REVIEW: The Virtu by Sarah Monette

The Virtu (2006) by Sarah Mon­ette is dark fan­tasy at its best. It is the sec­ond book in a series of three total so far. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough and I didn’t want this story to end. I was just fully engaged from start to fin­ish. No mat­ter how much I may gush and gush I will since I loved this story, the premise and the char­ac­ters just won’t appeal to the masses.

The Virtu starts just where Mélu­sine ends, with Mild­may get­ting his half-brother, Felix Har­row­gate, to the Gar­dens of Nephele for heal­ing. In the pre­vi­ous entry, Felix was used as a ves­sel for his neme­sis to destroy the Virtu. The Virtu, as I under­stand it, is a crys­tal that is used to pro­tect the magic of the city of Mélu­sine. The destruc­tion of the Virtu made Felix go mad and thus he was cast out as a heretic and stripped of all his magic.

In the interim, the magic of the city has become unsta­ble. The story con­tin­ues to use dual nar­ra­tives of Felix and Mild­may and each char­ac­ter has their own dis­tinct voice and per­son­al­ity. Here is a quick intro­duc­tion of the char­ac­ters. First, there’s Felix Har­row­gate who is a bour­geoisie wiz­ard of the Mirador who is best described as self­ish, quick-tempered, arro­gant and gay. He is a very pow­er­ful wiz­ard. His for­mer mas­ter, lover and tor­turer, Malkar Gen­na­dion, used him in a plot to under­mine the power and sta­bil­ity of the city to destroy him.

His half-brother, Mild­may the Fox or “Milly-Fox” or “Mild­may” is an ex-cat bur­glar, ex-kept-thief and ex-assassin who is now lame due to a curse that was put on him for killing a pow­er­ful blood witch. Miildmay’s char­ac­ter stole the show for me in the last book. There aren’t enough words for me to describe his char­ac­ter to you. He’s just a fas­ci­nat­ing and sym­pa­thetic hero.

The story picks up with the jour­ney back to Mélu­sine. Felix feels that he is able to restore The Virtu to sta­bi­lize the magic in the city. How­ever, it’s a dan­ger­ous trek back for Felix since the tat­toos on his arms mark him as a Caba­line wiz­ard and a poten­tial rival of The Bas­tion which is home to the Euse­bian wiz­ards who would kill him if they were to cross paths. Their jour­ney is fraught with dan­ger but boy, does this author know how to keep read­ers on the edge of their seat!

What I loved most about the book is the author’s world build­ing, her char­ac­ters and her autho­r­ial voice. The story is laced with plenty of action and adven­ture. Felix and Mildmay’s jour­ney is plenty dan­ger­ous with labyrinths, evil blood witches and some well placed heroic adven­tures. The story moves quickly and presents us with one adven­ture after another. I loved it.

There’s plenty of sus­pense laced with a sus­tained atmos­phere of dan­ger and fear. I’ve seen this series described as non-cliched fan­tasy. I’d have to agree. The best part of this novel for me is the char­ac­ters and the episodic telling of the story. There is an over­ar­ch­ing theme but like I said, the story is mainly built on one adven­ture after another. This is the kind of dark fan­tasy that I love. Fans of Jacque­line Carey would get a kick out of this as this is the audi­ence Mon­ette is aim­ing to attract.

Of course I must warn you that the story thus far has been gritty and leaves noth­ing to the imag­ine. It is at times erotic, offen­sive and deca­dent. The city of Mélu­sine is full of places that one’s dark desires and twisted sex­ual appetites are sati­ated. It is a city rife with sin and indul­gent of it, too. If you can’t han­dle bad lan­guage, homo­sex­u­al­ity and sex­ual devi­a­tion that bor­ders on the offen­sive then you should cer­tainly give this story a pass. It is not for the weak at heart or for those who offend easily.

If you find your­self curi­ous about The Doc­trine of the Labyrinth series, you should start with Mélu­sine first and move on to The Virtu. Together they com­plete one sin­gle story and they do not stand alone well. Another thing about the sto­ries is the use of lan­guage: it is dif­fer­ent but it didn’t take long to adapt and it’s intuitive.

I have The Mirador wait­ing to be read and will get to it soon. For some odd rea­son when I started it last year, I just couldn’t fin­ish it. The fourth book of the series is titled, Coram­bis, that is due out some­time in 2009. Yes, this review was orig­i­nally posted back in 2006 but I am repost­ing it again because I love her work. I think Ms. Mon­ette is a great writer of dark fan­tasy and her autho­r­ial voice is just amaz­ing. My grade for The Virtu is a solid A and that’s with­stand­ing any flaws or weak­ness within the con­struct of this story (if one were to find them.)

Both Mélu­sine and The Virtu are avail­able in paper­back and ebook at your favorite retailer.

*This is a repost of an ear­lier review

For Fur­ther Reading

• REVIEW: Melu­sine by Sarah Monette
• Com­ing Soon…
• REVIEW: ‘Cry Wolf (Alpha & Omega Series)’ by Patri­cia Briggs
• REVIEW: Immor­tal Protector:The Eter­nity Covenant by Ursula Bauer

Tagged as: assasins, Dark Fantasy, dark magic, political intrigue, Sarah Monette, wizards