A happy combination of contradictions

The perfume to beat (or, erm, beet) all other scents is comprised of three ingredients. It is called K23 and it's the key to eternal life.

The top note is Citrus. It's cold, sharp, clean smelling. Then the middle note is Jasmine. Which grabs you so strong that it makes the bees swarm and you feel sick-dizzy from its headiness. And the crucial base note is the Beet ("the beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot... Rasputin's favourite vegetable, you can see it in his eyes..."). Well, more specifically - the scent is in the pollen of the beet, blown across from Bohemia.

These ingredients are key to the novel: through them we also get a sense of the places therein: Seattle (cold, clean, bluey-green), New Orleans (with its strong flavoursome food, wild dancers, bee-hatted flowerselleers), and ancient Bohemia (the beet of course, no more need be said). And the characters too: Priscilla and Wiggs, Lily and V'lu, Alobar and Kudra. They are the future, present and past... all muddled up in a bottle.

The only criticism I can level at the book is that it's thin on plot. But so heavy on description, and the language is so divine, that I found myself unusually not caring. Life's too short (however immortal you are) to worry about things like that.

I want to smell the perfume. But, after reading the book, I think I may already have done...