This is going to be a very unpopular review. So, to all of you who may hate me after reading this, I apologize in advance. From the rave reviews, and based on the vast number of people who seemingly loved this book enough to tattoo a representation of it on their body, I expected it to blow me away. I love fantasy, I love stories with a kick-ass female lead, and despite the fact that this might tell you a bit more about me than you bargained for, I was really looking forward to enjoying a bit of pain and pleasure vicariously through this book. Unfortunately, every single one of those things fell very short for me. I consider myself to be a pretty patient person. I can wait through a not-so-great beginning to get to a great story. I can even wait through a bad beginning, and a lukewarm middle to get to a great, everything-comes-together-in-the-end ending. But, no. It started so promisingly, the very beginning setting the stage for an intricate world, society, plot, and story... and then proceeded to annoy me for the next 296 pages. After page 300, it did pick up, but "fast paced" doesn't always equal "good".Some of the annoying stuff: - Foreshadowing- Allusions- Foreshadowing- Euphemisms- Foreshadowing- Wordiness- ForeshadowingFORESHADOWING. *narrows eyes* Oddly enough, before reading this, my friend said something along the lines of, "I have to warn you, the foreshadowing is very heavy-handed." To which I replied, "Oh, I probably wouldn't have even noticed if you hadn't told me." (Oh silly me.) To which SHE replied, "Yes. You would."Friend, 1. Becky, 0.I have never, ever, seen clumsier foreshadowing in my life. Had I known, then, that this book would test my patience, stamina and sanity, would I have kept reading? No. I wouldn't have. I finished this book because I promised that friend I would read it, so I did. Every page contained a new attempt at suspense... If books came with soundtracks, this one's theme would be "DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN!!" But let's move on and not beat a dead horse. The foreshadowing wasn't the only thing to aggravate me, although it was the most prevalent. We also have the irritating allusions to things that apparently we're supposed to know already. The first, and the one that sticks out most in my head, is a reference to a poem that Phedre read in which a man, who was in love with a woman, "unmanned" himself for her. No further detail than that. What does that mean? Did he humble himself before the woman, therefore removing any manliness from his status? Did he physically cut off his manhood? What was the point of the throw-away reference? It never comes up again, so it's not a "Hey, you might want to remember me for later" tidbit, it's an annoying slice of "Haha! Bet you'd like to know what I'm all about, wouldn't ya?". There were several other situations in which Phedre mentioned things like "...the whole world knows this, so I won't mention it...". Oh. OK. Thanks. Wouldn't want you to strain something. Then there were the euphemisms. My favorite being "Pearl of Naamah". Why do men have anatomical boy parts (albeit called the annoyingly repetitive "phallus"), but girl parts are given a name like the "Pearl of Naamah"? Moving on to the general wordiness. Carey must have had her thesaurus handy while writing this book. So many of her sentences just seem to wander around without actually going anywhere. I'm sure she was going for an old-world feel. People back in the day didn't speak like we do now. Got it. But there's a line that when crossed takes you from "perfectly worded and appropriate for the theme you're going for" to "Can we possibly say something in between the 'twixts' and 'tweres'?". So now let's look at some of the words, shall we? In no particular order:Bistre - Cool word for brown. Overused.Thus - Thus it was that the word thus was thus overused.Somewhat - My absolute favorite of the annoying words. Universally used to replace "something", this word just crawled onto my last nerve and dug in its heels. It jarred in every single usage and ruined the flow of every sentence that contained it. VERY overused and unnecessary.Vaster - Just sounds grammatically wrong. Plus overused. Betimes - Overused.Compass - Apparently used to replace "comprehend" in certain scenarios. I searched, and can't find a single reference to the word being used in this way anywhere - if you can, please link me to it, it's making me crazy. There were many others, those are just the ones I wrote down. Miscellaneous other bothersome things: - "Seed": Yes, this is euphemism for semen, and you might be asking yourself why I didn't mention it above. Well, I will tell you why. Seeds grow into stuff when planted. Can someone please explain to me how it is that Phedre had so many romps with so many men releasing themselves into her and yet never got pregnant? You might be saying to yourself, but this is fantasy, it doesn't matter! Yes, it does. This is a realistic story set in an alternate world, and obviously since Phedre herself is "a whore's unwanted get", the subject might be addressed as to how she prevented her own "unwanted get". - Melisande: Pointless. Plot. Device. - Forced sequel: Carey could have (should have?) and DID end this book perfectly. And then she kept writing, and in so doing, forced the ending into a situation that would require a sequel. Nice try. I'm forgetting I read the last few pages as I type. This story is ended for me, I think. There... Now we can talk about what I liked. Joscelin. Thank goodness for Joscelin. I really would have had to give up on this book if it wasn't for him. He was really predictable, but I loved him anyway. He kicked ass, like a ninja priest. Hyacinthe. Loved him too - he was fun, and one of the only unique characters in the book. Delaunay. He was awesome. Smart, honest, honorable. I did like the concept of love as a sacred act, and I liked the references to different religions. I enjoyed the different people and their customs, and enjoyed the intricate relationships between everyone and the political aspects of the story. I liked the fact that Delaunay taught Phedre to learn and think and analyze. I like the concept of the thirteen houses, which reminded me of Geisha houses. I liked the Tsingani people, who were fun and boisterous and superstitious and sly. I loved Rousse's men, who were brave and smart and thought of cool songs. I liked Ysandre, who was young and wise and fair. I liked Drustan, too. And Alcuin who was soft-hearted but had a will of steel. I can see how some people would like this book. Unfortunately, I can't count myself among them. Too much annoyed me for me to say I liked it, but I didn't hate it either. I just think it could have been so much better had Carey had an editor with balls. It's always easier to rip apart what you didn't like than enumerate what you did, and I did NOT outline everything that I liked in the book here, so this review is a bit one sided. Sorry about that. I hope you all don't REALLY hate me.
