Second sentence of third chapter of Banewreaker:
It was a deeper green than the beeches Tanaros had known as a boy, the leaves broader, fanning to capture and hold the cloud-filtered sunlight. The trunks of the trees were gnarled in a way they weren't elsewhere, twisted around ragged boles as they grew, like spear-gutted warriors straining to stand ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter of the second book of the third trilogy: For the most part, it was a lonely time. I though I was accustomed to solitude. I'd grown up in the Alban wilderness with only my mother's companionship. But she had been a constant in my life; and later, there had been Cillian, my lost first love, killed in a foolish cattle ( Read more... )

Having finished the second of Carey's Kushiel trilogies a few weeks ago, it's time to get started on the third. But we are a hundred years on now; everyone we knew from the previous six books has faded into history, and we have a new young female protagonist, drawing from the legacy of Kushiel's Justice as one of the old inhabitants of Alba (ie ( Read more... )

An excellent conclusion to the second trilogy of Carey's sequence of alternate history books, in which Imriel, the narrator, and his lover Sidonie, the heiress to the throne which his mother attempted to subvert, must deal with identity-changing sorcery and foreign domination, while sorting out geopolitical conflict at the same time. There is a bit ( Read more... )

It's more than ten years since I read the first Kushiel trilogy, and just over five years since I read the first book of the second trilogy, but I found myself enjoying this just as much, despite the relative lack of kink. Here, Imriel engages in an unwise but passionate love affair in his home city in the shadow France of Carey's world, before ( Read more... )

The first book in Carey's second trilogy, set in an alternate magical Europe. Our narrator now is Imriel de la Courcel, much-abused son of the treacherous princess Melisande, who was adopted by Phédre nò Delaunay, the central character of the previous trilogy, at the end of the last book. Imri spends the first half of this book growing to maturity ( Read more... )

frankie_ecap rereads the Kushiel books by Jacqueline Carey.

roz_mcclure and friends have been staging a mega- Buffy readthrough.

bradhicks has read Robin Lane Fox's 1986 book Pagans and Christians, about the sudden rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire. ( Hat-tip to communicator.)

From stellanova and subsequently daegaer:

Look at your LJ "interests" list. If you have fewer than 50 interests, pick every fifth one. If you have between fifty and seventy-five interests, pick every seventh one. If you have over seventy-five interests, pick every tenth one. If you have fewer than ten, pick all of 'em. List them on your LJ, and tell everyone ( Read more... )

14) Emerald Magic: Great Tales Of Irish Fantasy, ed. Andrew M. Greeley

Collection of fifteen fantasy stories set in Ireland, thirteen of them published here for the first time. Another one for my list. Thanks to desayunoencama for tipping me off about this in the first place ( Read more... )

Or rather, three final thoughts, since I wasn't really awake enough while in Azerbaijan to write them down ( Read more... )