A review by chirson
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
4.0
My first encounter with these books occured in 2006 I think. I picked up a translation of the first book into Polish and read a short excerpt, only to be put off by the purple prose and none too impressed with the subject matter. That was enough to put me off reading these books for a good while.
But pretty much every summer I look for a fun read to devour on trains, something long and not necessarily the greatest of the genre, but riveting enough to keep my attention for the four hours on the bus / train / something. This year I ran across very good reviews of this book so I decided to give it a go, and I was pleasantly surprised.
What it wasn't: terribly similar to Dune in any way (it's more GG Kay-ish? I think).
As blue as I'd have expected.
As purple as I'd expected.
As rape-filled as the genre has grown to be.
What it was is decently plotted and decently written (even if a few purple phrases should have been used more sparingly if at all). I enjoyed the 1st person voice, the fact that the heroine stayed true to her skillset (as impressive as it was), and that a whole variety of sexual behaviour was showcased. Moreover, the book cleverly avoided a few terribly annoying cliches, stayed true to the idea that sex is neither good nor bad in itself, and offered a large variety of relationships between women (both good and evil) (men as well, including gay / bi men, but that's less of a concern for me). I cannot not appreciate the fact that not only are the protagonist and the antagonist both women, but their relationship is multifaceted and sexual. And there are many other women besides, in positions of power as well as not.
I could have used a female character occupying a role similar to Hyacinthe's, but that would just be a lesbian separatist utopia, I guess.
A 3.5 stars for how fast my train ride felt and in recognition of the fact that many authors / publishers would have divided that story into three volumes to make that much more money off it.
But pretty much every summer I look for a fun read to devour on trains, something long and not necessarily the greatest of the genre, but riveting enough to keep my attention for the four hours on the bus / train / something. This year I ran across very good reviews of this book so I decided to give it a go, and I was pleasantly surprised.
What it wasn't: terribly similar to Dune in any way (it's more GG Kay-ish? I think).
As blue as I'd have expected.
As purple as I'd expected.
As rape-filled as the genre has grown to be.
What it was is decently plotted and decently written (even if a few purple phrases should have been used more sparingly if at all). I enjoyed the 1st person voice, the fact that the heroine stayed true to her skillset (as impressive as it was), and that a whole variety of sexual behaviour was showcased. Moreover, the book cleverly avoided a few terribly annoying cliches
Spoiler
(I expected two more books of UST, for instance, between the Main Couple)I could have used a female character occupying a role similar to Hyacinthe's, but that would just be a lesbian separatist utopia, I guess.
A 3.5 stars for how fast my train ride felt and in recognition of the fact that many authors / publishers would have divided that story into three volumes to make that much more money off it.