God Stalk

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In the first book of the Kencyrath, Jame, a young woman missing her memories, struggles out of the haunted wastes into Tai-tastigon, the old, corrupt, rich and god-infested city between the mountains and the lost lands of the Kencyrath.

Jame's struggle to regain her strength, her memories, and the resources to travel to join her people, the Kencyrath, drag her into several relationships, earning affection, respect, bitter hatred and, as always, haunting memories of friends and enemies dead in her wake.

My Review: I read this 35-year-old fantasy novel because my good LibraryThing friend Roni ran a group read of it. She contended that the book was underfamous and underappreciated. I don't know about show more you, but I'd say any first-in-series book that's followed by eight others (to date) set in the same universe, and which has an 816 page fandom wiki, isn't exactly a concealed target.

Still.

Reading older books in the speculative fiction genre is an education in revised expectations and their invisibility until challenged. Modern fantasy nonillionologies, each volume a minimum of a jillion pages densely packed with made-up language vocabulary and/or Randomly capitalized normal Words that indicate they're being used as something More Than their mundane meaning, are now the minimum standard. This book predates that trend. As a result, its brevity can feel...unfinished...to a 21st century sensibility. There were many, many moments that the author moved through hastily or simply glided past entirely that would, in modern times, be entire novels.

I've complained about book bloat and editing fails so often and so publicly that I expect someone will quite soon point this out with a smug "gotcha!" of some sort. To those legions of carping natterers, I say "oh shut up" and remind them that 1) consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds and 2) there's such a thing as a happy medium.

I'm not a huge consumer of fantasy novels at the best of times because magic makes me itch. It seems so nonsensical, so counter to the realities of physical laws under which we live; it flies in the face of experiential existence; but it satisfies a deep need in many people, just not me. Also, almost always, the protagonist is An Exceptional Adolescent (usually female), and that's very much not my favorite kind of person. Adolescence stank, and so do adolescents. Just not where I want to be, or to stay for any length of time.

This novel's magical system got in under my radar because it feels to me, like the magic in Kai Ashante Wilson's marvelous Africa-set fantasy stories, as though any second we're going to be told that it's a form of technology we don't recognize as such. I can hang with that. Most of what the main character does isn't terribly magical, and the city of Tai-Tastigon itself is the source of the overall magic. We're teased with the notion of the city's magic being the reason there are so many gods in it; in fact, there's a truly delicious idea that temples to the gods are actually ways for the mundane people to *trap* the gods, to limit their scope for activity, instead of mere places of worship.

Jame, our main character, even targets one of these gods in an experiment to test the limits of its power. She causes the god to lose its worshipers in the process, and the results prove to Jame that there is something very hinky about the way the gods function. This subplot is played for comedy, but I was happy to note that the very real consequences for this god and its priest were later sources of shame and remorse for Jame. She goes out of her way to fix the damage she's done, and in the process discovers an amazing library of knowledge that this god's temple has hidden for ages. It is one of the wonderful things about the tapestry of Tai-Tastigon created by Author Hodgell.

The city and its quirks, its societal and legal peculiarities, are incredibly enough left to one side as soon as they're revealed! Inconceivable, and that word does mean what I think it means, in today's publishing world. I was intrigued by the Cloudies, a subset of society that's decided to take to the rooftops and not touch the ground: whence came they, what do they do for a living, how come they're not subject to groundling law, and so on and so forth. Never answered. Never addressed. The Thieves' Guild that Jame enters without the smallest tiniest bit of effort on her part is an entire multi-volume storytelling universe! The history that Jame barely skates over with her sort of accidental Thieves' Guild master, one Penari the ancient master thief, is another multi-volume series of novels. I am all for rich texture in a story, and I got it here, but there are way too many delicious side trails that lead nowhere in this book.

At the end of the book came my personal biggest disappointment as Jame left Tai-Tastigon for parts unknown. This was inevitable, given the fact that she enters the city from parts only slightly less unknown and for reasons utterly unclear and unclarified. This is a fantasy novel, and the first in a series. Of course there will be a quest, and of course it will lead away from any one location. That doesn't make me any happier about it. The textures of Tai-Tastigon's tapestry are involving and exciting, and I'd like to stay here please.

Which is how I know Author Hodgell created a wonderful thing in this book, and why it's no real surprise that her fantasy universe has spawned an 816-page wiki. She understands her readers' need to feel immersed and invested in more than a simple, surface-gleaming world. She delivers those goods. My various dissatisfactions with the execution of this tale aside, I admire her ability and her vision. I won't continue reading the series because I'm less interested in Jame than I am in Tai-Tastigon, but I will likely pick up any future book that returns to this setting. show less

God Stalk by P. C. Hodgell is a unique and interesting fantasy that begins the author’s Chronicles of the Kencyrath series. Originally published in 1982, I find it very strange that this book does not appear to be more well known as it has both depth and originality that makes it stand out. The author delves deep into culture, religion and politics and her attention to detail provides many striking descriptions and events.

The story begins as the main character stumbles into the complex, crumbling and corrupt city of Tai-tastigon and endures a night of terror as the dead gods return to stalk the streets and alleys. She is a damaged soul apparently having no memories of her past, although she does appear to know some things such as her show more name and that she has a twin brother, along with some details about her culture and history. I found the story slowed somewhat after this terror ridden night as Jame establishes herself in the city, meets many characters and forms relationships. Luckily I found myself admiring and liking Jame so I wanted to read on and find out where the story was heading.

