Beneath the Vaulted Hills

This was my first Sean Russell book and, like most of my favorite books, just came out of left field.Rather than give details of the story, let me describe the reading experience.Fantasy is so often placed in 'mud and thatch' medieval settings, which in reality leaves little to work with. Swords, fire, magic, horse-riding and running from the enemy are all one can play with. Ok, maybe elves and castles. Groveling beggars populate the masses.Russell picks the perfect setting here. Elegance, style, pre-industrial but post-literate, old enough to have a shadowy history but young enough to be just awakening to the excitement of the 'renaissance'. I would place the culture as somewhere between 1700 and 1800, though there are obvious deviations.As a sub-genre this might be called Alternate History Fantasy, as the environment is very 'real', almost contemporary, and magic is very, well, magical, and rare.The energy of the characters following the 'magi' reminds me of contemporaries studying the Sphinx, though in fantasy something real can actually develop. This story is probably 80% academic mystery, and the depth of the plot and the mostly standout characters swirling around the unknown make for uncomparable fun.The book diverges halfway through, and this is what really captures me.I use to be a spelunker and Russell seems to have actually done some himself, because the second half of his book is so intense and real that he fully captures the sheer rigurousness and challenge of negotioting a real cave system. The combined sense of isolation, claustophobia and mystery that is unique to caving is captured perfectly, and really makes you feel like you've journeyed somewhere, rather than the few miles that in reality one has moved. (one does not journey lightly underground for long: bone-sucking chill, nowhere to go to the bathroom that somebody might not crawl through later, one must pack extremely light, you can't build a fire, its almost impossible to adequately respond to an medical emergency, etc)Lots of good, intellectually-paced dialogue and very atmospheric.All four are worth reading, but 'Vaulted' was my favorite. Hardly a cliche in the whole series.

Though this is a prequel to Moontide and Magic Rise, I found it quite entrancing, even though the reader has some idea as to what is going to happen to some of the characters in the future (if you've read the previous books). Russell is a master of characterization and the art of weaving intriguing plots together, and this makes even a prequel entertaining. In fact, I found it more interesting than Book Two of Moontide & Magic Rise, and more concise.

Sean Russell has got to be one of the great undiscovered (or at least not getting the amount of attention he deserves) fantasy talents. There are some surface parallels to the Magic Rise duology - a naturalist is again drawn into affairs over his head and questionably involved with one of the greatest beauties of the age - but the cliffhanger endings of each chapter in the first third of the book more than kept me interested, and the gradual unveiling of the various factions and their motives (especially the Tellarite society but also the Church and Eldritch) gives the Magic Rise world a deeper texture retroactively. And by the time the novel enters the labyrinth, it becomes genuinely creepy and suspenseful, almost Lovecraftian in its sense of frail human beings in the grip of unimaginable and overwhelming forces ultimately indifferent to their fate. I'd certainly recommend Lovecraft for anyone who enjoyed this book, and also Tim Powers excellent *The Anubis Gates* which takes place in a similar world (an England in the late 1700's where magic is dying out) and is also very original and distinctive.

Very well written and intricate tale. Great characters, excellent plot. Highly recommended. I'm annoyed I'll have to wait for the reasonably priced paperback, though -- on principle I don't buy the hardbacks. :)

Boy, was I glad I brought this book to the beach. Out of a whole bag of books in several genres, this was the best one I read during that time. I loved the setting, which might be called "drawing room fantasy." The novel started out slowly, but the writing was so good that I didn't care. And once the characters entered the caverns, there was no turning back.Most of all, I love the way Sean Russell doesn't fall into the old cliche of the noble heroes fighting an evil dark wizard. The characters in this book are ALL flawed. While probably you'll find yourself rooting for Erasmus, you're never quite sure who the villain is. If there is a villain