The Book of the Beast

I enjoyed book 2 of the series more than the first volume. This was one coherent tale, with the framing structure of the young scholar in the "present" day - from clues, a version of the 18th century perhaps - being given lodgings in an old house with a sinister past, encountering someone from that past who carries a deadly curse and then having the scholar return as the focus of the end of the tale.

In the central part of the book, we learn of the beginning of the curse during the founding of the city of Paradys during the late Roman Empire - at that time known as Pars Dis, due to the association with Pluto, god of the underworld, in the form of Dis, "the wealth", due to the former silver workings in the area, now played out. A Roman show more centurion becomes fascinated by a high class prostitute who seems to be from Egypt and who eventually offers him a jewel which will take away his bad luck - but, he discovers, at a terrible price in the form of a curse which is transmitted both sexually and from mother to child.

I liked the much more coherent nature of this volume with everything revolving around this one deadly element. One thing that was slightly confusing is - in keeping with the theme of precious stones for each part of the previous book - the jewel in the central story is amethyst and the eyes of those who are affected by the curse turn that colour, but in the framing front and back parts of the narrative, in the later period they exhibit emerald coloured eyes instead. Other than that, the story made a lot more sense than parts of the first volume and although there was still a lot of violence and sexual content, quite usual with the author's work, at least the rapes were "off camera" and more of the sex was consensual - although if the demonic force was trying to spread the curse, it doesn't make sense that it then went on to murder the victims as well. Anyway, this is a better rating, 3 stars. show less

The second volume of The Secret books of Paradys is more of the same high-Gothic, colourful, arcane, mysterious fiction as the Book of the Damned, but more of a piece, the tales tied together more directly into a consistent single story.