Goldstein, Lisa Books

Strange Devices of the Sun And Moon

Lisa Goldstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

interesting mix of worlds 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I picked up this book because I thought that a fantasy story set in the London of Elizabeth I would be an interesting read. While I enjoyed it, I soon realized that such an extraordinary mix of genres and themes could not appeal to a very wide audience. One finds in this world a very historical novel trying to merge with a typical fantasy story of the fairy world. In the novel itself the merge is more of a clash than a smooth blend, and the same can be said for the literary style. Given that I am a student of history and literature as well as a fantasy fan, I rather enjoyed the concept and had fun making my way through the process.

In the book, one is presented with a picture of Elizabethan London. Court intrigue, meetings in pubs, bookselling rights, and the scare of the plague all are part of the basic setting. The author has done her homework and seems at times to almost go out of her way to include some interesting tidbits of history. Real figures from history, such as Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd, make their way into the story. (But fear not, while the author does take liberties with these personalities, they are not subject to the same brutal misrepresentation as befell Chaucer in A Knight's Tale!) Amidst this historical cast, one encounters Alice Wood - a widow who is struggling to keep her husband's business of bookselling running. It is her missing son, Arthur, that draws the fairy folk to London and involves her and her friends in the battle between the light and dark fairy.

It took me awhile to really become involved in this story. There are so many subplots at the beginning that one doesn't know which to follow or become attached to. Nevertheless, they all are witty and entertaining and eventually one sees how they all fit together. I enjoyed the story as it developed and appreciated the rich description and philosophical musings as well. This book is not for everyone, but for those who find Elizabethian London and the fairy realm fasinating, I would highly recommend it.

Editorial Review:

In the time of Elizabeth I, England is in the midst of the Renaissance, and the Faerie Queen enters London with her court, searching for her lost son, Arthur. By the author of The Red Magician. Original.

The Dream Years

Lisa Goldstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A classic! 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

If you are even remotely interested in fantasy that is more than just a bunch of wizards and dragons and cliches, then read this book if you can find it. It combines Surrealism, revolution, the power of dreams... The main character must find himself, realize who he is and what he wants out of life, while his friend, the historical father of Surrealism Andre Breton, tries to influence his writing and personality. But he has met a strange woman from the future, and followers her to the Paris Revolution of 1968, and eventually to the revolution to end all revolutions. A great mixture of historical characters and fictional characters. The writing is consise and beautiful, saying just enough for the imagery to come alive.

This is my current favorite book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The writing is amazingly good. Her characters have a sharp sense of humor, and I found myself laughing the whole way through. But this book is a serious piece of literature that should be integrated into the canon and read by students. Especially ones interested in Science Fiction and Fantasy. One of the great female science fiction/fantasy authors, up there with Madeline L'Eagle.

Tourists

Lisa Goldstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Between Fantasy and Reality 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This is one of Goldstein's best. Not quite fantasy, not quite reality, but extremely intelligent, compelling fiction. I was deeply caught up in this rich world, and sorry when the book was over.

I'd recommend anything by this author, with this and A Mask for the General being my personal favorites. Anyone who likes Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, Neal Stephenson, Alice Hoffman or Marge Piercy should give this a try.

Editorial Review:

The 1993 American Book Award-winning author of The Red Magician presents another spellbinding tale. In a faraway land called Amaz, a family whose ordinary appearance masks hidden conflicts discovers things that change them forever. "One of the great American novels of the 1980s."--Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Travellers in Magic

Lisa Goldstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Deceptively simple 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Lisa Goldstein has a very unusual style among fantasy writers. She doesn't fall do anything resembling Tolkien's writing style (as many try) or his epic world of elves and dwarves. She doesn't fancify, she doesn't try to make her works grandiose. She refuses to write a series, as almost every other fantasy author does.

She enchants instead, but using surprisingly simple language, depicting surprisingly normal-seeming events, and evoking wonder on every page despite. I have heard her work compared to oriental brushwork - the description fits.

This collection of short stories is one of the best single author collections I have read. She explores a huge variety of subjects, from the historical, with Sir Walter Raleigh, to the disturbing story of an old woman, neglected for years, chosen by aliens to decide if the human race should be exterminated, to the story of a man, given photos that show his future, in a desperate search for the woman who appears ion one picture.

She skirts her personal rule of never writing series' a bit closely, by returning to the same fictional country of Amaz in two stories (also featured in her novel Tourists), but those stories are decidedly stand-alones, each exploring the theme of being a stranger in a foreign country, but viewing that theme from a different angle each time.

A reader looking for sweeping action will likely be disappointed; even Walter Raleigh's journey across the sea to seek El Dorado is not an action-adventure, but rather a smart moral dilemma. Anyone seeking intelligence, creativity, truly human characters, and sudden moments of beauty, will be delighted.

