The Divinity Student

Michael Cisco, The Divinity Student (Buzzcity Press, 1999) I had somehow gotten it in my head that The Divinity Student was a horror novel. I have no idea how that happened, for it is anything but. This is a fantasy, almost a steampunk novel, that put me in mind more than anything of K. J. Bishop or Ekaterina Sedia, but with the obsession with language more commonly found in Catherynne Valente or China Mieville. (And if you're a fan of any of the above and haven't discovered Michael Cisco yet, do so at your earliest opportunity.) It is beautiful, fascinating, thought-provoking. As we open, the nameless Divinity Student of the title is struck by lightning and killed, but we soon see that this is some sort of common (or at least understood) ritual in this world; the body is returned to the seminary, eviscerated, filled with pages ripped from sacred books, and plunged into water. (I now want to be buried like this.) He then returns to consciousness and is given an assignment by Fasvergil, the head of the seminary; he is to go to San Veneficio, a nearby city, and get work as a word-finder while he waits for further instructions. When he gets them, that's truly amazing (and it's there the plot really kicks off), but just think about the idea of a world where you can go to a city and find work as a word-finder. There are so many wonderful things to say about this book that I'm not even sure where to begin. There are some I can't talk about, because we'd be getting far into spoiler territory, but the writing is just phenomenal; Michael Cisco has a love affair with the language, and it shows. The downside to that is that typographical and proofreading errors made by the press tend to come through more in books like this (and it didn't help that this was the second book in a week that used the odd, but somehow appropriate, phrase "door jam"; as it is spelled right in other places in the book, I'm giving Cisco the benefit of the doubt and blaming the press), but that's not something for which I can blame the author. And the plot here is one of the most original, and pleasurable, I've come across in years. The book is not perfect, though if you're going to err, better to do it this way than the other; if anything, it's shorter than it should be. There are a few chapters that begged to be further fleshed out ("The Final Interview", especially, could have been twice as long as it is). Still, there's so much about this book to love that you can't go wrong. This is by far one of the best books I've read this year, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Find it and read it as soon as you possibly can. **** ½

Brilliant and dark, just how I love it. This book strung together words in ways that I have never laid eyes on before or since. Interesting story and GREAT imagery. I love the structure and combination of words just as much as the tale they are weaving.

Wow. I was genuinely blown away by this little novel. I have heard Cisco compared to Ligotti (there is even a Ligotti blurb on the back), but his work is entirely unique, a bizarre marriage of disturbing surrealism and dark fantasy rendered in a highly original prose style. The book is worth reading for the prose alone, which replicates the effects of a dream, at times blurry and indiscriminate and sharpening to crystalline detail at other moments. The imagery is some of the most simultaeneously beautiful and nightmarish that I have ever experienced save in the work of Kafka, Schulz or Ligotti. The plot moves with a raw, pulsating power, and the book induces bizarrre emotions in the reader which have their only corollary in dreams (or nightmares). The last chapter is one of the most bleak and moving pieces of prose that I have encountered in weird fiction. Simply put, if you are a lover of surrealism or dark fantasy, YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK. NOTE: This book is being reprinted in The San Veneficio Canon, to be published by Night Shade Press. The San Veneficio Canon will also include the sequel to The Divinity student.

Of THE DIVINITY STUDENT acclaimed master of the horror tale, Thomas Ligotti, has said, "Festival of unrealities, an entrancing body of hallucinations mutilated with surgical precision by a masterful literary maniac." For my money, truer words have rarely been spoken! The _singular_ voice of this gifted wordsmith delivers page turning, titillating romps that will have both readers and critics alike singing his praises for a long time to come. In an era when mountains of the same-old clutter the shelves of the horror section, few novels can be called a breath of fresh air, but Cisco's ingenious tale of the uncanny stands as a radiant beacon to those of us who have long enjoyed the dark wonders of the weird tale.

The Divinity Student lives in a miasma of incredible images, a world of moments and sensations that are described with a truly amazing marriage of meticulous detail and subtle understatement. The plot is dark and intriguing, as the Divinity Student exposes the true purpose and power of the quest on which he is sent, and as that quest slowly overcomes him with a life of its own; but the enjoyment in reading this book comes from the author's exquisite description of each individual moment. A must-read for anyone who takes joy in well-crafted wordsmithing.