Update
Feb
09
2009

Now that I finally got that Kushiel’s Dart review written, I’ve been working on a review of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End. That was one of my “scary science fiction” books and I made it my challenge book for the month of January.

After that, I will be reviewing:

Inside Straight edited by George R. R. Martin
The Charmed Sphere by Catherine Asaro

I also finished Dead Witch Walking, the first Hollows book by Kim Harrison, last night. Although I’ll be reviewing it, it will be over at The Book Smugglers a little later this month, since they dared me to read it. In return, I dared Ana and Thea to read and review one of my favorite books, Melusine.

In preparation for the movie next month, I’ve just started reading Alan Moore’s Watchmen graphic novel, and I’ve been reading short stories from Storm Constantine’s The Oracle Lips collection here and there.

Review of Kushiel’s Dart
Feb
06
2009

Kushiel’s Dart
by Jacqueline Carey
901pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 8.5/10
Amazon Rating: 4/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4.3/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.48/5

Kushiel’s Dart is the first book in the Kushiel’s Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey. The series contains two related trilogies, each about different main characters with Naamah’s Kiss, the first book in a third trilogy coming out in June 2009. Kushiel’s Dart is followed by Kushiel’s Chosen and Kushiel’s Avatar, and the second trilogy consists of Kushiel’s Scion, Kushiel’s Justice, and Kushiel’s Mercy respectively.

This is one that has sat on my shelf for a while even though I’ve heard a lot about how good it is from many different people. Since I’m not the world’s fastest reader, I found the length of 901 pages a bit daunting and thought I’d have nothing to review for a month if I read a book that long. So I kept putting it off, which is unfortunate because I loved the alternate European setting, the characters, and the world mythology and religion Carey developed in this dark fantasy novel.

Kushiel’s Dart takes place in Terre d’Ange, the equivalent of France in an imaginary medieval Europe. The country was settled by angels who chose to follow Elua, the son of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, instead of the One God. This god of Terre d’Ange was created when Mary’s tears fell on Christ’s blood after he was pierced and was rejected by the One God. Elua wandered the land with the angels (known as the Companions of Elua) and gave only one commandment: Love as thou wilt. The result is a society populated by the descendants of the companions that considers sex in all forms a holy calling in the service of the angel Naamah. There are thirteen houses of the Night Court whose inhabitants are dedicated as courtesans and work to fill their marque, represented by a tattoo extending from the tailbone to the base of the neck. As they earn money, the ink is gradually drawn in until the entire area is covered and the courtesan is officially free.

As a young child, Phedre is sold to a house of the Night Court by her parents, who are struggling financially and have another child on the way. Because of the flaw of a scarlet mote in her eye, Phedre will never be a courtesan herself – until it is discovered that her defect is actually the mark of Kushiel’s Dart. Kushiel, a companion of Elua, was an angel of punishment and the red fleck in Phedre’s eye symbolizes her ability to experience pain as pleasure. Phedre is then bought by Anafiel Delaunay, who trains her not only as a courtesan but also as an observer and spy. As Phedre becomes further in demand by the nobility of Terre d’Ange, she learns many secrets that will aid her master and eventually leads to her knowledge of a conspiracy against the king.


Kushiel’s Dart intrigued me from the beginning, especially the mythology behind the world and Elua’s teachings. It did take me a while to read the first 125 pages because it often referred to some characters who had not really been present and I found it hard to keep track of who was who. Fortunately, there is a handy glossary in the front that I referenced often and once the book got going, I found I did not need it nearly as much.

Since Phedre is a courtesan and the society has no qualms about sexuality, there is a lot of sex in this book, including BDSM since that is the main character’s special skill. Although it is described in detail, it never seemed cheesy or overdone. Carey does not shy away from specifics but she also writes it in such a straightforward manner that it seems very natural. It did not feel like the sexual encounters were added for shock value since they were very relevant to both the plot and character. Phedre’s clientele are her main way of gathering political information that is useful to Delaunay, and being one touched by Kushiel influences Phedre’s actions and is a strong part of her identity.