Editorial Review:

The 15 deceptively plain short stories in this collection hum with the harmonics of Lisa Goldstein's novels. In "Tourists," Goldstein visits Amaz, where packs of tarotlike cards circulate and an American tourist is enmeshed in their predictions. A reporter interviewing a revolutionary leader learns that "Death is Different" in Amaz, and in "A Game of Cards," the oracular cards appear in America. Goldstein is fascinated by refugees, travelers, and explorers confronting alien cultures or surviving in exile. Sometimes her characters are subsumed, assimilated; sometimes they maintain an indigestible integrity in their foreign environment. It is always better to adapt to new circumstances, while honoring the past, in Goldstein's worlds, than to deny them. Rigidity is sterile death.

Dark Cities Underground

Lisa Goldstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Ruth Berry wants to be the first reporter in years to interview reclusive Jeremy Jones, the son of famed author E.A. Jones and the hero of her classic children's fantasy books. Jeremy does not want to discuss his childhood; he has forgotten it, he has changed his name to Jerry, and he has not spoken to his mother in many years. But he finds his memories returning when strange events seem to indicate that the Adventures of Jeremy in Neverwas weren't fantasy. He, Ruth, and Ruth's daughter Gilly sink ever deeper into a terrifying underworld, pursued by the villainous Barnaby Sattermole, by Sattermole's monomaniacal archenemy Sneath, and by the relentless Shadow Committee, a secret conspiracy at least as old as human history.

In Dark Cities Underground, American Book Award winner Lisa Goldstein reveals and explores the connections among the worlds of Narnia and Never-Never Land, the Wind in the Willows and Wonderland, myth and legend. But don't read Dark Cities Underground as an escapist secondary-world adventure; that will lead to disappointment, because this novel is about the nature and meaning of otherworlds, and not about disappearing into them. This fine modern fantasy is also about archetypes, childhood, growing up, loyalty, immortality, death, and love. --Cynthia Ward

The Alchemist's Door

Lisa Goldstein

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Scientist, mathematician, and court astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, John Dee is also one of the sixteenth-century's most renowned alchemists, driven by a passion to fathom the elemental secrets of the cosmos. But when his reckless assistant, Edward Kelley, succeeds in using a crystal sphere to summon angels, Dee is catapulted into an awesome struggle that may extinguish the light of reason forever.

One of the spirits invoked is a cunning demon who takes possession of Dee's young daughter, Katherine, and shows Dee a frightening vision of his own future. Terrified by what has been foretold, Dee abruptly decides to close his house in London and flee to Europe with his long-suffering wife, Jane, and their two young children.

Their desperate flight brings them at last to the city of Prague--a center of culture, knowledge, and learning, both sacred and profane, a gateway between the Eastern and Western worlds, and also, it is whispered, a door between our world and the world of the spirits.

There, in the city's ancient streets, Dee encounters the mystic Rabbi Judah Loew, who enlists his aid in the creation of a Golem--a man fashioned from the clay--to defend the city's Jewish Quarter from persecution. And he asks Dee's help to avert a impending crisis that threatens to engulf the world. For ancient legends say that the fate of the world rests on shoulders of thirty-six righteous men. And if one of those righteous men dies before his time, the world will end and dark spirits will remake it in their own image.

The Red Magician

Lisa Goldstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A wonderous novel of a horrific time. 5 out of 5 stars.
10 of 10 people found this review helpful.

Lisa Goldstein's first novel came out of nowhere and won the American Book Award. Compelling and heartrending, with beautiful prose and a wonderous, magical story, *The Red Magician* captures readers into the life of a Jewish girl, Kisci, coming to adulthood in preWWII Poland, detailing her friendship with the Red Magician--the truly magic magician--who tries to warn those around him about the coming horror he has forseen. The novel follows Kisci through the Camps and to the point where, as a DP, she embarks for America. This novel is possibly the best realization of Magical Realism I have ever read, blending Jewish Kabbala mysticism with the events of the time with the intimate story of Kisci with such a grievous beauty that even after many readings I cannot pick up the book just for a moment: the novel almost forces me to finish it in one sitting.

Editorial Review:

On the eve of World War II, a young, red-haired magician who calls himself Vörös arrives in a small Hungarian village, prophesying death and destruction. The only one to believe him is thirteen-year-old Kicsi. She tries to help him warn the villagers, but the local rabbi, who also possesses magical powers, frustrates their attempts. Then the Nazis come, and everyone in the village, including Kicsi and her family, are sent to concentration camps. Can the power of Vörös, the Red Magician, help them survive?

The Red Magician is a notable work of Holocaust literature, as well as a marvelously entertaining fantasy that is wise and transcendent.

Mask for the General

Lisa Goldstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Good, but flawed 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is one of Lisa Goldstein's weaker works. Since it still garnered four stars from me, this is hardly a sign that it is a weak book.