TW for this review: long discussion of rape and consent.Edit: No, one more thing. WHERE ARE THE CONTRACEPTIVES. WHERE.Edit x2: Is it bothering anyone else that Phedre's name is apparently pronounced close to 'FAY-dra', but the accent on the first e is an accent grave? as opposed to an accent aigu, which would actually produce that hard 'a' sound in French? Because it's bothering me. If you're gonna do expy!France, don't fuck up the language. What's written there is closer to 'Fedruh'.Edit x3: I stand corrected. I first encountered this book when I was much younger and just getting into Orson Scott Card's work - they're shelved next to each other in most bookstores and libraries, and after a while I got curious about the huge books with the rather prominently placed half-naked women on them. Reading the dust jackets, I concluded a few things: 1. that these were Sex Books; 2. that the main character would get raped, probably repeatedly; and 3. that they were not for me.I was, as it turns out, correct on all counts.A friend of mine convinced me to give them a shot this year, insisting that the political intrigue was fascinating and the sex wasn't that bad, really. I don't like gainsaying my friends, especially in an area where they objectively have more knowledge than I do, so I agreed, tracked down an ebook, and slogged through it. I came out the other side with... well, I guess I can argue back if anyone tries to convince me to read them again.There were two major disappointments for me in this book: court intrigue and consent. Consent is, obviously, the more important one, so let's talk about that first.One of the interesting things about this book is that it's written as if Phedre is looking back on the events of her life - there's a lot of "if only I had known then" which, believe you me, gets annoying. What this means, though, is that there's no room for character development to change perspective. The perspective of the narrator is that of adult Phedre and is cast as knowledgeable, omniscient as a result of hindsight. I mention this because, were this not the case, some of Carey's choices could be explained by Phedre's lack of knowledge or self-reflection in earlier stages of her life - but that's not an option.Maybe it's an asexual thing, to be hyper-tuned to situations of dubious consent and grooming? I definitely seem to be in the minority both here and with regards to Deathless; I can only guess that, because compulsory sexuality is so inherently threatening to me, it stands out more than it does for allo people?The Night Court runs on child grooming. They raise kids from infancy in a situation where sex work is normalized, start teaching them about it sometimes as young as six, and initiate them at 13. (not that they weren't sexual objects before then - a 10 year-old boy is once told that "They'll be marking their calendars until you come of age".) Now, here's the thing: I don't believe there's anything wrong with choosing sex work freely. However, the Night Court and its influence are coercive - we see this in Alcuin, who nearly gets himself killed trying to make his marque and get out of his contract, and earlier in a comment a Valerian House adept makes regarding the use of flechettes as a sex toy: "He gave an involuntary tremor beside me and his voice changed. 'I hate them.'" Both of these characters have clearly been put into sexual situations in which they weren't comfortable, and continued to participate as 'Servants of Naamah' nonetheless. That's coercion, not consent.And then there's Phedre, who gets pleasure in pain, and so whose contracts always include a safeword. Which she then never uses, even when a client burns her skin with a poker. The thing about this is - yes, technically speaking, it's possible for someone to have a safeword and never encounter a situation that crosses their boundaries. But that doesn't work here. This whole situation is constructed; Carey chose to give Phedre a safeword but never to show her using it. This means we never see her exercising control over her assignations, nor do we get a demonstration that the nobles of Terre d'Ange would actually respect her choice to end a scene/encounter. The safeword, unused (view spoiler)[except for when Melisande orders her to use it (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about Kushiel's Dart (2003)?
