The Rat and the Serpent - Hardcover

Llewellyn, Bryn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1930997833 ISBN 13: 9781930997837

Publisher: Prime Books, 2005

Synopsis

Image a film made in black-and-white. Now imagine a novel written in black-and-white. The Rat and the Serpent is a gothic tale that follows the extraordinary fate of Ugli the cripple. Raised as a beggar in the soot-shrouded Mavrosopolis, Ugli has to scramble for scraps of food in the gutter if he is to survive. But one day his desperation and humiliation is noticed by the mysterious Zveratu, and soon he is taking his first faltering steps into the world of the citidenizens. He meets the seductive Raknia and the arrogant Atavalens; one destined to be his lover, the other his mortal enemy. But as Ugli ascends he becomes aware of a strange darkness at the heart of the city in which he lives. Slowly, he realises that the Mavrosopolis exists gloomy and forbidding around a terrible secret . . .

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In Llewellyn's solid if unoriginal dark fantasy set in the Mideastern-flavored futuristic city of Mavrosopolis, Ugli, a crippled rat shaman, aims to rise above his station as a "nogoth," i.e., a street person, and to right the wrongs he sees in the sooty metropolis. While Ugli faces implacable foes, chiefly the serpent shaman Herpetzag, he can turn to such allies as his mentor, the old man Zveratu, and his mother, Astarta. Despite periodic visits by wraiths intoning solemn warnings of doom, Ugli overcomes one imaginative material or magical obstacle after another. (One of the city's labor groups, the Dessicators, removes surplus water from ruins, and Ugli devises a way of filling magic wands with tons of water and then rolling them into the sea.) Readers won't be surprised by the outcome of Ugli's final showdown with Herpetzag, as the plot follows a pattern familiar from a thousand folk tales and as many fantasy novels. In addition, some may wonder why Ugli is the first nogoth to devise a system of upward mobility. Still, the vividly depicted grim urban setting and numerous absorbing secondary characters keep the pages turning. (Feb.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Prime Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1930997833
• ISBN 13: 9781930997837
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 276