Talk to me about the Shamer Chronicles, plz thanks?
This morning I finished reading The Shamer's War, the fourth and final part of Lene Kaaberbøl's Shamer series, and it aches in me that the series is over. I have read all four books as well as seen the play based on The Shamer's Daughter twice (and for those of you who live in Skåne and have a Sunday free between now and December 14th, you simply MUST see the play, which is played by Månteatern in Lund and brilliant) and each experience was greater than the next.
The main tragedy is, of course, that the story is over. The second tragedy is that there seems to be no fandom, not that I can find. I need to talk about these books with people! Ideally, there would be fics (I can't tell if there's any at yuletide, what with the archive being closed), and communities, and a film or two in the works, and squealing fangirls - not Harry Potter squealing, God help us, but Narnia squealing maybe?
The closest thing I've found are some highly positive reviews on amazon.com, which is nice, of course, but not exactly what you'd call a community.
So, please, any and all of you who have read these books, come and talk to me. Here, I'll get the topic started.
I think the books are incredibly rich in their description of the world Dina inhabits, as well as in its characters and the highly exciting storylines. Most of all, though, I valued the theme of morality, good and evil actions as something done by everyone, even the heroes - everyone, at some point, has trouble meeting the Shamer's eyes, except for Drakan the psychopath. When Dina brings the dream of shame, she brings it to her own troops as well as the enemies, to prevent vengeance. Even the Shamer herself is fallible, when she tries to make Dina ashamed of her father. And yet these are good people, doing good things. It's not as simple as in often the case in adventure stories, and I admire that.
This is also the reason I liked the later books better than the first. In the second, Dina has to face her own shame about what she is and isn't prepared to do. In the third, it's Davin's and Nico's turn as their different forms of flaws and courage are explored. (The teachers in that book really reminded me of Vorbis in Small Gods, btw.) I also loved the introduction of Sezuan in this book - even if the Shadow was a touch too Gollum-like, I found Sezuan a highly interesting character and his relationship with Dina as the story progressed one of the book's best. His death had me crying floods; I mourned him greatly, yet I couldn't complain since the end was so fitting.
Speaking of crying floods, I'm in two minds about Nico's "death" in the fourth book. On one hand, I'm grateful that he wasn't dead, because I like Nico, and his future as a teacher had been foreshadowed for quite some time at that point. His forced leave, as well as Carmian still thinking that he's dead, prevents the ending from feeling too cloyingly happy. On the other hand, the death felt right, it fit the story at that point (and with the risk of sounding callous, it was time for a sacrifice). During the pause I took, looking at the window and trying to stop my tears, I even thought that this was a perfect example of how to do a character death properly - not kill off minor characters that few care about, as is so often done, but not kill off beloved chars for shock effects either (as we all know Joss Whedon is prone to do). And then he's not dead. :-) Furthermore, I felt that Kaaberbøl had played the same trick before on a smaller scale in the second book, when we're led to believe that Tavis has been killed. The way I see it, if you're willing to put in the gut-punch of having someone die like that, you shouldn't be afraid of keeping them dead. It's as if she doesn't quite want to make her world as dark as it's meant to be - and that's coming from me, certainly not a fan of dark for darkness' sake.
Anyway. My love for this series is strong, and as well as ordinary fanfic I think it'd be good for crossovers of various kinds - how would different worlds deal with the Shamer's powers, for one thing? In my mind, I'm also playing with inserting the Endless in this story, maybe with Sezuan having to choose between Dream and Death (and how would he react to Cain and Abel, considering the Shadow?), or Dina bumping into Dream while she uses her father's gift... or maybe even Didi having her day of life. :-)
There. Those are my immediate thoughts. What are yours?
The main tragedy is, of course, that the story is over. The second tragedy is that there seems to be no fandom, not that I can find. I need to talk about these books with people! Ideally, there would be fics (I can't tell if there's any at yuletide, what with the archive being closed), and communities, and a film or two in the works, and squealing fangirls - not Harry Potter squealing, God help us, but Narnia squealing maybe?
The closest thing I've found are some highly positive reviews on amazon.com, which is nice, of course, but not exactly what you'd call a community.
So, please, any and all of you who have read these books, come and talk to me. Here, I'll get the topic started.
I think the books are incredibly rich in their description of the world Dina inhabits, as well as in its characters and the highly exciting storylines. Most of all, though, I valued the theme of morality, good and evil actions as something done by everyone, even the heroes - everyone, at some point, has trouble meeting the Shamer's eyes, except for Drakan the psychopath. When Dina brings the dream of shame, she brings it to her own troops as well as the enemies, to prevent vengeance. Even the Shamer herself is fallible, when she tries to make Dina ashamed of her father. And yet these are good people, doing good things. It's not as simple as in often the case in adventure stories, and I admire that.
This is also the reason I liked the later books better than the first. In the second, Dina has to face her own shame about what she is and isn't prepared to do. In the third, it's Davin's and Nico's turn as their different forms of flaws and courage are explored. (The teachers in that book really reminded me of Vorbis in Small Gods, btw.) I also loved the introduction of Sezuan in this book - even if the Shadow was a touch too Gollum-like, I found Sezuan a highly interesting character and his relationship with Dina as the story progressed one of the book's best. His death had me crying floods; I mourned him greatly, yet I couldn't complain since the end was so fitting.
Speaking of crying floods, I'm in two minds about Nico's "death" in the fourth book. On one hand, I'm grateful that he wasn't dead, because I like Nico, and his future as a teacher had been foreshadowed for quite some time at that point. His forced leave, as well as Carmian still thinking that he's dead, prevents the ending from feeling too cloyingly happy. On the other hand, the death felt right, it fit the story at that point (and with the risk of sounding callous, it was time for a sacrifice). During the pause I took, looking at the window and trying to stop my tears, I even thought that this was a perfect example of how to do a character death properly - not kill off minor characters that few care about, as is so often done, but not kill off beloved chars for shock effects either (as we all know Joss Whedon is prone to do). And then he's not dead. :-) Furthermore, I felt that Kaaberbøl had played the same trick before on a smaller scale in the second book, when we're led to believe that Tavis has been killed. The way I see it, if you're willing to put in the gut-punch of having someone die like that, you shouldn't be afraid of keeping them dead. It's as if she doesn't quite want to make her world as dark as it's meant to be - and that's coming from me, certainly not a fan of dark for darkness' sake.
Anyway. My love for this series is strong, and as well as ordinary fanfic I think it'd be good for crossovers of various kinds - how would different worlds deal with the Shamer's powers, for one thing? In my mind, I'm also playing with inserting the Endless in this story, maybe with Sezuan having to choose between Dream and Death (and how would he react to Cain and Abel, considering the Shadow?), or Dina bumping into Dream while she uses her father's gift... or maybe even Didi having her day of life. :-)
There. Those are my immediate thoughts. What are yours?