Reading roundup: Kushiel's Legacy

[hamsterwoman]

Been to Oregon, seen snow, came back home.

And now, to wrap up 2006 reading and kick off 2007:

41. Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Dart
1. Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Chosen -- I started reading these books because, in the course of ASOIAF discussion, adelynne mentioned Jacqueline Carey, and I had no idea who that was, so I looked her up on Wikipedia, and

Comments

[adelynne]

FINALLY! Someone who feels the same way and can explain it eloquently.

Except that my love of Joscelin wore off after he broke his Cassiline vows in the cave. He would have been so much a cooler character if he did play the Cassiel to her Elua. And his mental regression (and hers) in book 2 does nothing to win me back. Character development? What character development?

The Yeshuite thing gets either much worse or somewhat better in the third book, should you bother to go that far. It made all the worse because at least in the first book, the Yeshuites are portrayed as Jews (when they've gotten back into Terre d'Ange), which confused the hell out of me, given the whole Yeshua part of the equation.

But my love for The Lions of Al-Rassan knows very few bounds.

[hamsterwoman]

Yay! and thanks for the compliment :)

Except that my love of Joscelin wore off after he broke his Cassiline vows in the cave.

I agree it would've been better (from a character coolness standpoint) if he hadn't succumbed. But I can kind of accept that, in the way it's presented as one of those liminal things, not really of this world, until the end of the first book. And, heck, if the first book were the end of it, I could even -- grudgingly -- accept the 'girl gets boy' or whatever as an archetypally dictated sort of ending, though it wouldn't be doing his character any service.

What really annoyed me is that in the beginning of the second book everything must be reset to status quo -- the character regression you mention -- so that they can essentially live out the same romance arc again with minor modifications. And I might be totally wrong about this, but I read the first few pages of book 3 (the little promo sample included at the end of Chosen), and it really (unbelievably) looks like there's a romantic conflict being set up

[adelynne]

"Literature" of course, is relative. If 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is Literature, why can't Lions be? ;)

There are a few moments when he annoys me by telegraphing something misleading (the beginning and the end, mostly), but once he hits the story he runs like hell and it's gorgeous. It's totally my favorite, by far above both A Song for Arbonne (wherein I spent most of the book looking at Bertram and going "You're so smart. And hot. And you fell for that piece of shit? Whyyyyyy?") and Tigana.

It also occurs to me that I need an icon from it.

[hamsterwoman]

Lions is definitely my favorite of the GGK that I've read. I think I've read A Song for Arbonne, but I don't actually remember much of it, and didn't read Tigana -- though possibly it was the other way around? I don't remember being particularly impressed with either, in any case. I also read the Sarantine Mosaic, and while I liked aspects of it, it certainly didn't feel as exquisitely crafted as Lions.

And I was checking the Wikipedia entry on Lions, and apparently they're making a movie of that? (Wow, they're making movies out of *everything* these days...) That's got to be... interesting.

[adelynne]

It's been "currently scripting" for at least a year.