fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviewsfantasy book reviews Jeffrey Ford The Well-Built City 1. The Physiognomy 2. MemorandaMemoranda by Jeffrey Ford

In waking from a dream, we obliterate worlds, and in calling up a memory, we return the dead to life again and again only to bring them face to face with annihilation as our attention shifts to something else.

After the destruction of the Well-Built City (detailed in The Physiognomy), Physiognomist Cley has been living in a village in the wilderness, acting as herbalist and midwife. One day a mechanical bird, obviously built by evil Master Drachton Below, arrives in the village, explodes, and releases a gas that puts many of the villagers to sleep. Cley is the only person who’s equipped to find the antidote, so the villagers supply him with an old dog and an older horse and off he goes (looking a bit like Don Quixote) to the ruins of the Well-Built City.

fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviewsThe City is a real-life construction of Drachton Below’s Memory Palace, which is based on the mnemonic device called the Method of Loci. Everything in the city represents something he wants to remember, but the city has been destroyed, so Master Below has started a new Memory Palace in his mind. Unfortunately, Below is now unconscious because he’s been infected with his own poisonous gas, so Cley must enter Below’s mind and search there if he wants to find the antidote. When he gets in, he finds that he’s not alone in there and that there’s more going on in the Memory Palace than mere storage of Drachton Below’s memories.

In my review of The Physiognomy, I said it was “sometimes brilliant and always bizarre” and the same holds true for Memoranda. It’s got an original and fascinating setting, interesting symbolism, and thought-provoking ideas about memory, time, love, addiction, and evil.

fantasy book reviews science fiction book reviewsThe villain Drachton Below doesn’t quite live up to expectations here, since he’s asleep for most of the novel, but I liked the other characters better this time. Physiognomist Cley, who used to be an arrogant bigot, is now quite pleasant. The best characters, though, are Drachton Below’s adopted demon son who wears spectacles because he thinks it makes him look smart and has eschewed raw meat for salads, and a creature called The Delicate who is similar to J.K. Rowling’s Dementors, except that he’s exceedingly polite while he sucks out your soul. This was very funny, especially as narrated by Christian Rummel whose voices had me laughing frequently.

In general, the plot of Memoranda works better than The Physiognomy’s plot (which kind of fell apart at the end). Don’t look too close, though. I sincerely doubt that it all made sense, but a tight plot is hardly the point of these books. It’s supposed to be bizarre, a little bit silly and, perhaps more than anything, ironic.

If you do audiobooks, you definitely want to read Memoranda that way. Audible Frontiers’ production is flawless and Rummel’s narration is brilliant and adds quite a bit of humor.

The Well-Built City — (1997-2001) Publisher: Offering a freshly-imagined world of bizarre creatures and strange customs, this unique and sardonic allegory explores the power and price of science and the ambiguity of morality. Humorless and drug addicted, physiognomist Cley is ordered by the Master of the Well-Built City to investigate a theft in a remote mining town. Well-versed in serving justice, arrogant Cley sets out to determine the identity of the thief using the pseudo-science of judging people by their features, but becomes distracted from his task by a beautiful girl from town. When the young-but-wise woman rejects him, he looses faith in his abilities, and in a drug-induced frenzy he “remakes” her features. The subsequent horror of what he has done, what he represents, and the shallow life he leads forces him to seek atonement and true justice, risking the Master’s wrath, which may entail death by head explosion.

Jeffrey Ford The Well-Built City fantasy book reviews 1. The Physiognomy, 2. Memoranda, 3. The Beyond Jeffrey Ford The Well-Built City fantasy book reviews 1. The Physiognomy, 2. Memoranda, 3. The Beyond Jeffrey Ford The Well-Built City fantasy book reviews 1. The Physiognomy, 2. Memoranda, 3. The Beyond

Author

  • Kat Hooper

    KAT HOOPER, who started this site in June 2007, earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience and psychology at Indiana University (Bloomington) and now teaches and conducts brain research at the University of North Florida. When she reads fiction, she wants to encounter new ideas and lots of imagination. She wants to view the world in a different way. She wants to have her mind blown. She loves beautiful language and has no patience for dull prose, vapid romance, or cheesy dialogue. She prefers complex characterization, intriguing plots, and plenty of action. Favorite authors are Jack Vance, Robin Hobb, Kage Baker, William Gibson, Gene Wolfe, Richard Matheson, and C.S. Lewis.

    View all posts