(no subject)
Booklogging! I . . . am a fair bit behind. Fortunately I am reading a fairly long book now, which ought to give me some time to catch up.
Anyways, I think it was last week that I finished Jo Walton's The King's Peace and The King's Name, which were recommended to me by genarti, whose advice tends to be worth taking! And this time was no exception.
The books are quite clearly based off of Arthuriana - the titular King is named Urdo, and his goal is to unite a country that is not-quite-historical-Britain - but instead of the not-quite-Britain that you usually get in Arthurian sagas, that involves tremendous anachronisms and a lot of going 'lalala' at historic detail, this is a not-quite-Britain that uses the very complex dynamics of the different groups on the island at the time to great effect. (Nothing against the 'lalala' kind of pseudo-Britain! I am often very fond of it! But it has been done a lot, and this is something quite different.)
The story is told by Sulien, Urdo's right-hand warrior; while I generally love first-person narration if well-done, and this was certainly well-done, I found that in this case it had its benefits and its drawbacks. Sulien's a good character in her own right, and her voice is strong and consistent - but it's the sort of story with all kinds of things going on around the edges that I wanted to know much more about than Sulien was interested in telling me. I would have dived on a chance to see things from the perspective of Urdo's cranky priest Raoul, for example, or confused Gawain-analogue Angas. (Also, I sometimes had a hard time keeping track of who the various other characters were. And I wanted to know who they were! Because they were interesting!) In general terms, though, I really liked the way Jo Walton decided to play with Arthurian legend. For one thing: NO LOVE TRIANGLE \o/. (Well, sort of. But not really.) The Guinevere-figure herself was a lot more interesting than most of Guineveres tend to be, and the religious aspect was well-done too. It was a complex and interesting world, and one I very much wanted to know more about, even if I found the perspective sort of limiting at times; I didn't love it the same way I do Walton's Farthing books, but I think that has more to do with me and my preferences than with the books themselves.
Anyways, I think it was last week that I finished Jo Walton's The King's Peace and The King's Name, which were recommended to me by genarti, whose advice tends to be worth taking! And this time was no exception.
The books are quite clearly based off of Arthuriana - the titular King is named Urdo, and his goal is to unite a country that is not-quite-historical-Britain - but instead of the not-quite-Britain that you usually get in Arthurian sagas, that involves tremendous anachronisms and a lot of going 'lalala' at historic detail, this is a not-quite-Britain that uses the very complex dynamics of the different groups on the island at the time to great effect. (Nothing against the 'lalala' kind of pseudo-Britain! I am often very fond of it! But it has been done a lot, and this is something quite different.)
The story is told by Sulien, Urdo's right-hand warrior; while I generally love first-person narration if well-done, and this was certainly well-done, I found that in this case it had its benefits and its drawbacks. Sulien's a good character in her own right, and her voice is strong and consistent - but it's the sort of story with all kinds of things going on around the edges that I wanted to know much more about than Sulien was interested in telling me. I would have dived on a chance to see things from the perspective of Urdo's cranky priest Raoul, for example, or confused Gawain-analogue Angas. (Also, I sometimes had a hard time keeping track of who the various other characters were. And I wanted to know who they were! Because they were interesting!) In general terms, though, I really liked the way Jo Walton decided to play with Arthurian legend. For one thing: NO LOVE TRIANGLE \o/. (Well, sort of. But not really.) The Guinevere-figure herself was a lot more interesting than most of Guineveres tend to be, and the religious aspect was well-done too. It was a complex and interesting world, and one I very much wanted to know more about, even if I found the perspective sort of limiting at times; I didn't love it the same way I do Walton's Farthing books, but I think that has more to do with me and my preferences than with the books themselves.