The prose is flowery and a bit convoluted. The entire story is told in first person from Phedre’s point of view. At times it is somewhat dramatic, such as at the end of the first chapter when Phedre states: “When Love cast me out, it was Cruelty who took pity upon me.” Personally, it didn’t bother me and is exactly the type of writing I enjoy, but I can see how others may find it distracting, especially earlier in the novel.

There is a wide cast of characters and they are well developed. In the beginning, Phedre is a child and the story gradually progresses through the years until she is a young woman. At times, Phedre seems a bit perfect since she does play a big role in important events and is very good at putting the pieces of the puzzle together to reach the correct conclusion. Yet sometimes she does not realize what is happening in time, and she still has insecurities about her gift of Kushiel’s Dart, her intelligence when compared to Delaunay’s other apprentice Alcuin, and Alcuin’s relationship with Delaunay. The minor characters were likable, too, and my favorite was the warrior-monk Joscelin who guarded Phedre. I found his attempt to balance the rules of his order with what is necessary to protect his charge interesting reading and his character underwent many changes throughout the story.

Kushiel’s Dart is a fantasy book that has mythological elements such as some prophecy and legends of gods, and actual magic is a rarity. It is not one of those books with mages throwing fireballs or people with special abilities. However, there is a great balance between a great plot and a character-driven story, lots of political intrigue, adventure, and a love story.

Other than some difficulty with keeping track of various characters and their role in the world in the beginning, the only real problem I had with this novel was that the time spent with the Skaldi was a bit slow and the culture (peopled by stereotypical Nordic barbarians) was not as unique as the land of Terre d’Ange.

Overall, I loved Kushiel’s Dart and the characters, world, and story Carey told. I will definitely be reading the rest of the series.

8.5/10

Other Reviews:

Review of The Jackal of Nar
Jan
31
2009

The Jackal of Nar
by John Marco
768pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 6/10
Amazon Rating: 3.5/5
LibraryThing Rating: 3.34/5
Goodreads Rating: 3.9/5

The Jackal of Nar, John Marco’s debut novel, is the first book in a completed fantasy trilogy, Tyrants and Kings. It is followed by The Grand Design and concluded with The Saints of the Sword. The Jackal of Nar was unevenly paced, too long, and had a rather stupid main character, yet in spite of that I did find this character-driven novel enjoyable once it hit its stride, particularly for some of the secondary characters.

The technologically advanced empire of Nar is at war with its neighbor Lucel-Lor, led by a powerful magic user said to be blessed by his gods. Prince Richius Vantran of Nar, known to his enemies as Kalak (“The Jackal”), is leading the fight to keep a strategic location from being overrun by enemies. This is a losing battle, especially since the King of Aramoor (Richius’s father), refuses to send soldiers or food in spite of the Emperor’s will that he do all he can to aid the war. Even with their war machines, Richius and his men are near defeat until Blackwood Gayle appears and joins the battle. Although he is on the same side as Richius, Gayle is his bitter enemy and Richius is angered by the victory celebration in which Gayle’s men raid a village and Gayle attempts to rape a young woman. Richius saves the young woman and refuses further assistance from Gayle.

Later, Richius and one of his men take a trip to the nearby town and once again Richius encounters Dyana, the young woman he saved from Gayle. In spite of Richius’s heroics, Dyana despises him since he is the Jackal – but Richius believes Dyana to be the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and is quite obsessed with her. Abandoned by her family, Dyana is now working as a prostitute to earn money and Richius cannot help but purchase a night with her. Later, Richius regrets this and tries to make it up to her. He finds out she was betrothed to Tharn, the leader of Lucel-Lor, and is trying to escape his desperate search for her. Richius tries to protect her and she agrees to go to Nar with him, but she is lost to him in a magical storm created by Tharn – and he cannot forget her.


