Post by Calenture on Nov 28, 2008 14:01:32 GMT
Calenture by Storm Constantine, Headline 1994
Calenture: A disease incident to sailors within the tropics, characterized by delirium in which, it is said, they fancy the sea to be green fields and desire to leap onto it.
Casmeer is the sole survivor of the mountain city of Thermidore. The Thermidorans had sought immortality, but only Casmeer escaped the disease that changed them into strange translucent fossils, the roaches. In the empty streets he defends the roaches from the plunderings of the winged plumosites. In his solitude he begins to write stories of the flatlands, a place where vast cities walk, crawl or fly, guided by lines of gleaming pilot stones laid down by the ground-dwelling terranauts.
Ays is a Priest of Hands in the flying city of Min, where he helps the afflicted into death, easing their path. A stranger in Min objects to his ministrations and curses him. Ays decides to leave the city, a course usually only chosen by the mad, as they become outcasts, derided by both city dwellers and the terranauts. He learns that the terranaut art of laying the stones is as much a mystery to them as to him; or if they understand their art, they won't explain it. Sometimes the time comes for a city to die, and they guide these cities into lakes or mountainsides; though again, their reasoning is unfathomable.
On a wind train, Ays meets the unnatractive girl Leeth. Leeth is besotted with him, but he refuses to let her get close. On their journey they leave the wind train and join a group of travellers who live beneath the armoured plates of a giant creature, part-lizard, part-insect.
The book's other narrative concerns Finnigin, cast out by the terranauts to come to manhood. Finnigan's journey takes him into the mountains where he and a speechless stone-eating girl Babooshpet encounter predatory winged beings and bandits.
Ays is haunted by a strange figure known only by the blue feather in his hat, and he comes to learn that not all cities are the same. Finnigin too hears wonderful stories of rusting cities that somehow contrive to keep moving, cities of bells, and a strange ghost city of empty streets that still follows the pilot stones in the vast flatlands.
Despite its engaging premise, I didn't find this one as magical as Sign For the Sacred, published the previous year; but still a decent read.