The story takes place is a slightly futuristic America. The USA as this world knows it was ruined by a sudden economic collapse, and taken over by a dictator mostly known (Surprise) as the General. People with dissenting opinions are sent into 'rehab' facilities.

The story centers around two women living in this world. The first is Mary, young and idealistic, travelling to Berkely, California, where the Tribes, an underground culture centered around masks, has arisen. There she meets Layla, one of the mask-makers, and most respected among the Tribal folk. Mary is drawn to this world, but soon begins to fear that Layla has gone past the point of religious belief into troubling madness. Layla, in the meantime, tries to persuade Mary to follow her path.

The story succeeds best in its characters. Even bit parts are given their own motives, and attitudes. It also triumphs on occasion with the setting, the strange world in which these chracters live. It works the least well where Ms. Goldstein is obviously taking the Berkeley and San Francisco she knows, and tearing them down. But when she conjures up the small apartments, each of which reflects its owner, the mood of streets, then the world seems real enough to touch.

Unfortunately, this story does have weak spots, and most of them relate to plot. The story's end suits the underlying themes of the story perfectly, and suggests, without outright telling, how the future of the country will go, but leaves a great many threads dangling. The most obvious example is the character of Nick. A traitor to the Tribes, he is shown in strong detail in the first third, implying he will become important again, then vanishes, with only a few further references to hint at his fate. The book was so well-written overall that I can forgive these plot weaknesses, and would still recommend the book, but they do mar an otherwise exceedingly pleasant reading experience.

Walking the Labyrinth

Lisa Goldstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Interesting by lacking depth 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I picked up Lisa Goldstein's _Walking the Labyrinth_ unsure of what to expect. But I was both surprised and disappointed. The story is certainly original with some delightful twists in the plot, but much of the story is lacking in depth and style. Many of the explanations concerning the "magick" surrounding the characters were far too superficial or even at times nonexistent. The ending was just too simple for what was at times a complex plot. Furthermore, I was completely indifferent toward the protagonist. Goldstein gives the reader very little to like about her. In short, I couldn't recommend this book.

A magical mystery 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book is what one of my writing instructors would label a plot-driven novel. It tells a story in which the protagonist, Molly Travers, orphaned at the age of three and raised by her great-aunt, gradually discovers the history of her extended family and meets relatives that she never knew that she had. In the process she learns about herself and about ways in which people in family and romantic relationships can use and misuse power over each other. She finds that her family traces its roots to an illicit union in Victorian England between a lower-class girl with a magical Gift and a gentleman with an interest in the occult, and she eventually learns how and why the family emigrated to the United States, of the life they led as vaudeville performers (illusionists who could perform tricks that baffled other magicians), of family conflicts that isolated her branch of the family from the rest, and of the family's connection with the secret Order of the Labyrinth. Information is revealed at a pace that adds steadily to the reader's knowledge while sustaining enough of the mystery to make each chapter a pleasure to read. The metaphor of the Labyrinth ties a genuine physical labyrinth in the story to the process of learning that goes on through life. I suppose this is not earth-shakingly original. Still, since I experienced a few frustrating setbacks in my own life while reading this book, it was actually very helpful to hear in my mind the echo of the question that characters in the book are asked when they experience such a turning of the labyrinth: "What have you learned?"

Editorial Review:

As she investigates her family history, Molly Travers, a young woman living in San Francisco, discovers that she is the descendant of vaudeville magicians who performed real magic with a band of nineteeth-century occultists called the order of the Labyrinth.

Summer King, Winter Fool

Lisa Goldstein

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Uninspired and uninvolving 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Lisa Goldstein has a good reputation in fantasy circles, but on the basis of this book I have to assume either that she is highly overrated or else that "Summer King, Winter Fool" is not particularly representative of her work as a whole. Some nice work in creating a promising setting and some intriguing ideas along the way are deep-sixed by a formulaic plot and characters who stubbornly refuse to come to life. Ms. Goldstein ignores the essential injunction to show, not tell, and the book hurries to its ending without creating the slightest tension along the way. Inexplicably recommended as one of the best fantasy novels of 1994 in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling's annual "Year's Best" anthology, which is normally a fairly reliable source for finding quality fantasy literature. Go figure.

Editorial Review:

An inept monarch; a double brace of scheming siblings; a mannered, stratified society; and a long, cold winter are the background for this drama of duality. Would-be poet Valemar, a young courtier, is entangled by his cousin Narrion in murder and intrigue and is soon further entangled in old deceptions and new war with the city-state Etrara's rival nation, the Shai. Surrounded by duplicity and forced to conceal himself, his resilient adaptability becomes an asset in a polarized world. Tightly plotted and plainly told, this novel furnishes better meat than most trilogies.