The first time I read this book, in the form of a borrowed ARC shamefully never returned, it totally blew my mind. I'd never come across something so compellingly atmospheric and unique, and I must have read it four or five times. Coming back to it now, certain elements look more familiar, in particular the titular Poison Master has the moody flavor of vampire princes the world round. I'm also still not convinced that John Dee's narrative adds all that much to the work.Nonetheless, this book is easily the most seamless blending of SF and fantasy tropes I know of, violating traditional assumptions left and right until the reader doesn't know up from down and tosses all categories out the window in favor of the work as it stands. At least, I like to think so; the overall rating indicates others found it less than compelling.I'm now taking a crack at Williams' other works. So far, her first and second books could not hold a candle to this one, and it's neat to watch her confidence grow until she's finally ready to totally own her work.
**edited 11/28/13The Poison Master was interesting and the world was original. Alivet, the protagonist, is an alchemist on Latent Emenation, a dark, damp world ruled by the insectoid Lords of Night who keep humans enslaved via a brutal system enforced by "unpriests". The people themselves are docile, sodden with drugs and despair, their only rebellion the secret meetings where they search for their origin in drug-induced dreams. ...And that's all I'm going to post here. The rest of my (rather verbose) review is posted over here at Booklikes.Why? Because I strongly disapprove of GoodReads' new policy of censorship. (The link brings you to a summary of The Story So Far, which has facts and links so you can make up your own mind about the GR debacle.)
What do You think about The Poison Master (2003)?
I liked Williams' characters in this book. The Poisonmaster had some unique abilities, and I had fun trying to imagine what it would be like to command an intimate knowledge of chemistry and to secret dozens of lethal substances on my person. The society of the Poisonmasters had promise, and I wish Williams had take the story further in this direction. The romance that she develops is typical, and its connection to greater events has a fairy-tale quality that was lost on me. Since Williams is a talented writer, I enjoyed the book.
—Daniel
Alivet works as an apothecarist/alchemist to pay off her twin sister's enbondment to the Lords of the Night, the mysterious rulers of the planet. She is framed for poisoning a noblewoman, and agrees to work with Ghairen, an offworlder poison master assassin who needs her help in poisoning the Lords. I was drawn into the worldbuilding, where the societies on the planets seem to be based on some sort of alchemical classification or model. The Lords of Night were a mixture of angel, demon, unknowable advanced alien to the point of being magical, and Cthulian. I liked the mysticism, the atmosphere of the world, and the wacky drug trips towards enlightenment. The plot meandered in places and didn't quite gel together. I couldn't get into the romantic subplot, even though I'd originally picked up this book because I'd heard it was a Gothic novel in space. The Gothic genre parts were actually the low points for me, and I ended up being more interested in the alchemy mysticism.
—Parallax
