King Kelson's Bride
Still NaNoing madly on my Deryni-fic novel and finally done rereading all the Kelson-related books in the series.
King Kelson's Bride, which I just finished reading for the second time and which is chronologically the last book in the Deryni universe, is still my least favorite, not just of the Kelson novels, but of all the Deryni books.
Let me count the ways (without being excessively spoilery):
1) Because the bride of the title is a MARY SUE FROM HELL. Making her good characters believably flawed has never been Katherine Kurtz's strong suit as a writer, but this time she's outdone herself with a character worthy of the Pit of Voles, so beautiful and intelligent and politically astute and gentle and sweet and brave and absolutely flawless in every way (and everyone loves her and people are always saying how special she is) that any normal person will be itching to give her (or Katherine Kurtz, really) a good smacking long before the end of the book. *hates*
I get it that the author has put poor Kelson through hell for the last eight years of his life and wants him to find happiness at last, but this? Laying it on a little thick. There is such a thing as being too in love with your characters.
(On the other hand, it feels good to know that my NaNo female main character, who definitely started her life as my Morwen Sue, ended up much less of a Sue than the canon queen of Gwynedd.)
2) The sheer number of royal love matches in this book makes me twitchy. The author is fond of going on about marriages of state made out of duty, everyone is "bred to their duty" (seriously overused phrase alert!), blah blah blahcakes, then suddenly marries off at least half of the available characters in one book, all of them unrealistically blissfully. How about sprinkling this happy romantic shit in some of the other books rather than abruptly cramming it all into one, dear author? The tone of it is out of whack with the frequently grim and tragic series, and I can't take this much love and puppies and kittens and flowers in one dose because it makes my teeth hurt. I'm not saying that some characters can't find romantic happiness, but FFS not ALL of them at once.
3) Long, boring section set in Torenth. DO. NOT. CARE.
4) Hardly any Dhugal at all! There's a reason why he's the main male character in my NaNo novel, but this book gives me hardly anything of the king's faithful redheaded sidekick. Pffft!
***
I'm 36,483 words in, and now the action is skipping forward four and a half years, roughly from the end of The Bishop's Heir (one of the best books in the series) to the end of King Kelson's Bride, with the recently widowed Countess Juliana returning to court at last, free of the husband who was forced upon her when she was thirteen and with no desire ever to remarry and lose the freedom and power she now has. But Dhugal is all grown up now. And Juliana is going to put him through hell. *happy sigh*
How I am going to torture those two! I'll make it up to them by the end, and there will be sex, yes, even the shocking (for their time, place, and social station) premarital-fornication kind, yay! That's always good for the wordcount.
King Kelson's Bride, which I just finished reading for the second time and which is chronologically the last book in the Deryni universe, is still my least favorite, not just of the Kelson novels, but of all the Deryni books.
Let me count the ways (without being excessively spoilery):
1) Because the bride of the title is a MARY SUE FROM HELL. Making her good characters believably flawed has never been Katherine Kurtz's strong suit as a writer, but this time she's outdone herself with a character worthy of the Pit of Voles, so beautiful and intelligent and politically astute and gentle and sweet and brave and absolutely flawless in every way (and everyone loves her and people are always saying how special she is) that any normal person will be itching to give her (or Katherine Kurtz, really) a good smacking long before the end of the book. *hates*
I get it that the author has put poor Kelson through hell for the last eight years of his life and wants him to find happiness at last, but this? Laying it on a little thick. There is such a thing as being too in love with your characters.
(On the other hand, it feels good to know that my NaNo female main character, who definitely started her life as my Morwen Sue, ended up much less of a Sue than the canon queen of Gwynedd.)
2) The sheer number of royal love matches in this book makes me twitchy. The author is fond of going on about marriages of state made out of duty, everyone is "bred to their duty" (seriously overused phrase alert!), blah blah blahcakes, then suddenly marries off at least half of the available characters in one book, all of them unrealistically blissfully. How about sprinkling this happy romantic shit in some of the other books rather than abruptly cramming it all into one, dear author? The tone of it is out of whack with the frequently grim and tragic series, and I can't take this much love and puppies and kittens and flowers in one dose because it makes my teeth hurt. I'm not saying that some characters can't find romantic happiness, but FFS not ALL of them at once.
3) Long, boring section set in Torenth. DO. NOT. CARE.
4) Hardly any Dhugal at all! There's a reason why he's the main male character in my NaNo novel, but this book gives me hardly anything of the king's faithful redheaded sidekick. Pffft!
***
I'm 36,483 words in, and now the action is skipping forward four and a half years, roughly from the end of The Bishop's Heir (one of the best books in the series) to the end of King Kelson's Bride, with the recently widowed Countess Juliana returning to court at last, free of the husband who was forced upon her when she was thirteen and with no desire ever to remarry and lose the freedom and power she now has. But Dhugal is all grown up now. And Juliana is going to put him through hell. *happy sigh*
How I am going to torture those two! I'll make it up to them by the end, and there will be sex, yes, even the shocking (for their time, place, and social station) premarital-fornication kind, yay! That's always good for the wordcount.