The Jackal of Nar is often labeled as “military fantasy,” but it did not primarily focus on the warfare, although there was a lot of blood and death. It was somewhat about the politics of the kingdoms, but mostly about the character of Richius. Each section of the book begins with an excerpt from his journal. In the very first 4 pages of the book, he is shown to be a very reflective man attempting to understand the world around him. After working with a member of the Triin race, he has discovered they are just like humans and plans to teach his father this when he gets home. In the beginning, I liked his character because I do like reading about people who can change their beliefs when presented with evidence that the world does not fall into the neat little package they always thought it did. Richius seemed like an overall good guy who tried to do the right thing whether this was taking care of the men under him or preventing Gayle from harming the very people they were supposed to be struggling to protect. He was supposed to be smart, he was supposed to be wonderful at military strategy, but he made so many stupid decisions that I found it hard to connect with him when I really wanted to yell at him for being an idiot. The root of much of Richius’s foolishness was his feelings for Dyana, so I did not find it completely unrealistic since he was one of those people who follows his heart instead of his head – I just couldn’t particularly care about a character whose only major flaw seemed to be moronic decision-making.

As Richius’s obsession, Dyana was an important character but she was also one I never really liked. The whole relationship never rang true to me since Dyana seemed to have stopped hating Richius a little too quickly to be believable. Although he was being very kind to her, she still loathed him after he prevented her imminent rape so I would expect it to take a very long, long time for her to even get to an average level of abhorrence for the man.

Because of this, I found many of the secondary characters far more interesting than Richius or Dyana, particularly Tharn and Voris, the war-leader from Lucel-Lor who first dubbed Richius as “The Jackal.” Tharn was a very gray character who initially appeared corrupt but had motivations behind most of his actions that made him seem at least somewhat sympathetic. Even the horrific action of making Dyana go with him was at least within the realms of culturally acceptable since the entire Triin race did not believe women had any rights. As Tharn’s betrothed, Dyana was his possession as far as he was concerned since that is what he had been raised to believe. (It was fairly late in the book when I came to see Voris as an interesting character so I’m going to avoid discussing him for fear of entering spoiler territory.)

Many of the characters had both good and bad traits, with even some of the more evilly bent characters having valid reasons for their actions. There was still one cookie cutter black-hearted villain, though. Blackwood Gayle never showed any redeeming features and just seemed to be a bad guy because that’s just how he was.

This has been a hard review for me to articulate since I felt that the book had a lot of flaws yet I enjoyed reading it anyway due to the fact that most of the characters were not black or white. The beginning was stilted and a slow, and there were times when I felt it dragged in the middle, but there were also quite a few times where I found myself saying I’d just read one more chapter, then saying it again after reaching the end of that chapter. The end is definitely better than the beginning and The Jackal of Nar is a solid first novel.

6/10

Other Reviews:
SF Site
Speculative Horizons

Monette and Bear to Write Sequels to A Companion to Wolves
Jan
28
2009

Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette have sold two sequels to their wonderful novel A Companion to Wolves! I actually had missed that piece of news until I read a review of the book over at Adventures in Reading today. According to the post on Bear’s Livejournal, the next two books are tentatively named An Apprentice of Elves and A Reckoning of Men. Since I loved the first book, I cannot wait to read the rest and am thrilled that they finally decided to write more (since Bear’s site has said a sequel or two was possible for a while).

The Graveyard Book Wins the Newberry Medal
Jan
26
2009

I was so thrilled to see that Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book won the Newberry Medal! It was one of my favorite books I read last year and I’m sure it would have been one I loved when I was a kid, too. Congratulations to Neil Gaiman who sounds very excited (if you click on the above link you’ll see what I mean)!

I’m going to keep it short tonight because I’m exhausted. After work I went out to dinner for an anniversary, then we got a flat tire, had to have the car towed, and had to take a taxi home. What a night. At least we got the flat tire while at Borders where I used up the rest of my gift cards while waiting. It was a tough choice since there were quite a few books I wanted to get, but I ended up with:

A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham
Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn
Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee

I got the first two because I’m now reading Inside Straight and really liked the parts written by Abraham and Vaughn. The other two are ones I’ve thought about getting for a while.

