1 post tagged “kushiel”

What books are on your nightstand?

(I missed this QOTD when it happend so I'm answering it now)

At the moment I'm reading Kushiels Chosen by Jaqueline Carey.  I picked it up in the Boulder Bookstore on

Pearl Street in Boulder Colorado when I was there last week. (A really great independent bookstore by the way!) It's the sequel to a book that was lent to me by a friend a while back (and I actually still have...) called Kushiels Dart.  It's an odd series but I like

it quite a bit.  The thing I probably like most about the books is that it is a fantasy series with only a small amount of magic in it.  Most of the action and plot is driven by events that could actually happen in the real world, with only a touch of magic thrown in here and there.  There is a lot of political intrigue and mystery in the novels, which is pretty fun and the world the books take place in is pretty interesting and very well realized.  I don't think I'm giving anything important away by telling you it's set in an alternate version of medieval/renaissance Europe, with most of the action centered around this worlds version of France.  Most everything has a name that hints at what its real world equivalent would be (for example when they refer to the :"Roman Empire," it is called Tiberium) and its fun to figure out exactly what every place is in the real world/history and why that name was chosen for it. There is also a lot of talk and exploration of religion (especially so far in the second one) and the alternate histories and names of the various religions and sects in interesting to try to puzzle out.  It's the sort of world that is well realized enough that you want someone to publish a supplement to go along with the books explaining the whole history of the world that it takes place in.
There is also a lot of sex.  Like a whole lot.  Much of it rather "kinky."  It's one of the central elements of the books, the world in which they take place, and especially the main character.  But it's reasonably tastefully written and doesn't pull the books into the realm of bodice-rippers.  On the whole I really like the series.  Evidently a new one just came out too, so I've got at least two more books to read in the series at some point.
The only problem with the books is that it can take some effort to keep track of all of the characters and their relationships to one another.  This is especially true if you wait a while between books.  The guide to the various characters in the first part of the second book is about five pages long.  I shudder to think how long the one in the fourth book is.  But so far the author has done a good job of recapping the events in the previous book just enough to remind you more or less of what happened, and how the various characters are connected without spending a lot of time on it.  I'm not sure if someone could easily come into one of the books without having read the previous ones, but if you have read the previous book it's just enough to keep you from being too confused. 
The books are reasonably well written, and fun to read.  Not the most amazing things ever written but pretty good and very fun. So, on the whole, at least judging by the first book and the first third of the second book I'd very much recommend the series.

As for what I'm about to read, I also picked up Balthazar, the second book in the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell.  Amazon doesn't seem to have a picture of the book, though it does have several box sets of the whole quartet.

I read the first book, Justine, while traveling around a bit with Gabe after my semester abroad.  Gabe

had of course just spent a year living in Egypt so the setting of the book, (Alexandria) was particularly apt for him.  I just read it because he finished it while we were traveling and recomended it as being particularly good.  We traded a fair number of books on that trip.  I was really blown away by the first book, which is incredibly well crafted. The book has absolutely gorgeous language, and the sort of plot about depressed people falling in love with one another, having affairs, going a little bit crazy, drinking too much, and all that sort stuff that I seem to like in my serious fiction for some reason (See my enjoyment of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc).  But almost more than anything is the language.  I'd never even heard of Durrell before reading this book and I was floored by how good this book was.  I'll let you know how the second one compares when I get to it.