interested in reflection that action. View all 3 comments. Originally published on my blog here in April The small number of books that I would consider my favourite serious fantasy novels E. Now The Light Ages has to join the list; it will surely also establish itself as one of the classics of the genre.

The setting of The Light Ages is an alternative industrial England, a place where the essence of magic, a mineral named aether, is mined alongside iron and coal. It is the story of a man born in a Yorkshire town which is a centre of aether mining, and how he travels to London and becomes part of a train of events which threaten the power of the Guildsmen who are the magnates of the Age, the Third Age of Industry that many think is coming to its end. This background is itself enough to make The Light Ages stand out as an original fantasy novel. Alternate histories are almost always fit better into the science fiction genre than fantasy, with a special version of the "What if But almost always these are straight extrapolations from the science and technology of the time, without the extra magical dimension used here.

The Light Ages – Ian R. MacLeod

Where magic is interpolated into the real world, or a background as clearly related to the real world, it tends to be at the fringes, "beyond the fields we know" or in an unseen world underpinning the everyday, as in Neil Gaiman's novels. The Light Ages is pretty much unique as an alternate history which seriously looks at how things might be different if magic is real. The only novel I can think of comparable in terms of the use of magic in an alternative reality is The Wolves of Willoughby Chase - a children's classic in the genre.

The Light Ages is also one of only a small number of fantasy novels in which magic is an industrial raw material used in processes which produce pollution. Saruman's industrialisation in The Lord of the Rings is easily the best known example, though there and in The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant it is the misuse of magic which pollutes.

Holly Lisle has also set her novels in a world contaminated by fallout from an ancient war between wizards. The England portrayed in The Light Ages is very much the polluted, industrial and worker-exploiting England of the Victorian era, Dickensian in inspiration though MacLeod is able to be more explicit in his depiction of squalor than Dickens ever did.

While the quality of his evocation in places approaches Dickens, its attention to the industrial poor and radical politics is more akin to the writing of Elizabeth Gaskell. This fantasy novel is one of the best ever written, and any reader of the genre would be well advised to pick it up. They may find that it's too slow for their tastes, but I just found it magical.

Oct 20, AJ rated it liked it. It was hard to really get into this book because despite being written fairly well and having an interesting setting, the entire thing pretty much read like an extended character sketch. Told from the first person point of view, it follows Robert Borrows all the way from his childhood to sometime in late middle age at the conclusion of the book.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like character-driven fiction and I have nothing wrong with first person narratives. This one just suffers from a bad case of It was hard to really get into this book because despite being written fairly well and having an interesting setting, the entire thing pretty much read like an extended character sketch. This one just suffers from a bad case of nothingishappeningitis.

It takes forever to even build up a sense of what is going to happen, and a second forever for it to happen, and then you're like "Oh, is that all? He is neither especially likeable or dislikeable. He is, perhaps, believable as a real person, but not as a real interesting person. I was never really invested in what happened to him. Perhaps if more time was spent in dialog and less time in introspection, he would have felt more dynamic and alive. Perhaps if he had taken more actions throughout the book, or seemed to care more about the people around him, I would have cared more about what was going on and who it happened to.

The review blurbs on the cover and first couple pages make a lot of comparisons to Mieville, especially Perdido Street Station, but I found the similarities to be few. The authors have completely different writing styles. Both stories have a certain political leaning, a certain sense of looming dystopia, and the occasiona glimpse at the gruesome realities of the world the characters live in -- but Mieville gets deeper into all of these than MacLeod does.

MacLeod's story is more of a conventional steampunk alternate history suggesting how the Industrial Age would have progressed if machinery had been powered by a strange magical substance called aether rather than coal , whereas Mieville is New Weird or whatever you want to call it. Much like its narrator, this book ended up being neither particularly likeable nor dislikeable. I'll probably have forgotten all about it in a few months. Mar 10, Jim rated it it was amazing Shelves: Norrell , not in its subject matter but in the way the author approached hos work.

This reads like good historical fiction, focused on a sort of alternative Victorian England.

I suppose this could be classified as urban fantasy of a sort. In this alternative history, industry, indeeed the entire economy, is based In a way, this book reminded me of Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. In this alternative history, industry, indeeed the entire economy, is based on the magical element aether. It is dangerous; people directly exposed to it suffer various mutations and are ostracized as "trolls.

It is a metaphor for the weakness that lies behind the confidence of Victorian English. Victorian, however, is not entirely descriptive, in the sense that, in the story, the Age of Kings as they call it is long past. One gets the sense, though, that this development was not entirely a good thing. Society in the novel is run by an all-pervading system of guilds, as stifling to social mobility as the actual class system ever was. Much of the plot of the book involves the revolutionary activities of the protagonist and his friends. It's an alternative world, but it seems very true to the real world.

All in all, a good read, and a decent stretching of the fantasy genre's parameters. I have just picked up this book and the writing is wonderful. I have read six pages and only pause to hold myself back from devouring it in a rush of gluttony so I can savor the writing. I will have to read this slowly and reread passages so I can completely immerse myself in the prose. This is the most entrancing book I have read in a very long time. I want this experience to last. MacLeod doesn't feel much like light reading, but it's an enjoyable story for the right reader.