This is one of my favourite books for these two reasons, "Love as thou wilt" and "That which yields is not always weak." This book (and the books that follow) is an incredibly detailed, involved, beautiful story and I can't really do it any justice. The plot is intricate, the characters are vivid and Carey rarely leaves you a moment where you're not anticipating... something. That said, it is graphic (to an extent. It's not quite romance novel graphic, but it's close) and it depicts violent acts of a sexual nature. But even if S&M's not your cup of tea, it's also not the primary focus of the book and it also doesn't take away from the story. Each act and scene (sexual and otherwise) is not gratuitous. They serve as a way to demonstrate character development and move the plot along at a vigorous breath-taking pace.I highly recommend this to anyone who is a fan of fantasy sans the magic and dragons. I'd put this more on par with alt-history and the perspective has an almost Victorian narration to it. Still, it's an amazing read and is at least worth a visit if you're looking for something new.
—Nowie
Noticed this has been shelved several times as 'Romance' and even as 'erotica', but I think its important to note that there is a difference between books which are actually Romance, but contain fantasy elements; and books which are Fantasy but contain some romance. I'd say this book definately falls into the latter category. Certainly some parts are somewhat graphic on the bdsm parts, but thats where it's important for plot and character, a lot of 'encounters' were suprisingly of the tasteful fade-to-black sort. Phedre is a girl, born and raised among courtesans. Unfortunately Phedre is considered flawed, a single red mote in one eye spoils her appearance, and leaves her unwanted. This is until Anafiel Delaunay sees her and recognises the mote for what it is - Kushiel's dart - a rare mark bestowed by one of their patron angels, both a blessing and a curse. Delaunay takes Phedre into his household, and gives her an education beyond that of any other courtesan. At first it's confusing to Phedre, who doesn't understand what need she'd have of languages and history etc, but Delaunay insist she also learn the more useful skills of observation and deduction.. skills more appropriate for a spy than a courtesan. Delaunay can do his best to keep Phedre safe, but ultimately they must use all resources as the political plots go ever deeper.. murder, treason, war..The story takes a fair while to get truly started; the novel follows Phedre's story from birth and through her childhood. But despite the long set up, it was never boring, in fact, it's a good method for world building. As Phedre speaks about the various night courts, and learns the myths and histories of her home country, we learn too, and the world has quite a fascinating background. The Author has chosen to base her mythology on jewish and christian beliefs, the brief story is that at the crucifiction of J-sus, His blood mixed with the magdalenes tears, and out of the earth sprang Elua, who was a sort of mortal deity. He had a minor disagreement with the jewish/christian G-d and departed amicably taking several angels with him. They then founded a civilisation in a place called Terre D'Ange (geographically it seems to be france!). From a christian point of view, I actually found it an interestinc concept, to see a fantasy mythology based on something which I consider to be fact.. this made me think more seriously about all the times I've read fantasy stories based on norse or greek mythology! I have no criticism of the way it was done, there seems no disrespect in it from the author's point of view, and it makes for a new and innovative fantasy setting.One of the most unusual things about the setting is the fact that their culture respects and revere prostitutes, in fact to be a courtesan is this society is an act of devotion to one of their patron angels. Theres also a high amount of acceptance for gay relationships, and their one tenet of faith is the phrase 'love as thou wilt'. Overall I thought the book was absolutely brilliant, it's been a long time since I came across a fantasy series to rival my all time favourites but I could happily shelve this alongside my beloved George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan and Elizabeth Haydon. The background was epic, the description was inspiring, and the characterisation was practically flawless. Just the right amount of sympathy for the heros/heroines and just the right amount of love and hate for the 'villains'. I really hope the rest of the series live up to the same standard!I'd probably recommend it for anyone who like most kinds of fantasy, although.. it's hard to compare to other types of fantasy, but I'd say out of my own limited experience it's closer to Elizabeth Haydon than anything else.See my other reviews of Kushiel's Legacy:| #2 Kushiel's Chosen →
—Sath
This is one of those series I've seen around for years but have never happened to pick up. In my mind I linked it with the lusty-but-wholesome Outlander books, I think, so when I finally read the back of the first volume my eyebrows nearly climbed up into my hair. An alternate medieval Europe, where Christianity has not caught on, and where the (alternate) French have raised prostitution and pleasure to an art form and turned sex into a religious act? A heroine who is marked from birth as a torture addict, and who uses her charms to become the ultimate kinky Mata Hari? With a description like that, there was no way I was not going to at least TRY to read Kushiel's Dart.At 901 pages in paperback, this book was a couple hundred pages too long, and a few times I considered just putting it down. For most of the book, the heroine's addiction to pain felt gratuitous—especially for as much as the plot dwells on it—as if the author just wanted to write about someone like that, without there being a real reason for it. Furthermore, there are several characters and subplots that are incompletely explored and motivated.For all its weaknesses, however, the story won me over by the end. I'll probably end up reading the sequel. And then I'll take it from there.
—Sean
