Synopses & Reviews
It is 1849. Across Europe, the high tide of revolution has crested, leaving recrimination and betrayal in its wake. From the high councils of Prussia to the corridors of Parliament, the powers-that-be breathe sighs of relief. But the powers-that-be are hardly unified among themselves. Far from it . . . On the south coast of England, London man-about-town James Cobham comes to himself in a country inn, with no idea how he got there. Corresponding with his brother, he discovers he has been presumed drowned in a boating accident. Together they decide that he should stay put for the moment, while they investigate what may have transpired. For James Cobham is a wanted man—wanted by conspiring factions of the government and the Chartists alike, and also targeted by a magical conspiracy inside his own family. And so the adventure of Freedom and Necessity begins… leading the reader through every corner of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, from the parlors of the elite to the dens of the underclass. Steven Brust and Emma Bull have crafted a masterful mix of fantasy and historical fiction. Not since Wilkie Collins or Conan Doyle has there been such a profusion of guns, swordfights, family intrigues, women disguised as men, occult societies, philosophical discussions, and, of course, passionate romance.
Review
"Resembling the works of Tolstoy and Dickens in the plethora of characters, Stoker and Mary Shelley in the exposition, the novel brings together intrigue, adventure, politics, and magic in a complex epic that astonishes the reader." --
Library Journal on
Freedom and Necessity
"Complex and masterly . . . A skilful act of ventriloquism, faithfully reproducing the argot of the early Victorian upper classes with only a few lapses, and plausibily weaving the plot into the politics at the time. Imaginative and finely written." --Interzone on Freedom and Necessity
"Expertly styled after a 19th-century English epistolary novel . . . Engaging characters and surprises that, for all their thrills, stem quite naturally from the groundwork that the authors have so cleverly laid."--Publishers Weekly on Freedom and Necessity
"One of the most impressive novels I've read in a long time."--Locus on Freedom and Necessity
"Brilliantly written as an epistolary novel, rich with historical detail, enlivened by fully drawn characters, this is one of the most unusual and certainly one of the best fantasy novels of the year." --Science Fiction Chronicle on Freedom and Necessity
Review
"One of the most impressive novels I've read in a long time." --
Locus
Synopsis
If you liked Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell--or Christopher Priest's The Prestige--or Iain Pears' An Instance of the Fingerpost--here is a classic of magic-tinged adventure you may have missed.
Synopsis
It is 1849. Across Europe, the high tide of revolution has crested, leaving recrimination and betrayal in its wake. From the high councils of Prussia to the corridors of Parliament, the powers-that-be breathe sighs of relief. But the powers-that-be are hardly unified among themselves. Far from it...
On the south coast of England, London man-about-town James Cobham comes to himself in a country inn, with no idea how he got there. Corresponding with his cousin, he discovers himself to have been presumed drowned in a boating accident. Together they decide that he should stay put for the moment, while they investigate what may have transpired. For James Cobham is a wanted man--wanted by conspiring factions of the government and the Chartists alike, and also the target of a magical conspiracy inside his own family.
And so the adventure begins...leading the reader through every corner of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, from the parlors of the elite to the dens of the underclass. Not since Wilkie Collins or Conan Doyle has there been such a profusion of guns, swordfights, family intrigues, women disguised as men, occult societies, philosophical discussions, and, of course, passionate romance.
Nor could any writing team but Steven Brust and Emma Bull make it quite so much fun...
About the Author
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and raised in a family of Hungarian labor organizers,
Steven Brust worked as a musician and a computer programmer before coming to prominence as a writer in 1983 with
Jhereg, the first of his novels about Vlad Taltos, a human professional assassin in a world dominated by long-lived, magically-empowered human-like "Dragaerans."
Over the next several years, several more "Taltos" novels followed, interspersed with other work, including To Reign in Hell, a fantasy re-working of Milton's war in Heaven; The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, a contemporary fantasy based on Hungarian folktales; and a science fiction novel, Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille. The most recent "Taltos" novels are Dragon and Issola. In 1991, with The Phoenix Guards, Brust began another series, set a thousand years earlier than the Taltos books; its sequels are Five Hundred Years After and the three volumes of "The Viscount of Adrilankha": The Paths of the Dead, The Lord of Castle Black, and Sethra Lavode.
While writing, Brust has continued to work as a musician, playing drums for the legendary band Cats Laughing and recording an album of his own work, A Rose for Iconoclastes. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada where he pursues an ongoing interest in stochastics.
Emma Bull was born in 1954 in Torrance, California. She now lives in Minneapolis and is also the author of War for the Oaks and Bone Dance.