Think of Charles Dickens meeting up with an alternate England powered by a kind of magic crystal. The book follows Robert Borrows who was born on sixthshiftday in the grimy factory town of Bracebridge. His early days are accompanied by the sounds of the factory as it churns outpower for the wealthy. What's being manufactured is a byproduct of a magical crystal known as Aether. Robbie sees his father's hard life of working and his mother's odd ties to this aether. He also meets a strange young girl that he will run in to as he gets older. As he gets older, he rails against a system that uses men up and supplies the wealthy with strange and useless toys.

He tries to fight the corruption he sees, and finds that his life is tied to the life he once knew and the strange girl named Anna. It's a large novel that feels somewhat like something from the 19th century. That's a complete compliment to the author. I don't know that I ever felt any connection to the main characters beyond a sense of pity.

That might be where the book failed me, but I did enjoy the journey and this strange alternate take on the Industrial Age. I received a review copy of this ebook from Open Road Integrated Media and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

Sep 02, Ben Babcock marked it as did-not-finish Shelves: I really enjoyed Journeys , but my first attempt at novel-length Ian R. The Light Ages takes place in an alternative England where the ability to manipulate aether has jumpstarted steam engine technology somewhat. Other technologies, like electricity, have fallen by the wayside as too unreliable. The result is a grittier, dirtier, more magical and more chaotic industrialized England. My problems stem from the writing style. Finishing this book was a bit like being hit by a truck.

In the good way. I could keep going on. There's a wee bit of aimlessness in the middle, but Finishing this book was a bit like being hit by a truck. There's a wee bit of aimlessness in the middle, but once I saw how everything fit together, even that became clearer.

And the ending was so beautifully bittersweet and hard-hitting. Maybe this book isn't for everyone, but without a doubt it's for me. Jan 19, Nicole Mackey rated it it was ok. All right, I am giving up on this book. I'm a quarter of the way in and still not engaged with the main character.

The descriptions, while comprehensive, are heavy handed and verbose. I keep losing the plot in the midst of all the 'color. That is more than it takes me to finish a book and I just can't get into it. I'm very disappointed, as I picked it up after reading a great review. Time to move on. Jun 21, Kevin rated it did not like it Shelves: I made it to page out of in The Light Ages. Strike one was the very slow plot. Strike two was the unwieldy prose that featured overly long sentences and too many commas. Strike three was the lack of intrigue or anything that captivated me.

I just didn't really care what happened next. Maybe I missed out on something awesome. Jan 31, Michael Underwood rated it really liked it Shelves: I wasn't a huge fan of the style, but the story was solid and the ideas were great. Sep 08, John rated it really liked it. Really fascinating piece of steampunk literature I haven't read it in ages so my memory of the plot isn't great but definitely worth reading.

English version after Polish one. Summary contains one major spoiler, which, if you look again, has no influence on the story. W podsumowaniu jest ujawniony jeden sekret Czyli w zasadzie wszystko. Ale ta narracja potem zanika. Tej pierwszej, prologu, kiedy Robert spaceruje przez Londyn. I nikt o nie nie dba, ludzie o nich zapomnieli. Reakcja drugiej strony jest Na pewno mocno wyzuta z emocji. Co tam do kochania? To nie jest historia.

I must applaud McLeod for his wordsmithing skills. I shan't give examples cause I read Polish translation, but hell, the way he constructs sentences can make me not just visualize things, but feel, hear or smell them. I totally understand why Jacek Dukaj, whose books are written with same wordsmithing talent, recognized McLeod and recommended his writings. If you wish to taste this writing skill, pick up this book and read first sixteen pages - that's whole first part of the book, the Great Guild Master or Guild Grandmaster, or however McLeod wrote it.

Paperback Editions

It doesn't end there. A textbook example, the entirety of The Light Ages shows not tells. Nostalgia and melancholy woven into every word, it exudes a sense of atmosphere, of being somewhere in fictional history, of feeling what the characters feel, of seeing what they see, of possessing import despite the surface simplicity I could go on gushing, but will stop. As mentioned in the intro, The Light Ages is a core steampunk text. Whether it ever intended to be is unimportant. Aether, its usage in commerce and industry, and the manner in which society and politics are affected virtually defines the sub-genre.

A subtle mix of magic and technology, it propels Victorian England to a higher level of the Industrial Age, as well as the pages of steampunk history.

Hardback Editions

With aether, England prospers, the guilds flourish, the shift sirens chant, the chimneys plume, the wealthy live lives of almost inconceivable profligacy and the rest of us struggle and squabble and labour for the crumbs which remain. Even lands beyond our own, caught within their own wyreglowing tendrils of aether and ridiculous myths of discovery by some other grandmaster than ours, smoke and hammer to dreams of guilded industry whilst the savage lands remain forever unexplored.

With aether, this world turns on the slow dark eddies of Ages beyond conflict and war. Without it — but the very thought was impossible. But there is more to The Light Ages than steampunk and the associated commentary on an industrialized society; there is also an element of faery. Never presented in high fantasy terms, the changelings are manifested as human but with auras and distinguishing differences in character to those who know how to look.

In the end, The Light Ages is a brilliant book that should survive the exigencies of genre time. The streets of London, the countryside, and the living conditions are described in beautiful flowing prose, and is surpassed only by the superb presentation of theme through character. An extremely well-rounded book from a literary perspective, its visual qualities only propel it higher in the ranks of fantasy in the 21 st century. Charles Dickens and Keith Roberts could never have been prouder. Posted by Jesse at 8:

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