Night's Master - Tanith Lee

   1978; 244 pages.  Book 1 (out of 5) in the “Flat Earth” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Dark Fantasy; Anthology; Folklore.  Overall Rating: 7*/10.

 

    He is known by many titles: Lord of Darkness, Bringer of Anguish, Eagle-Winged, the Beautiful, the Unspeakable, the Prince of Demons, and the Master of Night.  Besides being a demon, he’s also a shape-shifter.

 

    He rules the Underearth from his capital city of Druhim-Vanashta, “The City of the Demons”, where the sun never shines.  He is the lord of the princely Vazdru, the worshipping Eshva, and the lowly Drin.

 

    He enjoys traveling to Upperearth, at least when it is nighttime.  He can cast spells, pronounce curses, conjure up foul beasts, and create new beings.  All of which wreaks havoc on the mortals up there.  But he despises the great orange sphere that rises in the east and bathes Upperearth with heat and light, and he is careful to scurry back to Underearth when rays of lightness begin to shine in the eastern sky.  His name is Azhrarn, and this is his story.

    Actually, it’s six stories about him and various creatures which have had the misfortune to cross his path.  I’m pleased to introduce you to the Night’s Master.

 

What’s To Like...

    Night’s Master is really three pairs of interrelated tales.  They all center around Azhrarn, of course, but each duad of stories also features at least one recurring character.  Ferazhin costars the first section, Zorayas in the second, and Janeve in the third.

 

    The “Flat Earth” appellation in the series' name caught my eye since I’m a devoted reader of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.  But Tanith Lee’s version isn’t circular and doesn’t have elephants standing on a giant turtle’s back.  It’s square, and the Sun apparently revolves around it.  I’m curious to see whether anyone ever reaches the edge and accidentally falls off.

 

    The world-building is fantastic.  The author utilizes a flowery style of writing.  For instance, at one point we meet a “pedlar”.  I looked it up; it is an archaic version of “peddler”.  There are also lots of descriptive passages that let you “see” Underearth and Upperearth.  In the hands of an amateur, this writing style could be irksome.  Here it works beautifully.

 

    The character-development is also masterful.  Yes, Azhrarn is the Prince of Demons. But the gods have a wry sense of humor, and at one point he’s forced to save mankind.  Zorayas is also deeply developed.  Events in her early life leave her scarred, turning an innocent child into a vengeful adult.

 

    Upperearth is filled mostly with humans, and Underearth has mostly demons.  But there are other creatures to meet and steer clear of, including witches, dragons, giants, magicians, gods, and even a unicorn.  It was also fun to see something called the Chair of Uncertainty; it's definitely an artifact I want to get my hands on.

 

    Each of the six tales has its own ending, but I didn’t sense anything tying together and closing the entire set of stories as a whole.  I suspect Tanith Lee’s main goal for Night's Master was to introduce the reader to Azhrarn and the two planes of Flat Earth.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.2/5 based on 293 ratings and 52 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.04/5 based on 2,816 ratings and 359 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Fane (n.) : a temple or shrine.

Others: jestling (v.); asphodel (n.); vulpine (adj.).

 

Excerpts...

    She called out: “Blessed be the name of the Dark Lord, and let him do me no harm.”

    To which Azhrarn, smiling, replied: “Time has harmed you enough with his claws.”

    “So indeed he has,” cried the witch, her eyes glittering greedily.  “May the Dark Lord grant me my youth again?”

    At that Azhrarn laughed coldly: “I do not often grant favors, hag.  But though I will not give you your youth, I will see to it you grow no older,” and a lightning slipped from his hand and struck the witch down.  It was never wise to ask a boon from a demon.  (loc. 269)

 

    “You may not drink,” said the first Guardian to Azhrarn, regarding him with this pitiless fearsome eye.

    “Indeed you may not,” said the other, regarding him also.

    “I am not here to drink,” said Azhrarn.  “Do you not know me?”

    “It is futile to know anything,” said the first Guardian, “since all things below pass, alter, decline and perish, and all things here above are unchanging.”

    “Humankind know me,” said Azhrarn.

    “Humankind,” said the second Guardian.  “What are they that we should be interested in their knowledge?”  (loc. 3072)

 

Kindle Details…

    Night’s Master currently sells for $6.99 at Amazon.  The other four books in this series are priced in the $7.99-$9.99 range.  Amazon offers a couple dozen Tanith Lee e-books for your reading pleasure, generally in the range of $1.99 to $12.99.

 

So there he sat.  And the stars grinned like naked daggers.  (loc. 401)

    I noticed only a couple of typos in Night’s Master: except/accept, wreck/wreak, and back/black.  I suspect these crept in when the book was converted into digital format.

 

    Amazingly, I didn’t note any cusswords in the text.  I can’t remember the last time that happened in a dark fantasy book.  There are a bunch of “intimate relations”, including those of the gay, hetero, forced, oral, and aroused varieties and occasionally involving gods with humans and dwarfs with spiders.  That last combination makes my head spin.  To be fair though, Tanith Lee alerts the reader to this degree of sexuality in her Introduction at the front of the book.

 

    Tanith Lee was a British author, which means occasionally American readers will run into strange spellings, such as travellers, grovelling, lustre, and a few others.  Curiously, both marvelous and marvellous were used.  I got the feeling that someone made an effort to Americanize the spelling for the e-book version and, for the most part, succeeded.

 

    That’s about it for the quibbles.  The Flat Earth series is an early effort by Tanith Lee (Wikipedia says she wrote more than 90 novels and 300 short stories), and I gather it is her most popular one.

 

    For me this was an interesting and well-written introduction to a fantasy world I’ve been meaning to explore for quite some time.  Alas, I’m not a big fan of anthologies, but in fairness, I knew this was one of those going in.  If Book 2, Death’s Master, crosses my path in the future, it’s even odds whether I’ll pick it up.  But if you happen to like books like 1001 Arabian Nights, then by all means give this series a try.

 

    7 Stars.  We'll close with a bit of trivia, courtesy of Wikipedia.  Night’s Master was nominated for the 1979 World Fantasy Award – Best Novel.   It didn’t win – Michael Moorcock’s Gloriana did – but to give you some idea of the competition, Stephen King’s The Stand was also nominated that year, and didn’t win either.