The Bedlam Stacks Natasha Pulley Books
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An Indie Next Pick
The eagerly anticipated new novel from the author of THE WATCHMAKER OF FILIGREE STREET--a treacherous quest in the magical landscape of nineteenth-century Peru.
In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg. On the sprawling, crumbling grounds of the old house, something is wrong; a statue moves, his grandfather's pines explode, and his brother accuses him of madness.
When the India Office recruits Merrick for an expedition to fetch quinine--essential for the treatment of malaria--from deep within Peru, he knows it’s a terrible idea. Nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who's made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is desperate to escape everything at home, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for a tiny mission colony on the edge of the where a salt line on the ground separates town from forest. Anyone who crosses is killed by something that watches from the trees, but somewhere beyond the salt are the quinine woods, and the way around is blocked.
Surrounded by local stories of lost time, cursed woods, and living rock, Merrick must separate truth from fairytale and find out what befell the last expeditions; why the villagers are forbidden to go into the forest; and what is happening to Raphael, the young priest who seems to have known Merrick’s grandfather, who visited Peru many decades before. The Bedlam Stacks is the story of a profound friendship that grows in a place that seems just this side of magical.
The Bedlam Stacks Natasha Pulley Books
Ms. Pulley's first book, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, is a wonderful book, with strange and familiar and strangely familiar characters and a great deal of subtle wonder all around. The characters all grow toward and away from each other. The Victorian setting is very well done, with the Japanese exhibition opening up that straightened London.The Beldam Stacks is even more wonderful. As a reader I had such ambivalence about the European characters, sometimes endearing, sometimes crass, sometimes near transcendent. But the place, the stacks, that realistic magic just floored me. I dreamed phantastic dreams while reading this, architectural and biological and glowing.
The central mystery reminded me of "The Stress of Her Regard" by Tim Powers, but The Stacks though serving up constant danger are less fraught and far more exotic than nephilim haunted Europe.
I love books like this. I call them "rabbit hole" books because I just fall right down them, never once considering how to get out. And life after waking up is a little tattier around the edges.
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Tags : Amazon.com: The Bedlam Stacks (9781620409671): Natasha Pulley: Books,Natasha Pulley,The Bedlam Stacks,Bloomsbury USA,1620409674,Fantasy - Historical,East India Company,Fantasy fiction,Fantasy fiction.,Historical fiction,Peru - Social life and customs - 19th century,Peru;History;19th century;Fiction.,Priests,Smugglers,Smugglers;Fiction.,100301 Bloomsbury US Adult HC,ENGLISH SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY,FICTION Fantasy Historical,Fantasy,Fiction,Fiction-Fantasy,GENERAL,General Adult,Peru,United States
The Bedlam Stacks Natasha Pulley Books Reviews
Natasha Pulley's writing is pure magic. As someone who doesn't tend to gravitate towards historical fiction, I will always reach for either of Pulley's books. I was a giant fan of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Bedlam Stacks just solidified how much I adore her writing.
The novel starts off a bit slow, but Pulley's writing is elegant and quickly snagged me in once our main character, Merrick Tremayne, finds himself embarking on an expedition to Peru, specifically a mountain town that's known well by his grandfather and father, in order to smuggler cuttings of cinchona trees to treat malaria in India. The magical realism of the beliefs of this village mixes amazingly well with the beautiful imagery of native Peru as I found myself straddling the line along with Merrick of what could possibly be true. Each page was a thrill to turn and I found myself so excited to find out what was going to happen next.
The Bedlam Stacks is a beautiful story of friendship and cultural intrigue. It may require some patience, but I swear to you, it's worth it.
A fusion of historical fiction and magical realism—A beautiful story and beautifully written. After losing all hope for a meaningful life after a crippling accident, Merrick Tremayne is forever changed after accepting a commission to go on a dangerous expedition to secure the cuttings from the cinchona trees. Ms. Pulley seamlessly wove the Q’ero perception of time into this fictional historical tale centered around the East India Company’s pilfering of the native cinchona tree needed for quinine during the malaria epidemics. I found the magical elements complimented the spiritual nature of the setting and the belief systems of the culture.
A modern Jules Verne. I was worried when several readers called this book magical realism, a genre I can't get into, but I was immersed in this novel from beginning to end. An adventure in the tradition of Jules Verne to wild and fantastical lands with sly alternative history that reminded me of Joan Aiken's Wolves of Willoughby Chase series, and the flavor of steam punk (without the steam) supplied by alternative technologies. All told by a mesmerizing narrator and including a cast characters so developed that you can't believe they are gone when the novel ends. I hope that Natasha Pulley lets us inhabit this world again in another book.
I loved a lot about this book. Some people thought the initial journey was long and boring. I wasn't one. The time and place and its effects on the characters was so well described that I thought I was there with them. The details were fascinating and I read the book much more carefully than I do a typical genre novel. Every word was important. The need to know what was happening and who these people were and what their lives were like dragged me non-stop through the book.
However, disappointingly for me there was just no emotional connect to the main characters in the story. I was interested but it was intellectual. They always felt remote and not really human though I suppose that can be forgiven in a couple of circumstances.
I recommend this book but with the caveat that if you love emotional connect like me then it may not be there for you in this novel.
I fell in love with Natasha Pulley's first book, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, and was so excited when I saw she had this second book out. And I loved this one just as much as the first!
The book made me think of the sort of adventure stories written by John Buchan, or H. Rider Haggard's stories about Allan Quartermain (for younger readers of this review who may not recognize those names...think Indiana Jones)...stories of adventure and exploration but written with an earlier-than-21st-century sensibility. A lot of the reviews here mention that the book is slow...I would say more that it is a deliberate build-up. There are hints of strange very early on, before the main characters adventures even start, and those hints build and build. The supernatural here is almost explainable...could almost be something that would occur in our own world.
But it's the characters that I love especially, wounded (mentally and physically) Merrick and Raphael of course, Clement, even the people of the stacks - Inti, Aquila. And the marvelous reappearance of a character from Watchmaker. They are so real and their relationships so well drawn. And the world they inhabit is beautifully described. I'd love to see the stacks, with their obsidian inclusions...I'd love to write messages in the glowing pollen...
I'll just have to wait for Ms. Pulley's next book, I guess.
Ms. Pulley's first book, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, is a wonderful book, with strange and familiar and strangely familiar characters and a great deal of subtle wonder all around. The characters all grow toward and away from each other. The Victorian setting is very well done, with the Japanese exhibition opening up that straightened London.
The Beldam Stacks is even more wonderful. As a reader I had such ambivalence about the European characters, sometimes endearing, sometimes crass, sometimes near transcendent. But the place, the stacks, that realistic magic just floored me. I dreamed phantastic dreams while reading this, architectural and biological and glowing.
The central mystery reminded me of "The Stress of Her Regard" by Tim Powers, but The Stacks though serving up constant danger are less fraught and far more exotic than nephilim haunted Europe.
I love books like this. I call them "rabbit hole" books because I just fall right down them, never once considering how to get out. And life after waking up is a little tattier around the edges.
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