Illusion by Paula Volsky Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Illusion
Book Review: A Different Perspective on the French Revolution
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a work of historical fiction with a slight fantasy twist, following the lines of the French Revolution. The heroine Eliste is on the losing side of the revolution.Eliste travels to court to be a lady in waiting and seems to fall into one trap to another. The king's playboy brother tries to seduce her while she's in court. After she leaves the court, she stays in the city, despite the danger of the peasants revolt. You want to give her advice like "Get outta there, girl." The traps continue until you feel like she can never get out.
This is a winding, weaving, long book and there's not much fantasy, but it keeps you hooked. The characters are well-developed and believable, and you find yourself liking the snooty, bigoted heroine.
Book Review: A Fantasy Novel with Panache
Summary: 5 Stars
About 20 years after the American Revolution, France entered into one of its own; bloody, hysterical, and cruel. That the guillotine was considered a mercy for most of the aristocrats who were executed pretty much sums up the feelings of the time.Over a hundred years after that revolution, the Russian revolution occurred. This ideological revolution shaped 20th century global politics.
You'd think that it'd be hard to put both of these revolutions into one story, but Paula Volsky did it, and added a bit of magic to the bargain.
The protagonist, Eliste, spends the greater part of the book in conflict over what she's been taught and what she sees in front of her face. Throughout this gripping work, she learns of the abuses of her aristocratic class -- but if it ended there, this would be just another novel.
Instead, we see the abuses of the revolutionary class, who takes what could have been a necessary step in government evolution, and instead turns it into a potential totalitarian regime.
The razor-edge blade that keeps the entire country from falling apart over this counter-struggle is managed to be shown in the one microcosm of Vonahr.
I highly recommend this work as one of the few potential SF/Fantasy classics.
Book Review: A great fantasy!
Summary: 5 Stars
Illusion is a very unexpected book. What started off as something which felt a little like a Regency court story (young Eliste vo Derrivale, noble country-bred daughter travels to the city of Sherreen to be a lady in waiting on the Queen) ends up as a study in how a fascist/communist group could take over a country and whose rule can descend into tyrrany and chaos. Sounds rather political and non-interesting but in fact it was a fascinating book.
Eliste is a typical upper-class miss - or so we think. She's part of the Exalted who are the nobility of the country of Vornahr and have been taught that non-Exalted people are definitely of a lower order. The Exalted used to have magical skills but these have largely died out (Eliste's Uncle is the only person she knows with these skills). She grows up with a Serf, Dref Zeenoson, as her playmate but she has been taught from the cradle that, despite the fact Dref is intelligent and articulate, that he is a lesser being than her. Dref tries to reason with her but she can't see beyond her Exalted and his serf status. After an altercation between the serfs and her father, Dref flees and from that point Eliste's world starts to change.
The first third of the book is about Eliste's time at court. She makes a splash as a beautiful young girl and has many suitors. She's having fun, but throughout this fun time there is an undercurrent of looming danger - there are a number of people publishing pamphlets and other literature which suggest that the Exalted should not, by right, have all the privileges that they enjoy. Some of this literature appears moderate, some wildly wacky, but Eliste can shrug it all off - until the wacky side begins to have some successes.
The depiction of the descent into tyranny, the changing of the government and the ways in which this is effected are excellent. You feel, with Eliste, her confusion as her settled world changes. Unlikely people become heroes, unlikely people are baddies, weak people are used as tools and the creation of a communist-type government with all its failings is brilliantly portrayed. All the things that Eliste counted on as true are being challenged and changed.
The magic side of the book is not as significant as it might have been and I liked this. Yes, there are magical machines and some people have the ability to create complex illusions to change people's expectations, but what could be a rather lazy author's trick to move things along never feels like that. Magic takes place when necessary and it seems as if the story could almost have taken place without it. No doubt this is a subtle lesson to us - never to assume that we are `safe' in our nice safe communities.
There's a gentle love story in this book, along with the dramatic tale of a country turning in on itself and stories of heroism and despair - it reads sometimes like a history of 20th century Europe, of Russia, of other places, and yet it is still a really enticing read. Politics and human nature wrapped up in a fascinating story - well worth reading!
Book Review: A very clever and entertaining read
Summary: 5 Stars
The adventures of the Exalted Eliste are very entertaining indeed. Our heroine is appropriately fesity, the settings well drawn, and the other characters who populate her world are interesting and believable. But what makes this story so different, and really quite entertaining, is that it is really a tale of suffering and redemption following the French Revolution, but in a different world and time. Following this, everything that Eliste knows and holds to be true is swept away in fear and violence, and her struggle to survive in this changing world is the centrepiece of the book.Eliste's world is not France of course, and the King and Queen are not Louis and Marie Antoinette, but they may as well be (though they have no children). The strict formalities that surrounded the French Court are faithfully related here, and you come to believe in this society where the Exalted lived just as the aristocracy did in France. Anyone who is familiar with the French Revolution will find this very clever - the reader can indulge in a game of "find the characters" - Marat for instance, who spent most of his time in a bath due to an unpleasant skin condition, is transformed into the beggar leader Fungus (who as the name suggests has an equally unpleasant skin condition). Even the guillotine is transformed into something far more nasty - a machine called Kokette with enormous spikes and needs of its own!
Interspersed with all this is some magic, some terrible hardship (the author does not shirk from some rather graphic descriptions of hardship and deprivation), and of course love. Eliste travels a rocky road from a spoilt young lady to a woman with rather formiddable skills and fortitude.
This is a different, clever and entertaining book. It is quite long, but thankfully keeps your attention for the whole time. I recommend it highly for people who enjoy a great story, fabulous writing and a complex plot.
Book Review: Absorbing and simply a great read!
Summary: 5 Stars
I first fell in love with this book when my sister checked this book out from the library. After raving that it was now my favorite book, my sister brought me my own copy. Since then, I've read it three more times, and (even I can't believe this) I'm not sick of it yet. Its so well described that I feel like I am actually there experiencing the turmoil of events with the characters.I'm always sorry when I reach the last page. Sure, its predictable... but sometimes its nice just to read a book for the fun of it.