Hopefully this week I’ll get up that review of The Jackal of Nar. After that, I now also need to review Kushiel’s Dart and Childhood’s End (which I was very silly to be afraid of).

Favorites of 2008 Part II
Jan
22
2009

I wasn’t planning to post my favorite books read in 2008 here, but I had a request to do so since the link to the post at The Book Smugglers no longer went to it after their blog moved. I fixed the link to go to their fabulous new blog but figured I may as well post it here again as requested. So if you already read that, this is just a repeat of the same (but not as pretty, since I didn’t put the pictures back in).

The following is a list of my top 10 favorite books I’ve read this year (regardless of year of publication since only about 20% of the 54 I read were published this past year). To add some variety, I made a rule that I’m limiting one book per series to a list – otherwise, there would be a lot of repeat occurrences since I discovered some great new series this year. I am also going to forget about whether or not my head thought the book was worthy of a higher rating and go entirely with how much the book stuck with me and affected me personally.

1. The Virtu (#2 The Doctrine of Labyrinth) by Sarah Monette

The entire The Doctrine of Labyrinth series is my absolute favorite new book discovery of the year and The Virtu had the tightest plot and most interesting developments of the three. It’s dark, populated with two very different yet in some ways very similar characters with huge flaws and emotional issues – the wizard Felix Harrowgate and the assassin Mildmay. Both men were so well drawn that I couldn’t read enough about them. Monette is one of those authors who asks herself what the worst possible thing she can do to her characters is and then does it, so her books are far from cheery and light. They are gripping, intense and include some of the best characterization I’ve ever read. You can tell the author poured her heart and soul into those two characters, and considering Monette is a new novelist, I expect great things to come from her.

2. Shades of Dark (#2 Dock Five Universe) by Linnea Sinclair

Gabriel’s Ghost, the first book in this science fiction romance series was my first book by Linnea Sinclair. I suppose you could say I liked it since the day I finished it, I almost immediately went to the bookstore to buy the next one – and was halfway through it by the time I went to bed that night. With its darker tone, the newer book was my favorite of the two but both had an engaging storyline and characters I really cared about. They were both almost impossible to put down. It was days before I stopped thinking about these two books all the time and I have yet to get over the way Shades of Dark ended.

3. The Book of Joby by Mark Ferrari

Mark Ferrari’s impressive debut novel read like the author was an experienced writer. The Book of Joby is a modern retelling of the Book of Job from the Bible incorporated with the story of King Arthur. God and Lucifer meet over lattes in a New England coffee shop only to have the Devil challenge God to what the Creator refers to as “that same stupid bet.” The fate of the entire world depends on Joby, chosen as God’s candidate – if Joby fails, the entire world will be destroyed and redesigned according to Lucifer’s instructions. This story of one man’s struggle against great odds drew me in immediately and contained a great mixture of happy moments, tragedy, and humor.

4. The Player of Games (A Culture Novel) by Iain M. Banks

The Player of Games is intelligent space opera featuring a master of strategy games as the main character instead of an action/adventure hero. This was my introduction to the Culture and I found the idealistic future presented fascinating. Yet as wonderful as it appeared, Banks managed to paint a darker picture of it while making it still seem like a pretty good world to live in, especially in comparison to the glamorous Empire of Azad, in which racism, sexism, and cruelty run rampant. The Player of Games is a multi-layered story containing depth – yet it is highly entertaining and not at all dry.

5. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

This is without a doubt my favorite novel by Gaiman (none of his books are as awesome as his Sandman comics, though). His fantasy retelling of The Jungle Book details the adventures of a boy raised by the inhabitants of the local cemetery after the murder of his family. At once chilling and charming, touching and humorous, this was one absorbing creative tale I didn’t want to put down.

