by Tanith Lee (1947)
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Imagine drifting through the velvet-black skies of a flat world that never ends, where the demon prince Azhrarn—beautiful as sin, cruel as eternity—steps from his throne of night and gazes upon a mortal woman bathing in a hidden pool. Her skin gleams like pearl under the stars, and in that instant, his immortal heart cracks open, unleashing a passion that devours worlds. That’s the shiver Night’s Master sends through you from its first pages, Tanith Lee’s intoxicating plunge into a realm where desire and doom entwine like lovers in the dark.
You follow Azhrarn, the supreme Lord of Darkness, as he weaves spells of impossible beauty and horror. He crafts a son for the barren queen Demizdor from the stuff of dreams and shadows—Zhirek, a boy whose laughter hides razor fangs. Feel the dread coil in your gut when Zhirek, driven by his demonic blood, slaughters innocents and topples kingdoms, his path a trail of ash and broken oaths. Lee’s prose wraps around you like silk soaked in myrrh: sentences that unfurl like peacock tails, rich with scents of jasmine and blood, sounds of distant flutes and dying screams. Reading it feels like sinking into a fever dream—your pulse quickens with the erotic charge of Azhrarn’s shape-shifting seductions, from the shepherd boy he elevates to godhood only to watch him crumble, to the undead lovers who claw their way back from oblivion for one more taste of flesh.
What sets this apart from the sword-and-sorcery grind or the tidy quests of lesser fantasies? Lee builds her Flat Earth not as backdrop but as a living mythos—baroque cities of ivory spires floating on clouds, genies bound in lamps of human bone, gods who scheme like jealous aristocrats. Fairy tales twisted for adults: no heroes triumph cleanly here; every wish births a curse, every kiss a catastrophe. Her imagination spills over with details that linger—the way a demon’s wings rustle like dry leaves, or how the sun itself cowers before the Night’s Master’s wrath. It’s sensual without cheap thrills, dark without despair, a symphony of excess that other books only whisper at.
Fans of Clive Barker’s infernal luxuriance or Angela Carter’s feral myths will devour this; it’s pure catnip for anyone who craves fantasy that stains your soul with beauty and leaves you haunted.
Grab Night’s Master tonight, and let Azhrarn steal your sleep forever.
Author portrait: Photo: Danie Ware | License: CC BY 2.0
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