The Book of the Mad

<b>From the front flap of the Overlook first edition:</b> "In her darkly dazzling finish to <i>The Secret Books of Paradys</i>, Tanith Lee tempts the reader with a tale of horror, lust and madness that leaves no perversity untouched, no taboo unbroken. <p>This time the seductive nightmare unfolds in three parallel versions of the City - Paradis, Paradys and Paradise. Connected by a labyrinth of ice whose dangers are amplified by the will and emotion of its lunatic travels, these cities and their mad and near-mad denizens provide the stage for a drama of mythical proportions that none of the players can fully comprehend. Among the mad and the doomed are the murderous, remorseless siblings Felion and Smara; the violated woman-child Hilde; and Leocadia, the artist and visionary. Combining horror and hedonism, art and eroticism, Lee offers an aesthete's amoral view of beauty, pleasure and pain in her inimitable high style. <p>This fourth book in the Paradys series is linked brilliantly to the previous three - <i>The Book of the Damned, The Book of the Beast,</i> and <i>The Book of the Dead</i> - not by plot but by its shared venue: the fantastic, Gothic atmospheric and changeable city of Paradys."