What I enjoyed most with this book was the creative world-building and vivid descriptions that the author gives us about the city, and it’s god-ridden ways. God Stalk serves as a strong introduction to the series and introduces a unique and unusually skilled heroine whose cryptic memories still leave much to be revealed in future volumes. My only quibble, if it can be so named, is that this book accomplishes it’s goal in that I am thoroughly sold on continuing on with the rest of the series. show less

Jame comes to Tai Tastigon. Jame is a woman on the run with gaps in her memory and Tai tastigon is a large city full of gods. So full, that on the particular night of her arrival, there are dead gods wandering the streets, which makes for a disorienting entry for Jame and the reader. After some misadventures that are a bit hard to follow, or at least comprehend, Jame is taken in by the inhabitants of an inn. She becomes an apprentice with the Thief's Guild more or less to pass the winter so she can cross the mountains and join her people who are, by the way, refugees from another world pursued by a Dark Lord eating his way through dimensional realities and opposed by the tripartite god of James' tripartite people with whom they have a show more strained relationship. Keeping up? Good. Then there's the politics of the Thieves Guild and the upcoming council elections that look set to tear the city apart, the rival inn looking to start a fight, the stalking of a god by a monotheist a bit worried about the profusion of deities that are not hers, a cat with whom she has an empathic connection and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.

A lot goes on in this crowded, teeming book, and structurally it's all over the place, more like a crime saga about boiling tensions on the mean streets only with, y'know, gods and demons and empathic cats. If you can get past the first chapter without wandering off in dizzy bewilderment, it's a captivating novel bursting with ideas despite its relatively short length. It also turns out to be the first in a long saga of novels not yet completed, but not too far off completion, either. Unique and original, which you can't say about many. show less

I first stumbled across this book in a used bookstore somewhere on my rambles in the 1980s. I was intrigued by the title--stalk as noun or verb? I was delighted by the story: it has humor, fast pacing, interesting ideas, a dark side including death and mayhem, and a well-imagined world. It is something of a dark yet light-hearted fantasy with a unique flavor and an engaging heroine struggling with the eternal questions of identity, honor, life's purpose, and the nature of god. Jame stumbles into the old city of Tai-Tastigon pursued by haunts. She tarries a year, makes friends and enemies, and struggles with her amnesia before continuing her travel to rejoin her people, the Kencyrath.

Jame, pursued by haunts, has come to the city of Tai-Tastigon from the Haunted Lands seeking to heal her wounds and looking for her twin brother, Tori. Two weeks previously, she had returned to her home to find everyone dead and her brother missing. She has no memory of where she has been from the time she was driven from her home as an outcast child until her return. Entering Tai-Tastigon at night, she finds the guard gate open, and no lights nor sign of life in the town. As she walks through the maze of streets, she realizes that the townspeople are hidden behind closed doors from the chaos that reigns in the streets – the dead gods. Jame rescues an old man, who recognizes her as a Kencyr and offers her a job. Chased by the unknown show more and the past, she stumbles and wakes up days later at the House of Luck-Bringers, the inn which she stumbled into. She must wait to continue her quest, as the mountain pass that will take her out of the city is closed most of the year. The Innkeeper and his household adopt her, and as she joins the Thieves’ Guild as an apprentice, she becomes enmeshed in the city’s politics.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. It was easy to read, and I enjoyed the author’s style. Hodgell did a fantastic job of world-building, especially in the first chapter, which was very fast-paced and frenetic, slowing in the second chapter to introduce us to the characters that would be important throughout the book. There are several underlying plot points which come together during the story. I felt that the author gave just enough away with each new chapter to keep one reading and interested, leaving the story open for a sequel. There was a lot of background information given about Jame, the Kencyrath, and her past, but I sense there is still a lot to learn, and I intend to read the sequels to find out more.

I recommend this to anyone who likes fantasy with a strong female lead and interesting world-building. show less

I don’t really know what to say about this dense, captivating fantasy. Blasting through worldbuilding, the book introduces us to Jame, a half-amnesiac not-quite-human exile from somewhere, running for her life. She runs into a city filled with gods, only some of them alive, and finds a makeshift family that is having political troubles of its own, into which she intervenes rather decisively. She’s either named for—or perhaps is, though that’s only my interpretation of some cryptic bits—the greatest traitor known to her kind, who opened the door for the Dark Lord who’s slowly taking over the worlds. Anyway, it’s fantastical and elaborate and chewy, and I enjoyed it immensely.

I'm not even going to try to summarize the plot of this old-school science fiction work. Rather, I want to capture my honest reactions. I enjoyed it and I understand why sci-fi is not my usual go-to fare. Early in the novel, during a context-establishing chase scene, I was sitting in my quiet house so caught up in the scene that I jumped when my phone pinged. It made me chuckle and gave me a preview of what the reading experience would be.

The plot is complicated, the characters slow to develop (or, more accurately, slow to develop into distinct beings), but the ride was fun. I felt like I was reading a video game (and I get that there is a strong relationship between SF and much of the modern video game territory), with one adventure show more leading to the next, discoveries of intrigue, deceit, and ancient secrets that illuminated one mystery only to lead to another.

The summary description at the end of the novel helped. Surprisingly, I was glad it is at the end of the book; at the beginning it would have been less meaningful. Will I read the next in the series? I'm undecided about that. If I do, Level Up! show less