6. Blood and Iron (Promethean Age #1) by Elizabeth Bear

All four books in this urban fantasy series are excellent, including the two books in The Stratford Man duology released this summer. While the more recent books are stronger, the first one remains my favorite because I loved the characters Elayne and Whiskey so much. Intertwined with many mythologies from the British Isles (King Arthur, Tam Lin, Puck, and Morgan La Fey are all present), Bear’s Faerie is not out of a Disney cartoon but is rather grim with complex gray characters who have to make some difficult choices.

7. Primary Inversion (The Skolian Saga) by Catherine Asaro

The first book published in this romantic space opera series (containing some hard science fiction) holds a special place in my heart because it’s the first book that really convinced me that maybe I do like science fiction after all. The Skolian empaths/telepaths are in conflict with the Eubians, a race that derives pleasure from harming others – especially empaths. This one had it all – a great female character, intriguing societies, political intrigue, forbidden romance, and a pretty cool space battle!

8. Archangel Protocol (#1 AngelLINK series) by Lyda Morehouse

Archangel Protocol takes place in a not-too-distant future in which America no longer has separation between politics and religion. This fast-paced, difficult to put down novel contains some great ideas about society, a fun mystery, and some romance. I’ve decided to call it a cyberpunk mystery romance socio-religious/political adventure. It’s the only cyberpunk I’ve ever actually found enjoyable but sadly it is out of print.

9. A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear

A serious parody of animal companion tales based on Norse mythology about a band of men who bond with wolves to protect the people from trolls. In spite of their knowledge of battle, these defenders of the realm are seen as unmanly by many due to their homosexual practices. When a leader’s son is chosen by a wolf, he must contend with his father’s disdain if he wants to join the society as the wolf’s companion. This novel incorporates Bear’s handling of myth with both Bear and Monette’s ability to write deeply troubled characters – of course it’s one of my favorites of the year!

10. Wanderlust (#2 Jax series) by Ann Aguirre

Grimspace (the first book in this romantic space opera series) was difficult to put down, but this one was far better and impossible to put down. Fun, fast-paced, and a bit over the top, this one had me hooked from start to finish (it’s the only book I read this year that I finished in one day). Aguirre found an excellent balance between action and keeping the plot moving while exploring character relationships.

There you have it – my top 10 favorite books of 2008! So which books can I not wait for in 2009? There are three that top the list.

1. Corambis by Sarah Monette

The fourth and final book in The Doctrine of Labyrinth series will be out in April 2009. While I’ll be sad to see it end, I can’t wait to revisit my favorite characters and find out what happens to them. This is one of those books I will have to have as soon as it is out, even if it means walking to the bookstore in a blizzard (I live in Maine – blizzards in April are a very real possibility).

2. Hope’s Folly by Linnea Sinclair

The third book in the Dock 5 Universe is about Philip Guthrie, a character appearing in the first two books, and is scheduled for release in February 2009. Although I will miss Chaz and Sully, who are now some of my favorite characters of all time, this is another book that I’d go out in a blizzard for.

3. Kings and Assassins by Lane Robins

Even though it did not make it onto my top 10 list, I was very impressed with Robins’s debut novel Maledicte, a dark fantasy novel about a young woman possessed by the goddess of love and vengeance. Robins drew me in with lush prose and gray characters. This book is actually about Janus, who seemed more evil than gray but reading about evil characters can be fun. While I wouldn’t go out in a blizzard for this one, I will get it fairly soon after its release (also in April 2009).

Other books I’m looking forward to in 2009:

Blue Diablo (Corine Solomon #1) by Ann Aguirre
Doubleblind (Jax #3) by Ann Aguirre
By the Mountain Bound (#2 The Edda of Burdens) by Elizabeth Bear
Republic of Thieves (#3 Gentleman Bastards) by Scott Lynch – I’m hoping this will be out next year anyway!
A Dance with Dragons (#5 A Song of Ice and Fire) by George R. R. Martin – This is probably wishful thinking on my part since I’ve been hoping for it the last few years.