Product Description

Steeped in the explosive passion and seductive power of Anne Rice, this novel is an unforgettable tale of modern love and ancient ritual. Within the imposing towers ofWashington, D.C.'s University of the Archangels and St. John the Divine, a clandestine order prevails. The Benandanti has secretly manipulated every government, every church, every institution in the world since antiquity. But now the Moon Goddess has returned. And she wants her world back.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #322767 in Books
• Published on: 1996-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 512 pages

From Publishers Weekly
When Sweeney Cassidy, a naive freshman at the University of the Archangels and St. John the Divine in Washington, D.C., falls in with the wrong crowd, she is expelled for taking part in a lurid escapade. But Hand (Icarus Descending) offers no usual tale of adolescent antics in this full-blooded gothic fantasy. The university is a haven of the Benandanti, who for millennia have guarded against the return of their ancient foe, Othiym Lunarsa, the Moon Goddess. In Hand's post-feminist tale, however, the goddess is not a comfortable earth mother figure but a powerful destroyer. The Benandanti are unaware that Sweeney's friends Oliver and Angelica are the Chosen Ones, whose violent coupling under the moon will begin to wake Othiym. Oliver kills himself, Angelica disappears and Sweeney is whisked away by the Benandanti. Twenty years later, Sweeney's summer intern at the National Museum of Natural History turns out to be the son of her old classmates, the result of that wild moonlit night. Young Dylan's mother has become Angelica Furiano, a New Age author with a large following of goddess worshippers. As Angelica's power grows, fed by the blood of young men, she is gradually becoming the goddess. But Sweeney, vowing to thwart the transformation, confronts Othiym in an apocalyptic showdown. Blending the ancient with the modern, the fantastic with the real, Hand has created a violently sensual fable helped by smart pacing and vibrant prose.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A potent socio-erotic ghost story for our looming Millennium." -- -- William Gibson, author of Neuromancer and Virtual Light

"An extraordinary work--An ambitious, erotically charged thriller" -- -- Clive Barker, author of Everville

"Ms. Hand is a superior stylist." -- -- The New York Times Book Review

"Superior. An author worth watching, not to mention recommending." -- -- Booklist

"The tropic lushness of Hand's descriptions are only one reward awaiting her reader." -- -- The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"A potent socio-erotic ghost story for our looming Millennium." -- William Gibson, author of Neuromancer and Virtual Light

"An extraordinary workAn ambitious, erotically charged thriller" -- Clive Barker, author of Everville

"Ms. Hand is a superior stylist." -- The New York Times Book Review

"Superior. An author worth watching, not to mention recommending." -- Booklist

"The tropic lushness of Hand's descriptions are only one reward awaiting her reader." -- The Cleveland Plain Dealer

About the Author
Elizabeth Hand is the award-winning author of six novels, including Black Light and Waking the Moon, and one short story collection, Last Summer at Mars Hill.

Customer Reviews

Be seduced
Leaving her protective parents to go away to college, Sweeney Cassidy goes wild. She skips classes, stays out all night, and basically spends her first semester constantly drunk. Into this haze come the ethereal Oliver and the seductive Angelica, who become her best friends, and with both of whom Sweeney falls in love. The only trouble is, the school is controlled by an Illuminati-esque secret society; Angelica is a chosen avatar of a vengeful goddess; and Oliver is marked as her first sacrifice. This situation plays out tragically, and a shaken Sweeney transfers to another school, where she gets her degree and settles into "normal" life. Then, eighteen years later, her college ghosts come back to haunt her, as old friends come out of the woodwork, and Angelica prepares for the final denouement with the secret society. Sweeney is suddenly back in the mysterious world she glimpsed as a teenager.

Mixed in with this hypnotically written story is a political battle between the Matriarchy (represented by Angelica) and the Patriarchy (the secret society); between the Goddess and the world that has ignored her for millennia. One of the best touches of Hand's book is that she doesn't really take sides, except maybe to hint that the fault of both philosophies is the extremes they go to. Even when Sweeney makes her decision at the end, she makes it for personal reasons and not because she agrees with either side. This was the book that got me investigating Goddess mythology several years ago, and it's also a fever-dream of a story, with a sympathetic heroine and a unique style. I've read it a gazillion times.

Interesting, but awkward
The awakening of an ancient, fiendish goddess in a new age is witnessed by a young college freshman named Sweeney Cassidy. As if an ancient, fiendish goddess awakening weren't bad enough, Sweeney's two best friends happen to be predestined pawns in the plans of the goddess and the Benandanti, a pseudo-religious sect of protectors. In fact, Sweeney's best friend, Angelica, becomes a sort of avatar for this goddess. The book spans Sweeney's 20 year ordeal to stop her best friend from unleashing a power bent on controlling the world.

This is the first book I've read by the author and I found the writing to be ornate; it bombards the reader's senses with rich descriptions of people, places, and things. Some readers are turned off by this type of writing (my wife says she just skims that stuff) but I find that sensory prose illuminates the story and Elizabeth Hand does this flourishingly. There are also a handful of very tasty surprises that continued to prod me curiously and expectantly forward.

My major complaints about the book include the mixture of first-person and third-person perspectives. Certainly, this is not a fundamental no-no that writers must avoid at all costs. However, by the end of the book I found Sweeney's narrative to be the only thing I really cared to hear about. The secondary characters, though interesting, simply didn't hold up against the profoundly mundane Sweeney struggling to cope with a twenty-year-old legacy of the bizarre, and her lover Dylan who is inextricably woven into it all. Sweeney's scenes were just so much more emotionally genuine that the others were buried by her. I would've enjoyed the book even more if it had been written entirely in first-person. In addition, I found the dialogue stilted in some spots, with a great number of "Hmms..." and "Well, thens..." And finally, Sweeney's affair with Dylan never seems to falter. Dylan is THE perfect man and he and Sweeney have THE perfect relationship. Given Dylan's heritage and age, I doubt their interactions could have been so sugary.

Ultimately, this is a good book and a fun read. I'd recommend it on the basis of the writing and the rather jarring surprises.

Rich, textured, depth, realism, emotion.
Despite a few clumsy transitions from description to action here and there, and despite an awkward timesharing between super-magical and super-real, this book is excellent. The characters are vivid, real enough to touch. The historical magic is handled intelligently and with a sense of high drama (if even well-done melodrama turns you off, beware). The book has style and strength. The prose is evocative, richly texturely, deeply involving. The topics range from practical love and human conflict to cultural issues spanning time and country. There's enough romance - of people, of place - to fill your head until you're breathless. I highly recommend it. Highly.