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my favourite of the series, still.
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Tales from the Flat Earth #4
Delirium's Mistress
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Azhriaz, daughter of Azhrarn, Demon Lord of Night, and a mortal woman, is hidden on a mysterious island, destined to spend her life in dreams, until her father's enemy, Prince Chuz, Delusion's Master, rescues her and transforms her into Delirium's Mistress
416 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1,1985
This edition
- Format
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416 pages, Mass Market Paperback
- Published
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June 4, 1986 by DAW
- ISBN
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9780886771355
- ASIN
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0886771358
- Language
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English
Characters More characters
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Azhrarn
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Prince Chuz
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Azhriaz
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About the author
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Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of 77 novels, 14 collections, and almost 300 short stories. She also wrote four radio plays broadcast by the BBC and two scripts for the UK, science fiction, cult television series "Blake's 7."
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.
Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.
Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.
Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.
Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.
Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.
Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.
Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.
Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.
Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.
Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.
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Community Reviews
Rating(4 / 5.0, 49 votes)
5 stars
18(37%)
4 stars
13(27%)
3 stars
18(37%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
49 reviews All reviews
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I've read more than a dozen books by Tanith Lee, and it is generally true that her shorter works are better than her long works. Her short SF and fantasy is some of the best of the past several decades. Her short novels like Don't Bite the Sun, Kill the Dead and Electric Forest as exotic and compelling. I enjoyed the first three books in the Flat Earth series very much. Predictably, I found Death's Master a bit slow at times, but it is still a great book. I had hoped that the same would be true for Delirium's Mistress. Alas, this is the weakest entry in the series. This is an episodic novel, and some of the episodes are quite good. However, the whole is less than the sum of of the parts. Given that the book is full of demons, angels and gods, you would expect it to be more exciting and compelling, but Lee's descriptive prose can get in its own way. I'm still a great fan of Lee's work, but this is one of my least favorite of her works.
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Quite enjoyable.
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5 star - Perfect
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish
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After writing the excellent and compact 'Night's Master', the author had, for some reasons, left that format. She had started writing lengthier works, full of lyrical imagery and haunted characters, spread across hundreds and hundreds of pages. I don't know about others, but for me the works started losing charm almost immediately. They became soporific, as pace was eschewed in favour of supposed character-development.
The massive novel under discussion is probably the biggest victim of that attitude.
Spread into stories dealing with various characters but connected by one overarching character, it could have been vastly more readable. But this one? It simply goes on, and on, and on...
Despite the shrapish ending, the book appeared tame and flabby compared to that first beast. Perhaps the last one would be better.
Perhaps.
The massive novel under discussion is probably the biggest victim of that attitude.
Spread into stories dealing with various characters but connected by one overarching character, it could have been vastly more readable. But this one? It simply goes on, and on, and on...
Despite the shrapish ending, the book appeared tame and flabby compared to that first beast. Perhaps the last one would be better.
Perhaps.
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I hate to say it but this was at least twice as long as it needed to be. Still beautiful prose though.
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Tanith Lee passed away in 2015, and while I mourned my favourite author, of whose death I only heard months later, the prices of her books skyrocketed, making it almost impossible for me to continue this much-beloved series without going bankrupt. Few works ever touched me like Lee's, and witnessing her stories being removed from print one after the other felt like running out of time. The old novels sold out for horrendous sums, and I desperately reread the three first parts of the Tales from the Flat Earth, repeating them like a mantra.
How grateful I am then for these lovely new editions that deliver Tanith Lee's beauteous prose to new generations of readers! The gorgeously illustrated covers do her work justice, so much that I'm already thinking about rebuying the ones I already own. I've waited so long for the story to continue that the sheer beauty of it brought actual tears to my eyes. It was like experiencing her writing for the first time all over again. And although I've compared other authors' writing to hers before, in the end nobody comes even close to this feverdream of a style.
To keep my adoration short, Delirium's Mistress is on a par with the preceding Tales from The Flat Earth, and in my opinion seemlessly fits into the series, playing with words and wording, imagery and symbolism. To my surprise, numerous characters from preceding installments make a reappearance, which made my goth heart overflow with joy! And each encounter with the almost-forgotten figures of her lore made me miss Tanith Lee even more.
There are still so many stories of hers that I haven't had the chance to read yet, and that is one of the biggest comforts to me, the continued existence of the grand lady of fantasy inside her books. Perhaps I'll buy Night's Sorceries right away - or perhaps I'll procrastinate the premature end of a beloved series by re-examining the previous tales first. In any case, this was marvelous.
How grateful I am then for these lovely new editions that deliver Tanith Lee's beauteous prose to new generations of readers! The gorgeously illustrated covers do her work justice, so much that I'm already thinking about rebuying the ones I already own. I've waited so long for the story to continue that the sheer beauty of it brought actual tears to my eyes. It was like experiencing her writing for the first time all over again. And although I've compared other authors' writing to hers before, in the end nobody comes even close to this feverdream of a style.
To keep my adoration short, Delirium's Mistress is on a par with the preceding Tales from The Flat Earth, and in my opinion seemlessly fits into the series, playing with words and wording, imagery and symbolism. To my surprise, numerous characters from preceding installments make a reappearance, which made my goth heart overflow with joy! And each encounter with the almost-forgotten figures of her lore made me miss Tanith Lee even more.
There are still so many stories of hers that I haven't had the chance to read yet, and that is one of the biggest comforts to me, the continued existence of the grand lady of fantasy inside her books. Perhaps I'll buy Night's Sorceries right away - or perhaps I'll procrastinate the premature end of a beloved series by re-examining the previous tales first. In any case, this was marvelous.
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A spiritual ending to a dark adult fantasy.
The reactions to this book are very divided, as it is quite different from the rest; some are disappointed, some compelled.
I began this series as an escapist read. What I received was eventual transformation into a profound spiritual meditation on the meaning of life. What does one do with immortality, and what type of immortality? How does reincarnation differ from one unending life, and do they in the end have the same result?
As a Buddhist, I found this work both moving and electrifying in ways that I did not expect. However I know from experience that those not interested in this subject will see the story as wandering and pointless. To me it was a riveting, unerringly pointed story of spiritual transformation and transcendence.
We are all both star and sun born, and filled with darkness. We are all living in a world of magic and wonder that we do not recognize. We are all immortal, whether we recognize it or not. We are all Azhrarn, Azhriaz, Dathanja and Chuz, and like Uhlume, we see that death itself wears out.
The ending was so moving, I was in tears, and that is rare.
The reactions to this book are very divided, as it is quite different from the rest; some are disappointed, some compelled.
I began this series as an escapist read. What I received was eventual transformation into a profound spiritual meditation on the meaning of life. What does one do with immortality, and what type of immortality? How does reincarnation differ from one unending life, and do they in the end have the same result?
As a Buddhist, I found this work both moving and electrifying in ways that I did not expect. However I know from experience that those not interested in this subject will see the story as wandering and pointless. To me it was a riveting, unerringly pointed story of spiritual transformation and transcendence.
We are all both star and sun born, and filled with darkness. We are all living in a world of magic and wonder that we do not recognize. We are all immortal, whether we recognize it or not. We are all Azhrarn, Azhriaz, Dathanja and Chuz, and like Uhlume, we see that death itself wears out.
The ending was so moving, I was in tears, and that is rare.
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