Product Description

'We are so often a disappointment to the parents who abandon us . . . ' Ilario is born hermaphrodite, a true genetic chimera. Found abandoned on the steps of a chapel of the Green Christ, in one of the minor Iberian kingdoms, on a freezing snowy night, Ilario is fostered by Federico, an impoverished Iberian noble, who plans to gift Ilario to the king, hoping to gain favour at court. At the age of 15, Ilario joins King Roderigo as the King's Freak, but while learning the ways of the court, Illario has another lesson to study: abondonment and betrayal. For Rosamunda, Ilario's birth mother, has arrived - and the secret of Ilario's shameful birth must be kept hidden, lest the resulting scandal ruin Rosamunda's husband, Videric, the king's most powerful advisor. When Ilario is freed by the king, he/she is summoned by Rosamunda. And when her attempt to murder her child fails, Rosamunda whispers 'Run . . . ' And Ilario does . . . across the Mediterranean, to Carthage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #374002 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Barbara Davies, STARBURST
"Gentle tells an absorbing tale, deftly swapping what was for what might have been."

Review
"Ilario was born a functioning hermaphrodite, whose status in law and theology makes the protagonist of this action-packed, deeply intelligent novel a focus for intrigue, intellectual debate and a fair amount of polymorphous hot sexual action." (Roz Kaveney TIME OUT )

"Gentle tells an absorbing tale, deftly swapping what was for what might have been." (Barbara Davies STARBURST )

"When she's got you hooked, there's no beating Mary Gentle." (Rhianna Pratchett SFX )

"Her characterisation and world building is so good that the story seems plausible. A welcome and enigmatic addition to a writer with vision who still has the power to shock and amaze." (SFFWORLD )

"The extraordinary gender sensitivity and flexibility Ilario embodies, novel shades of sexuality at every turn, and new angles on plain old heterosexuality in the bargain - factor all that in, and Ilario is the foremost SF/fantasy novel of gender in quite a while." (Nick Gevers LOCUS )

Roz Kaveney, TIME OUT
"Ilario was born a functioning hermaphrodite, whose status in law and theology makes the protagonist of this action-packed, deeply intelligent novel a focus for intrigue, intellectual debate and a fair amount of polymorphous hot sexual action."

Customer Reviews

More adventures in the un-world of ASH
Mary Gentle's ASH [6 stars] is one of my favourite alternative history books, and this new book "Ilario" is set in the same off-shoot of reality. A strange sunless sky, the "Penitence" - an unexplained darkness - hovers over Carthage, there is no Pope in Rome and Golems (clay robots) are plodding around.

The hero(ine) of the story is a hermaphrodite, and there are plenty of occasions when this "affliction" enlivens the tale, but essentially this is a glorious romp through an imaginary (but very real) middle ages - as Ilario follows his/her quest to become a famous painter (and along the way avoid being killed by virtually every other character.

Great fun, rude in parts (yes, those parts), and beautifully written - it is a great follow-up to ASH... I look forward to the next bizarre installment.

Awful Beyond Belief
Mary Gentle seems to write two kinds of books: great and awful. I loved the Ash books, and was completely smitten with 1610: A Sundial in a Grave. (The fight scene at the beach near the opening of the latter book is alone worth the price of purchase.) In the "awful" category, there was Orcs...and now Ilario. Truly, Ilario transcends mere awfulness; it manages to be simultaneously repellent and completely boring: something that only a writer of considerable talent could pull off.

Once again, Mary Gentle plays with alternative history, as she did with Ash and 1610, and the setting is interesting--at times, even fascinating. The same can be said of the characters. However, the plot is another story (so to speak); it consists of the eponymous protagonist perambulating about Gentle's imaginary world--and by the time we have reached mid-book, it's difficult to see much point to these ramblings except to give us a look at yet another part of the world that's askew from our own experience and history.

I have yet to mention the one detail that dominates the entire book: the protagonist (Ilario) is a hermaphrodite. That is, he is biologically both fully functional as a man and a woman. Instead of adopting a gender role and sticking to it (as has usually been true of historical cases of hermaphroditism), Ilario changes gender roles at whim or need.

Mary Gentle has always shown concern about "gender issues" in her novels, and has never been reluctant to cross the boundaries of her readers' expectations. For example, Gentle makes Ash a believable medieval mercenary captain, despite her femaleness. In Ilario, Gentle strives mightily to explore the difficulties faced by a hermaphrodite in a world that expects people to be either men or women. The problem is that this aspect of the book so completely dominates everything else that it's difficult to see the novel as being about anything but Ilario's ambiguous sexuality. Regrettably, the miseries of hermaphroditism aren't enough to sustain a book...or at lest this reader's interest.

At first, I found Ilario's sexual ambiguity disconcerting; like many of the characters in the novel, I found it difficult to apply the correct pronoun to the person I was reading about. And yes, the weird sex disturbed me. Eventually, this discomfort faded into disinterest: ok, life as a hermaphrodite is tough. I got it. Now tell me something interesting.

Thus, when I reached the scene in which the pregnant Ilario's water breaks in the heat of a pitched battle, and the poor thing has to be carted off the field to give birth...well, my eyes glazed over, and I found myself so disinterested in this book that I could no longer work up enough energy to turn another page.

It's possible, of course, that Ilario is really supposed to be a comedic novel, and that I should have been roaring with laughter at that point. If so, my sense of humor is badly out of tune. Maybe that's why I didn't think Orcs was funny, either.

Dire
A meandering, insipid and implausible plot in a book that is four times as long as the ideas and writing could support. Bizarrely most of the key characters fall for Ilario' personality and help and assist him out of loyalty in a manner which reminds one of a particularly trashy Mills and Boon.

I did finish the book out a strange fascination as to what point the author was trying make but found out there wasn't really one. One can only assume this book is some sort of personal statement by Mary Gentle , but I truly wish she had kept it to herself.

I actually rather enjoyed Grunts but this was truly awful.