This is an anthology on the worlds of the White Crow, Valentine a sometime Soldier-Scholar of the Invisible College, containing 3 novels: ‘Rats And Gargoyles’ (394p), ‘Left To His Own Devices’ (155p), ‘The Architect Of Desire’ (158p) and 3 long stories: ‘Beggars in Satin’ (33p), ‘The Knot Garden’ (44p) and ‘Black Motley’ (47p) plus an author's foreword - and it ain’t in a large font either.

'Left To His Own Devices' is cyberpunk with a bit of Jacobean tragedy thrown in, while the rest of the stories are fantasy. Not medieval ancient evil vs prophesy style fantasy, more renaissance era 6ft-talking rats and the corporeal 36 aspects of god-style fantasy.

For all this, Gentle doesn't regard these as fantasy stories, rather they're Hermetic SF - Science Fiction where the science is renaissance hermetic [patterns compelling the universe and divine spirits in everything] instead of Newtonian or Einsteinian.

The main novel 'Rats And Gargoyles' concerns a plot by the ruling Rat-Lords in the city at the heart of the world to drive the 36 living aspects of God out of their city and back to an ethereal plane where they can't interfere so much. There are also plots by the human trade unions to overthrow the Rat-Lords, other human factions in league with the Rats, and different aspects of God backing different factions.

Caught up in this are Valentine White Crow a sometime Soldier-Scholar of the Invisible College (a kind of freelance problem solver - uses books to find out what the problem is, uses a sword to 'solve' it) - and Baltazar Casaubon, Lord Architect, Valentines ex-husband and member of the Invisible College. Together they must try to stop these different factions from destroying their world.

One of the strengths of this book is the detail. Despite all the 6ft Rats and magic the world feels real. There's quite a lot of weirdness and different ideas going on but nothing jars, everything fits and feels real and authentic. (Gentle did a Masters in 17th Century Studies as part of her research for this so she knows her stuff.)

The characterisation is strong, too. No lantern-jawed heroes being noble or evil henchmen being evil. Just people, incredibly powerful and talented people perhaps, but still people with all the mixed-up shit that implies.

It’s not an easy book, very consciously so - half the foreword is a rant against 'cookie cutter SF and worn out fantasy clichés that pollute the field.' One of the key things across all the stories are that they're written as if from a camera’s POV - characters don't 'think' or 'feel' they just do and the reader judges them on that.

The reader probably has to invest a little bit more because of it but that isn't a bad thing and I think it gets repaid.

Rachel Broome