Night's Master

Lee's fiction is worth being called belles-lettres due to her poetic style and rich vocabulary. The author is not afraid of using similes and does not follow Stephen King's advice about using a minimum of adverbs, which makes her work unique and more colourful.

One of the book's greatest strengths is its vivid characters, who overcome challenges and make sacrifices to achieve their dreams. From the enigmatic Azhrarn to tragic figures like Ferazhin and Zorayas, each character feels fully realized and adds depth to the narrative. Classic yet deep themes are included—love, hate, destiny, heroism, and defeat too.

What struck me the most was Lee's ability to seamlessly blend elements of fantasy with thought-provoking themes such as feminism, show more LGBTQ+ issues, and the nature of power. Her writing style, rich in symbolism and metaphor, adds layers of meaning to the story, making it not only entertaining but also intellectually stimulating.

In conclusion, Night's Master is a work of unearthly beauty that can touch readers' souls with its fancy poetic writing style. For me, this book restored my faith in the fantasy genre, and each word resonated with me like ripples on the surface of a pool after the fall of a stone into it.

However, despite the fairytale-like narration, this book contains sexual scenes and violence against women, so I can't recommend it to children and sensitive readers. The rest will be fine as long as you are not afraid of old-school fantasy. show less

I've been slowly working my way through Tanith Lee's fantasy oeuvre, reading first The Birthgrave and its sequels, mixing in the Wars of Vis (of which I've not yet read the last), then Volkhavaar, and now the first of the Flat Earth books: Night's Master. The style here was most similar to Volkhavaar, which could very well be a Tale of the Flat Earth itself, for all that it fails to insist on any particular larger continuity. But I was most pleasantly surprised by the insanely high story-to-word ratio in Night's Master. In less than two hundred pages, Lee executes six major plot arcs, all realized with efficient but beautiful language, and still finds time to linger on terrific images.

The title refers to the character who provides the show more book's continuity over "many thousand mortal years," Azhrarn Prince of Demons. He is "one of the Lords of Darkness," but we never meet his peer or his superior in the course of the many tales in which he figures here. He is amoral, capricious, and cosmically charismatic, ruling over three sub-races of demons from his splendid capital of Druhim Vanashta in the center of Underearth. Often, he fades from view for much of a given story, while the events that he has set in motion work themselves out in the world of humanity. But he is not just a linking device; the book culminates in his special fate, which draws on the full fabric that is woven to that point.

I read the original DAW paperback edition, which features wonderful art by George Barr on the cover and in four or five interior illustrations. There are four more Flat Earth volumes to follow this one, and if Lee was able to keep up this prodigious level of imagination and elegant writing throughout, I will be hugely pleased. I know there was a book club omnibus edition, but this sort of work deserves to be housed in an abundantly illustrated, leather-bound tome. show less

Night's Master is made up of a series of interconnected stories all related, directly or indirectly, to Azhrarn, the Demon Lord who rules the Underearth. These are really dark, adult fantasy tales that deal with themes of love, lust, greed, etc. The characters that populate Tanith Lee's world aren't necessarily likeable-- which actually, is refreshing and makes me enjoy the book more. So often writers try hard to create characters that we like and can root for, but I like the fact that Tanith Lee seems to just write characters that do what they want, and what makes sense for them, rather than trying to write them to be appealing to readers. Would I want to be friends with her characters? No, I'd probably run away if I ever met most of show more them, but they are fascinating to read about, and I find them very human, embodying so many relatable and recognizable emotions, obsessions, lusts, flaws... I find a little of myself in them.

The world building of the Flat Earth is pretty ambiguous. It is a world of exotic magic and mystery. Lee doesn't spend too much time developing it, but it doesn't take away from her stories at all. The mystery is part of its charm. I do love the little glimpse we get of the world above-- the gods who created this world are now bored with it, living in the book's version of "heaven", apathetic to the existence of human beings. So naturally, that leaves the demons who find entertainment in meddling in human affairs. show less

This was the first Tanith Lee I ever read. I used to have the SFBC omnibus editions (which I got by accident--forgot to send the reply card back in time--and decided to keep) and read the first three books of the set. I liked them a bit, but had a hard time getting into the mythical style of narration. The Flat Earth books are collections of interconnected myths, legends, or fairy tales if you will, where magic is wondrous and not subject to laws, even fantastical ones. If a demon wants to grow a woman out of a flower well then, it is done. At the time, (this was some 30 years ago) I preferred my fantasy more grounded. However, as I got older and fell in love with some of her later works, I started to feel I hadn't been fair to these show more books. Or that I just read them at the wrong time.

So I was thrilled to see that DAW was bringing these and other works (most of which were out of print before I discovered her writing) back into print and giving me another chance. And having now re-read this first volume, I am so so so glad I decided to give it a second try, because my experience this time was one of sheer delight. Far from being difficult, the style of the storytelling now felt liberating. I didn't have to analyze the way I often do. This isn't to suggest that it is light or fluffy reading, necessarily; it's just...different. If you are interested in reading original, adult fairy tales--as opposed to re-tellings of the usual old warhorses--I can't recommend this highly enough. show less

Tanith Lee at her best offers the madly inventive with poetic, lyrical prose, sensuous and lush: Night's Master, the first in her "Flat Earth" series is one of her best, a dark fantasy with a fairy tale quqlity. More a grouping of linked stories than a novel, this is centered on "Night's Master,"Azhrarn, the Prince of Demons and Desire in the underearth who capriciously toys with mortals--you play with him at your peril. This doesn't feel like some iteration of Tolkien or off-the-shelf fantasy. It's a unique world. A slender volume you'll read through all too quickly.

What a trip. I was expecting a novel but it's really a collection of bizarre (and somewhat horny) fables. A little gross at times (could definitely do without the beastiality and sexual assault), but overall pretty entertaining.

A beautifully constructed collection of tightly linked tales. Lee moves effortlessly from individual dramas to epic conflicts, with liberal amounts of humour and sensuality. The breezy and episodic style is reminiscent of Dickens, but good and evil can come from anyone, and love has many forms, many dangers, and many joys.